316 
ter than none at all. For a maritime nation 
thus to be ieft without a competent body to 
superintend and direct the scientific arrange- 
ments for its navy, shows in the government 
lamentable indifference, to call it by no 
harsher name: but before we prosecute this 
subject further, we shall notice a few topics 
which have some relation to it. It was pro- 
posed some time since, by an able navigator 
at the head of a naval office, to establish a 
sort of journal, for communicating to the 
public interesting abstracts of the voluminous 
and accumulating information which at pre- 
sent is supposed to be lost in the archives of 
that department. From various causes, the 
idea of this journal was abandoned, nor was 
it thought advisable to place foreign nations 
in possession of intelligence which was col- 
lected at the expense, and for the service of 
England. Toa certain class of reasoners 
this latter argument was specious enough ; 
but what was the fact? The whole of this 
intelligence had to pass through the hands 
of another personage, who receives from a 
trading bookseller £500 per annum for 
communicating it to a journal, of which he 
is the proprietor : patriotism thus appeared, 
as is usual, but a cloak for self-interest, and 
so jealously was this self-interest guarded, 
that when, on. the return of a celebrated ex- 
pedition, one of the persons who had accom- 
panied it was applied to to contribute a slight 
sketch of its proceedings to a popular work, 
a direct refusal was given, for fear of offend- 
ing the fortunate gentleman who profited by 
the sale of the intelligence, and would resent 
with the whole weight of his official power 
any interference with his prerogative. 
But these are the days of retrenchment and 
economy, and as the scientific character of 
the nation cannot be expressed in pounds, 
shillings, and pence, it may consequently be 
estimated as nothing, and scientific estab- 
lishments an useless burthen, we would 
therefore recommend the completion of the 
work that is begun. ‘The royal observatory 
at Greenwich, and its astronomers, are the 
laughing stock of Europe; and assailed on 
all sides by invective and ridicule, the latter 
is upheld only from the partiality of private 
friendship, or because it has been made the 
point of attack upon a system in which its 
supporters are interested. Should it be neces- 
sary, from his own acknowledged incom- 
petence, or from natural causes, to appoint 
a successor to Mr. Pond, it is in vain that we 
should look in Great Britain for an indi- 
vidual able to compete with the continental 
philosophers; there has been no public en- 
couragement here to stimulate or reward ex- 
ertion, so that among those who might have 
conferred honour upon the appointment, uot 
one has thought it worth his while to sacri-. 
fice his individual pursuits, and at the ex- 
pense of much bodily and mental fatigue, 
prepare for a difficult situation, when, should 
it be otherwise disposed of, his labours would 
be totally lost. Do away then with the 
mockery of Greenwich altogether; if we 
Varielies. 
[Sepr. 
cannot have a high scientific character as a 
nation, let us enter into no competition ; it 
is better to have no national philosophical 
establishments, than to have such as excite 
contempt throughout Europe. The £500 
per annum, which was given for our wretch- 
ed nautical almanack, would have purchased 
one equal to that now published at Berlin, 
and half the expense which Greenwich costs 
would command for us the services of the 
greatest genius alive—as to the national dis- 
grace from such a system, why that too, as it 
cannot be expressed in pounds, shillings, 
and pence, may safely be neglected by go- 
vernment. Their own individual reputa- 
tion the philosophers of England will always 
maintain. Unsupported by the expectation 
of reward or emolument, it is the love of 
science alone that can stimulate their ex- 
ertions ; and rendered more eminent on that 
very account, while they are a living libel 
on their government, they will excite the 
admiration of the rest of Europe. 
Antiquities. —A human mole who has 
burrowed during the last eight or nine years 
into no less than forty-six. ancient tumuli, 
upon the range of Southdown hills, and 
been rewarded for his pains with the dis- 
covery that they had been previously ran- 
sacked, at the end of July last, after opening 
what appeared to be a barrow, upon Laning 
hill, about eight miles from Brighton, and 
four from Worthing, found the remains of a 
small Roman temple ; the pavement was of 
the most coarse description, but several coins 
of Constantine, Trajan, others of the Roman 
Emperors, as well as a few conjectured to be 
Saxon, together with numerous brooches, 
and some rings, were all in the highest state 
of preservation ; the various urns, however, 
in which they were contained, unfortunately 
crumbled to pieces. 
Cheap and valuable Manure.—Raise a 
platform of earth, eight feet wide, one foot 
high, and of any length, according to the 
quantity wanted, on the head land of a field. 
On the first stratum of earth lay a thin 
stratum of lime fresh from the kiln ; dissolve 
or slake this with salt brine or sea-water from 
the nose of a watering-pot; add imme- 
diately another layer of earth, then lime, 
and brine as before, carrying it to any con- 
venient height. In a week it should be 
turned over, carefully broken and mixed, so 
that the mass may be thoroughly incorpo- 
rated. This compost has been used in Ire- 
land, has doubled the crops of potatoes and _ 
cabbages, and is said to be far superior to — 
stable dung. . 
Novel Artillery.n—A_ gentleman of the 
name of Sievier has recently invented a 
method of projecting shot, which consists in 
making the shot with a cylindrical chamber, 
so as to pass freely on to a maundid or bar, 
fixed on trunnions, a powder chamber being 
formed at the bottom of the cylindrical cavity _ 
in the shot. The powder is inflamed by 
means of a touch-hole in the shot in the — 
usual way. A charge of powder thus used — 
a 
igh 
