98 
using it for litter only; and I found that 
both my cows and horses ate it with avidity, 
and appeared to thrive upon it. This plant 
“contains a very large portion of mucilage at 
this season, and also of saline matter; which 
“render the manure obtained from it ex- 
tremely valuable.” 
Earthquake.—At the end of October, an 
earthquake was experienced at Shirauz, in 
Persia, which destroyed many buildings ; 
and, among other national monuments, 
“overthrew the celebrated tombs of Hafiz 
and Saadi. Thus, two years in succes- 
sion has this part of the world been visited 
by the same appalling phenomenon. 
~~ Vaccination.—In other countries of Eu- 
rope general vaccination is ordered by 
“government: no one who has not had cow- 
pox or small-pox can be confirmed, put to 
school, apprenticed, or married. Smail- 
. pox inoculation is prohibited; if it appears 
. In any house, that house is put under qua- 
rantine. By such means the mortality from 
the small-pox in 1818 had been prodigiously 
lessened. In Copenhagen, it was reduced 
from 5,500 during 12 years to 158 during 
16 years. In Prussia it was reduced from 
40,000 annually to less than 3,000; and in 
Berlin, in 1819, only 25 persons died of 
this disease. In Bavaria only five persons 
died of small-pox in eleven years, and in 
the principality of Anspach it was com- 
pletely exterminated. In England, on the 
other hand, in England, the native coun- 
try of this splendid and invaluable discovery, 
where every man acts on these subjects as 
he likes, crowds of the poor go unyaccinat- 
ed ; they are permitted not only to imbibe 
the small-pox themselves, but to go abroad 
and scatter the venom on those they meet. 
A few years agoit broke out in Norwich, and 
 earried off more persons in one year than 
had ever been destroyed in that city by any 
one disease, except the plague. A similar 
_ epidemic raged at Edinburgh; and last 
year it destroyed within one of 1,300 per- 
sons in the London bills of mortality. 
Law —It appears from a return made to 
the House of Commons in 1822, that a 
near relation of the Lord Chancellor has 
received from him a grant of the six fol- 
lowing offices:—1. Register of affidavits 
in the Court of Chancery; 2. Clerk of the 
letters-patent to the Court of Chancery ; 
3. Receiver of the fines of Lunatics; 4. 
One of the Cursitors for London and Mid- 
dlesex; 5. The clerkship of the Crown in 
Chancery in reversion; and 6. The grant 
of the office for the execution of the laws 
and statutes concerning bankrupts, in re- 
version likewise. All of these offices are 
for life, and all of them are executed by 
deputy. The annual amount of each is 
set down in the report at the several sums 
of 1,2601. 14s. 10d ; 4511. 5s. 5d.; 5811.2s.; 
~ 5001.; LOSI. ; and 4,5541.; and some of 
them are believed to be rated much below 
their present real value. 
he is now in actual possession, receiving 
Varieties. 
OF ‘the four first © 
[Juvy- 
from them probably not much less than 
3.5001. a year, and should he survive the 
occupant of the other two, the reversion 
will swell his’ income to about 9,0001. a 
year, It certainly is true that the Lord 
Chancellor has in strictness right to bestow 
these places upon whom he pleases ; but 
the gentlemen alluded to has never done, 
or been required to do, any service to the 
law ; and whether Lord Eldon holds bene- 
ficial appointments himself, or confers them 
on his immediate connexions, a certain 
degree of moderation ought never to be 
disregarded —Miller on the State of the 
Civil Law. 
The Stone.—M. Thibault (de ’Orme), 
a young medical professor of great distinc- 
tion in France, has just presented to the 
Academy of Surgery in Paris, a paper im 
which he describes a new method of dis- 
solving the stone in the bladder. Few in- 
yentions have laid under contribution a 
greater number of the sciences, and few 
have ever promised more happy results. 
A most ingeniously constructed instrument 
conducts into the bladder a little pocket, 
very thin in its texture, but capable of re- 
sisting the action of the strongest acids. 
By an admirable mechanical contrivance, 
the stone is enclosed in the pocket, which 
is subsequently closed in such a manner as 
to prevent the possibility of the escape of 
any of the liquids which are injected into 
it. The action of the dissolvents, power- 
ful in itself, is augmented by the electrical 
current of the voltaic pile, which, alone, is 
capable of dissolving the hardest bodies. 
This paper has excited a great sensation ; 
and the report of the Academy upon it, 
which will no doubt contain the details ne- 
cessary to the elucidation of this most valu- 
able invention, is expected with considera- 
ble impatience. 
Translation of Boethius.—By the indus- 
try and research of Mr. Lemon, very ex- 
traordinary and interesting discoveries have 
recently been made in the State Paper 
Office. Amongst other valuable papers, an 
entire translation of Boethius, by Queen 
Elizabeth ; the prose in the hand writing of 
her Majesty’s Secretary, and the whole of 
the poetry in the Queen’s. own autograph. 
Parts of a poetical translation ‘of Hutace, 
written by the Queen, have likewise been 
found. What is far more important, as it 
relates to the history of that period, nearly 
all the documents connected wlth the events 
that oecured during the reign of Henry 
VILL, especially the King’s various di- 
vorces, have likewise been brought to 
light; particularly the whole case of Cathe- 
rine Howard. It is intended to submit 
these literary and historical relics to his 
Majesty. fs 
Navigation of Balloons. —In Mr. Joliiffe’s 
narrative of his recent balloon excursion 
from Regent’s Park, in company with M. - 
Cornillot, he sa I think I may assert, 
