58 detter from Arcticus. May 16, 
ee 
LITERARY NEWS FROM RUSSIA, 
SIR, To the Editor of the Bee. 
You may perhaps not be displeased to insert a little. 
-of our arctic news in your Bee, in that case it is pof- 
sible we may occasionally supply you with a few ar- 
ticles. 
Mr Heland, the Swedifh directeur economique at 
"Tornea, on thearctic circle, who has, for a number of 
years, made careful and accurate observations on the 
tides, atmosphere, magnetic needle, tc. proposes to 
leave his house and small estate to asuccefsion of ob- 
‘servators, who will be obliged, in lieu of rent, to con- 
tinue his observations, and transmit the result to 
to the Academy of Sciences, who are left executors 
of this singular but liberal will. .The baron Turbé, 
the Sardinian envoy at this court, from-whom{I had 
this information, says, tuat, on a tour he made some 
time ago to these northern regions, he found in every 
room of Mr Heland’s house, a sort of wooden thermo- 
meter, suspended horizontally like a vane of a fhip, 
within a few inches of the ceiling, consisting of a long 
narrow thin slip of fir, which, by bending to one side 
or other, marked changes of the atmosphere on a 
graduated semicircle, painted on the ceiling immedi- 
ately above it. I hinted to the baron that it was 
“probably rather a hygrometer, of the nature of the 
mahogany one suggested by Dr Franklin in the 
second volume of.the American Philosophical Tran- 
sactions, although it would be difficult I think to ac- 
count for the semicircular motion of the. fir instru- 
