1837] 



F A R M E R S' R E G I S T Fi: R. 



209 



a case soinewliero recorded of a white woman 

 who had twins, one peiiectly white, and the other 

 a nmlaito; hut in that, as well as the case report- 

 ed of (he trial of Alexander Whislelo, in New 

 York, some years airo, it became a matter of doubt 

 vvheiher the color ol'l he child was in the due course 

 ol" ihiniTs, or whether it was a Ireak ol'nature, pro- 

 duced Ih' llie Ibrce of imaii'ination. If you have 

 read the trial of Whislelo. you were at least 

 amused by the brilliant wit ot'counsellor Sampson, 

 if yon were not profirabl\' instructed by the learn- 

 injjof Dr. Mitchill. The truth and accuracy ofthe 

 statement i inclose you, of a mare having brought 

 twin colts — the one a mule, and the othd" a horse — 

 I am certain, from the appearance, manner, and 

 character of iMr. Hilderbacic, as well as the testi- 

 mony ot his neighbors, does not admit of a doubt. 



Beinir on the eve of departure to make a short 

 visit to England, I avail myself of this opportuni- 

 ty of saying to you, that F hope to pick up, whilst 

 there, some Ihiirments whirh may be useibi con- 

 tributions to your valuable agricultural work; and, 

 intending to visit the ti^ns of Lincolnshire, and the 

 Romney and other marshes, I will endeavor to 

 bring you drawings of the wind mills employed 

 in draining them. It has long been my opinion, 

 that power of this sort is the only mode by which 

 tile valuable marshes on some ofthe watercourses 

 of thi> Chesapeake bay, could be effectually and 

 profitably drained. There are some of the finest 

 alluvial marshes in the world, on one or two of our 

 rivers in the lower part oi' the peninsula of the 

 Eastern Shore, it' they could be laid dry; but, the 

 very small mean diiii^.rence between the high and 

 the low tides of our bay forbid this, in any other 

 vvay than by artificial power — all other means hav- 

 ing already been unsuccesstlilly tried. There are 

 also, in the north of England, some cheaply made 

 rail roads, chiefly lor the purposes of the firmer, 

 which it will be a part of my business to see and 

 examine. 



I took tlie liberty, some time ago, of reqnestinfT 

 you to suspend the publication of a series of essays, 

 on the subject of a rail road through this peninsu- 

 la, the first number of which you had taken from 

 one of our papers, because of the hasty and inac- 

 curate manner in which they had been prinfed 

 here, and promised to send you corrected copies, 

 which I never have (bund time yet to do. Our 

 engineer, Colonel Kearney, has made a re- 

 port upon this subject, after a survey, vvhicli was 

 published by ourleirislature without maps, and the 

 same report is about to be republished by order 

 of Congress with maps; and, as soon as it is out, 

 I will endeavor to have a copy sent to you, which 

 I will beg you to have republished in your work 

 instead of the essays, as it will now answer a bet- 

 ter purpose, and be more acceptable to your read- 

 ers. 



I am, dear sir, very respectfully, 

 Yours, 



Tho. Emory. 



Near Sahm, N.%T., Jane 6th, 183;, 



I hereby certify that I have a mare, which, 

 this spring, produced twin colts — one of which 

 was a mule, and the other a horse colt, both hav- 

 ing attained, before parturition, the ordinarv^ size. 

 The nmle is still living, and the colt died vvithout 

 gettingr up, having been strangled by the cawi, or 

 Vol. V-27 



sack, (i-om which the colt was not able to extricate 

 itself. The mule is brown, of the ordinary ap- 

 pearance. The colt was a fine sorrel, with blaze 

 iiice and white Ittet. This circumstance is regard- 

 ed in this neighborhood as one of a very singular 

 character in natuial history, and was seen after 

 the death of the colt by several person.s, to wit: 

 my son .Joseph, and Charles Slade. 



The mai'e ran in my stable yard, to foal, by her- 

 self; and it was next to impossible that the colt 

 could have been brought into the yard by any 

 other means than by the mare which fi)aled the 

 mule. It was known last spring, that soon after 

 the mare was served by the jack, that a two-year- 

 old colt of my son's got to and served the same 

 mare; and, as a further proof thai, this colt was the 

 fruit of this act of coition, the colt was of the same 

 color, and marked with while in the same man- 

 ner as the supposed sire. 



Jonathan Bildeuback. 

 Teste: 

 Tiio. Emory, 

 Uob't. C. Johnson. 



Salem, June lOfh, 1837. 

 I hereby certify that Jonathan Bilderback is a 

 respectable farmer in my neighborhood, and, that 

 I believe him to be fully entitled to credit as a man 

 of veracity. 



RoBT. G. Johnson. 



From the Mining Journal. 

 DEEPEST MINE IN GREAT BRITAIN, 



Our readers may perhaps recollect that, some 

 time ago, a coal pit said to be the deepest in 

 Great Biitain, was sunk at Monkwearmouth, to 

 the depth of 234 fathoms, or 1,584 feet below the 

 surliice ;* and that, in November, 1834, Professor 

 Phillips of York, along with a number of other 

 scientific persons, descended the pit, and mad-e a 

 series of very interesting observations on the vari- 

 ations of the barometer and thermometer in the 

 course of their descent and ascent. The tempera- 

 ture, by these observations, increased in proportion 

 to the depth, and a thermometer sunk into a hole, 

 drilled to the depth of two and a half fiiet into the 

 floor of the workings, from which hole the airwas 

 carefully excluded, after remaining in that position 

 forty -eight hours, stood at 71.2. Since the date of 

 Professor Phillips's visit, the enterprising owners 

 have sunk it still deeper, and the average tempe- 

 rature has increased to seventy degrees, a degree 

 of heat which makes it difficult lor the men to 

 work beyond six hours at a time.f In addition to 

 this inconvenience, a species of fiy, about an inch 

 long,, has appeared, by the bite of which both men 

 and horses are much annoyed. 



From tlie same. 

 EXTRAORDINARY SPEED, 



On Thursday, the 15th instant, a large and pow- 

 erful locomotive engine, built by Mr, Timothy 

 Hackworth, of New Shildon, fbr the Emperor ot 



* There are more shafts tfian one at the consoiidated 

 mines in Cornwall, which are nearly 300 fathoms in 

 depth, or 1800 feet. 



t At the bottom of Wolf's shaft, at the consolidated 

 mines, the temperature is said to have been as high a» 

 96.° 



