232 



THE GENESEE FARMER 



July 23, 1831- 



MISCELLANIES. 



History of Hals. — At a recent meeting 

 of the Society of Antiquaries, J. A. Rep- 

 tone, communicated a very curious and 

 interesting paper on the history of hats, 

 accompanied by 8 siieets of drawings of 

 hats and caps, in an infinity of shapes 

 and fashions, from the time of Richard 

 II. up to 1784. He observed, the name 

 hat was derived from a Saxon word, mea- 

 ning a covering for the head, in which 

 general sense it had been used |by early 

 authors, and applied to the helmets of 

 steel. Hats and caps were anciently 

 made of felt, woollen silk, straw, and va- 

 rious other materials, and were as diver- 

 sified in their colors. In the time of E- 

 lizabetii the common people generally 

 wore wollen caps; and s me acts weie 

 passed in her reign to encourage the 

 manufacture of them. The broad brims 

 were introduced by the cardi N to their 

 scarlet caps, and followed by the clergy 

 The inconveni' nee of the bro d brim all 

 round caused the turning of one side up ; 

 then two sides were turned up; and at 

 last turning up three sides, introduced 

 the cocked hat. The high crowned hat 

 was first worn in the time of Elizabeth, 

 and declined in the reign of Charles II. 

 Mr. Rpptono then h tic dthe ornaments 

 of bats, such a- fettliers broaches and 

 band- Henry VIII. is described, mi his 

 cnt'y into calai-, as wearing feathers 

 from India4 ft long; & men woref at ers 

 in their hats as late as the reign of Queen 

 Anne Vew is mentioned a- placed in 

 the hat to denote mourning for a deceas- 

 ed relative or friend. The paper con. 

 tained many amusing and curi us quota 

 lions on ill subject from a variety of au- 

 thors 



Pelican. — A vcrj' large bird of this 

 species which h s strayed probably from 

 La e Huron or Lake Superior where 

 they are nown to abound, was shot on 

 Wednesday last at St. Marie, Nouvelle 

 Bcauce, thirty miles south of the town, 

 by a inhabitant. Mr. Chasseur has pur- 

 c+iaseed it and he is now stuffing it for his 

 museum. It measures 8 feet 3 inches 

 between the tips of the wings and !> feet 

 !> inches from the toes to the bill. The 

 bill is about a foot long and the large 

 bag in which it carries fish or food dis- 

 tends to nine inches. No bird of this 

 kind has, so far as we have heard, ever 

 been seen in this Province, and it is par- 

 ticularly strange to have met with it in 

 the middle of summer. — Quebec Gazette. 

 Remedy for Weak JVerocs. — Take a 

 morning walk, daily, at an easy saunter 

 ing pace, in a botanical garden, (if access 

 can be had to it,) or in any garden rich 

 in the beauties of Flora, so that the ear- 

 ly part of your day may be breathed in 

 the midst of herbs and plants will give 

 forth with a sweet bounty, their soft, yet 

 invigorating exhalations for your rcltef 

 and benefit. Let your personal regimen 

 be simple, and endeavor, likewise, that 

 • he tenor of your thoughts may he tran- 



quil, gentle, and agreeable ; for the mind 

 itself has sometimes need of being put 

 upon a regimen. This simple prescrip- 

 tion is recommended by a French. lady 

 in a work just published. Exactly fol- 

 lowed, it has been known to produce the 

 happiest results; and if it were common- 

 ly resorted to by delicate female invalids, 

 we should hear far less frequently of the 

 chronic complaints of languor and lassi 

 tude, or of the acute disorders of head 

 ache and tortured nerves. 



Aerial Voyage of a Dog. — The subjects 

 of the first experiments with the para- 

 chute, were naturally inferior animals. — 

 On the 26th of August, M. Blanchard 

 droppfd a dog suspended from a para- 

 chute, altitude of 6CK.0 feet above the 

 surface of the earth. A whirlwind inter- 

 rupted its descent, and carried it above 

 the clouds. The sseronautsoon after met 

 the parachute again ; the dog recognized 

 his master, and expressed his uneasiness 

 and solicitude by barking ; another cur- 

 rent o air, however, carried him off, and 

 he was lost sight of. The parachute 

 with the dog descended soon after the se- 

 ronant, in safety. — Dr. Lardner's Cyclo- 

 Ktcping fruit. — At a recent meeting of 

 the Horticultural Society in London a pa- 

 per was read, entitled, " An account of the 

 different modes of keeping fruit which have 

 been tried at the Society's garden for the 

 season 1881." The statement was drawn up 

 it the garden, and enumerated eight differ- 

 ent modes ; the three best and most practi- 

 cable of which were, the covering of the 

 fruit in pure and perfectly dry sand, dry 

 fern, or in a deal box buried in the eaith. — 

 By any of these modes it was preserved, free 

 from shrivelling and any disagreeable fla- 

 vor ; in all it must be deposited in a cold 

 situation. By the other five modes, although 

 the fruit was preserved in a pretty sound 

 state, a musty flavor was found to be com- 

 municated ; this was especially the case 

 where oat-chaff was the medium. — Herald. 



John Adams The following is extracted 



from the speech of John Adams, delivered 

 in the Hall of Independence, before the 

 Congress of 1776, on the adoption of the 

 Declaration of Independence: 



Addressing John Hancock, the then 

 President, said — 



"Read this declaration at the bead of the 

 army, every sword will be drawn from its 

 scabbard and the solemn vow uttered to 

 maintain it or perish on the bed of honor. — 

 Publish it from the pulpit, religion will ap- 

 prove it, resolved to Stan i with it or fall 

 with it. Send it to the public halls, pro- 

 claim it there, let them bear it who heard 

 the first roar of the enemy's cannon let 

 them see it who saw their sons and brothers 

 tall on the field of Bunker Hill and in th 

 streets of Lexington and Concord, and the 

 very walls will cry out in its support. 



" Sir I know the uncertainty of human af- 

 fairs, but I see, I see clearly through this 

 day's business. You shall be made good ; 

 we in iy die ; die colonists — die slaves — die, 

 it may be. ignominiously and on the scaf- 

 fold : Be it so — be it so ; if it be the pleas- 

 ure of Heaven that my country shall require 

 the poor offering ofm> life, the victim shall 

 be ready at the appointed hour for sacrifice, 

 come when that hour may ; but while I do 



live let me have a country, at least the hope 

 of a country, and that a free country. But 

 whatever may be our fate, be assured thai 

 this declaration will stand. It may cost 

 treasure, and it may cost blood, but it will 

 stand, and it will richl compensate for both. 

 Through the thick gloom of the present, I 

 see the brightness of the future as the sun 

 in heaven. We shall make this a glorious, 

 an immortal day : when we are in our 

 graves our children will honor it : they will 

 celebrate it with thanksgiving, with bonfires 

 and illuminations. On its annual return 

 they will shed tears — copious, gushing tears 

 — not of agony and distress, but of consola- 

 tion, of gratitude and joy. 

 | " Sir, before God, I believe the hour has 

 | come; my judgement approves this meas- 

 ure, and my whole heart is in it. All that 

 1 have, all that I am. and all that I hope in 

 this life, I am here ready to stake upon it; 

 and I leave off as I began, that live or die, 

 survive or perish, I am for the declaration, 

 it is my living sentiment, and, by the bless- 

 ing of God, it shall be my dying sentiment, 

 independence now, and independence for- 

 ever." 



From ihfl New-Yorh Standard. 

 Our first visit to the site of Rochester was 

 in 1814, at which time there was one house 

 on the east side of the bridge, one on the 

 west — and one Lawyer's office and no other 

 domicil for man or beast, between that site 

 and Lake Ontario, a distance of seven 

 miles — now, on a few acres fourteen thou- 

 sand souls are collected from the ends of 

 the earth ! but chielly from the industrious 

 hive of the universal Yankee nation. The 

 immense and inexhaustible hydraulic ad- 

 ! vantages of the Genesee River — the almost 

 miraculous fecundity of the adjacent coun- 

 ties, pouring their increasing treasures into 

 this now unrivalled and still growing mart, 

 to be distributed east and west by the Erie 

 Canal, and north and east by lake Ontario 

 I — are the causes of the rapid and unpausing 

 strides of Rochester to wealth — beauty — 

 and duration. Monroe county alone is es- 

 timated to have yielded at the harvest of 

 lii.SO the enormous quantity of 1,004,0^0 

 bushels of wheat. 



"The desert" of 1814 literally "buds and 

 blossoms as the rose" — while other, and 

 still other acres yet unvexed by the plow, 

 remain to crown the labors of the husband- 

 man for ages to come. This picture is 

 touched with strong colors, but they are too 

 faint for the subject ; and to him whose cu- 

 riosity led him in 1814 to view the falls of 

 the Genesee and the expanse of Lake On- 

 tario, as the chief objects of vision, and for 

 that vision only — whose trembling gig dan- 

 ced from lock to rock, or was racked by the 

 alternate abysses and mounds of a road to 

 which the light of heaven scarcely reached 

 through the dense foilage of the forest — or 

 bounded with wearying and chafing tor- 

 ments over the " corduroy" log ways — we 

 say, to such an individual, the presence of 

 massy and lofty edifices in tin- very torrent 

 of the stream — of spires — and domes — and 

 turrets — in all the variety and beauty of fan 

 ciful architecture — of private dwellings, 

 comparing within and without, with any in 

 the oldest cities of the state — in short, for 

 such an individual to feel and see a Venice 

 of the Lakes — a city in yesterday's desert — 

 may be ranked amongst the most astonish- 

 ing sights that can arrest the attention, and 

 till him with sensations alike indescribable 

 and rare. 



