and modest christain philosopher, be counted and called a conjurer?" It appears that the foolish and superstitious multitude, not contented with verbal abuse, destroyed the large collection of instruments, manuscripts, and printed books, which he had painfully amassed at Mortlake, in Surry," as belonging to one who dealt with the Devil." T. Philosophical Magazine, 20, p. 19. MR. J. FARCY says, I had occasion in the year 1801, to visit one of captain Mudge's stations in the grand Trigonometrical survey, on the top of Quainton-hill, Aylesbury and being surprised while there, by a considerable explosion, I hastened to the pit, near where some work men had just blasted a large piece of rock into fragments. On inquir ing their process, they assured me they used no gunpowder, but simply undermined the rock for about a yard in length, and half a yard in depth, and introduced a small fagot of brushwood, farze, or a bundle of straw, into the cavity, and set it on fire, and that, in a few seconds, the confined air in the stone, blew up with great force. The fragments of the explosion I had heard were ly ing about, much the same as they would have been thrown by a blast of gun-powder. I saw in the pit several other excavations forming under blocks of two or three feet thickncss, intended to be blasted up in the same manner. T. Philosophical Magazine, 20, p. 208. Ir a person should fall out of a boat, or a boat upset, or he should fail off the quays, or indeed fall into any water from which he could not extricate himself, but must wait some little time for assistance, had he presence of mind enough to whip eff his hat, and hold it by the brim, placing his fingers withinside the crown, and hold it so, (top downwards,) he would be able by this method, to keep his mouth well above water, till assistance should reach him. Indeed, even a swimmer will not hastily go near a drowning person, let him swim ever so well; for with his clothes on, he is fully occupied in keeping himself above water, and dares not risk being seized in a disadvantageous position, by persons devoid of all relous situation) and ready to grasp at collection (arising from their perievery thing that comes within their reach. But if the swimmer could take with him into the water any thing that would support from five to able, perhaps, to render assistance, ten pounds weight, he would be without danger to himself. This desirable object seems to me attainable and pocket-handkerchief, which, by the proper use of a man's hat, (being all the apparatus necessary) kerchief on the ground, and place is to be used thus:-Spread the hand a bat with its brim downwards, on the middle of the handkerchief; and tie the handkerchief round the bat, as you would tie up a bundle, keepthe crown of the hat as may be.ing the knots as near the centre of Now by seizing the knots in one hand, and keeping the opening of the hat upwards, a person, without knowing how to swim, may fearless plunge into the water, with what be may necessary to save the life of a fellow creature. But where time and circumstances will permit, various modes may be adopted: as taking two hats and ty ing the two ends of a walking-stick into the knots of the handkerchiefs, and then seizing the stick by the middle; or, indeed, as many hats may be put on the walking stick as it will hold; which will not be less than four, giving a buoyancy equal to 28 pounds or more, without the risk of the hats filling with water. If instead of a stick, two hats were connected together by a handkerchief, the hats may be used to swim with, as boys use corks. It often happens that danger is descried long before we are involved in the peril, and time enough to prepare some one of the above mentioned methods; and a courageous person, I am confident, would, seven instancss out of ten, apply to them with success; and travellers in fording rivers at unknown fords, or where shallows are deceitful, might make use of these methods with advantage. By experiments I have made, it appears that a common sized hat, such as is now in fashion, will support more than ten pounds weight, without sinking; but with a weight of about seven pounds, it would not be liable to fill, even if there was a little ripple on the water. The handkerchief applied as above directed, covering the open part of the hat prevents it being readily filled by the splashing of the water; and as it is well known that the human body is nearly of the same specific gravity as water, it must be evident that a buoyancy of seren pounds will, if properly managed, keep the head above the surface till more effectual assistance is procured. HENRY LAWSON. Philosophical Magazine, 20, p. 302. For the Belfast Monthly Magazine. EDUCATION OF THE POOR. THE conduct of the king of England--the patron of the Lancastrian system !-and how noble is the commentary upon it which his own memorable speech to the author of the system affords ! We allude to that exalted saying of his (which we own strikes us 25 infinitely finer than the celebrated wish of Henry 4th of France) that he hoped to see the day when every poor child in his dominions should be able to read his bible." This sentiment is indeed noble, and if generally extended would, in process of time, redress many of the miseries of the Irish people-to contribute to this important end is the duty of every true lover of his country, and it is under that impression, I request your insertion of an epitome of the plan of Lancaster, as abridged from an admirable article on the subject of the education of the poor in the Edinburgh review, No. 33, for November, 1810. To those who may not inmediately have an opportunity of perusing this valuable article, this brief view of Lancaster's plan may prove not merely amusing, but instructive; the scheme is so clear, and so feasible, that persons of very moderate means may carry it into execution. They will see it reduced to practice at the daily School, established by the Quakers, and still chiefly under their direction, in School-street, Dub-, lin; and if this sketch contribute to the establishment of similar seminaries in his native country, it will fulfil the heart-felt wishes of its compiler*. * We have felt much pleasure in recording at different times the schools which have been established in Ireland on Lancaster's plan, and we hope much good will result from the instruction of the poorer classes of the Irish, whose ignorance has been their great misfortune. To a want of consideration, the natural consequence of ignorance, we must attribute many of their errors. The Edinburgh re In 1798, Joseph Lancaster began to exercise the honourable profession of a school-master; his plan was from the beginning to teach reading, writing, and arithmetic, to the children of the lower orders, and to save the first great expense of school-masters' salaries, he employed the elder boys to assist in teaching, The next great expense of a school arises from the consumption of books and materials for writing; to diminish this cost, J. Lancaster introduced the admirable method of making a number of boys read from the same lesson printed in large characters and suspended on the wall, and the no less useful substitute of slates for paper, where by not only the waste of that expensive article is saved, but any number of boys are enabled to spell and write the same word at the same time, without the possibility of one being idle while the other is at work, or rather, as in the ordinary mode of education, nineteen being idle while one is employed; the same degree of alertness is kept up by the method of reading, as it were all together which requires the failure of one boy to be corrected by the next, for the sake of taking his place, prevents the possibility of idleness or inattention. His next step towards the accomplishment of his great and beneficial purpose was his mode of teaching arithmetic by the suggestion of a method whereby read viewers mention that in Gloucester, where the first sunday-school was established, by the benevolent Raikes, the clergyman who attended the prison, stated that out of three thousand boys who had been educated at the sunday-school, only one boy had been imprisoned in that gaol for any crime. This circumstance must act as a powerful stimulus to those who wish for the amelioration of their fellow creatures, and shows the great benefit of impressing the minds of children with good moral senti ments.--(B. M. M.) and in order to teach this lesson to 30 boys, one of whom can read and the other 29 can write the nine figures, and understand notation, a key is given to the reader, consisting of the following words, first column 7 and 4 are eleven, set down 1 under the seven, and carry one to the next second column; six and three are nine, and one I carried are ten, set down 0 and carry to the next third column; 5 and 2 are seven and one i carried are 8; total in figures 801; total in words, eight hundred and one" After each boy has written the two lines 234 and 567 one under the other, the reader takes the above key and reads it audibly, while each of the 29 obey it, by writing down as it directs; each boy also reads over the sum total after the reader has finished, and he then inspects the slates one after the other; the whole are thus kept perpetually awake, and by repeated lessons of the same kind the rule required is fixed in their minds: into the details of his discipline we cannot now enter, which are devised with a thorough knowledge of his subject, derived as much from long experience as from just and even philosophical reasoning, where 800 or 1000 children are to be instruct ed by one master, it was necessary ON THE USE OF STRAMONIUM IN THE SPAS ODIC ASTHMA. monium; from which auspicious moment I have been restored, not merely to a tolerable, but to a com. fortable and reasonably happy state of existence. "The asthmatic paroxsym usually came on about two o'clock in the morning, when I was suddenly surprised from sleep with violent conyulsive heavings of the chest; and I was scarcely allowed time to place myself upright in a chair, where I sat resting myself upon my elbows and with my feet upon the ground (for I could not bear them in an ho AT page 146 of the last Magazine, rizontal posture,) before I underwent a short account was given of stramonium in spasmodic asthma, a more full account is now added, extracted from several letters from a correspondent to Phillips' Monthly Magazine, published during the course of last year. It is communicated in this magazine, as from the relation there appear grounds to hope that stramonium is of essential service in a most afflictive disease, and it may be useful to extend the knowledge of its efficacy: A writer in the London Monthly Magazine after describing his former good state of health, and the Juxurious indulgence into which he had fallen, thus proceeds:-"This career of pleasure was however soon interrupted by the depredations it produced upon my constitution; the first signs of impaired health, and clouded vivacity, were soon succeeded by the most severe and afflicting attacks of spasmodic asthma, which returned at intervals of eight or ten days, with such cruel violence, that all the agreeable anticipations of life became in a manner extinguished; and during the course of several years, I was afraid to indulge in the hopes of recovery, from my complaint. At last, by a most fortunate accident, I was induced to make trial of an herb called stru a sense, as it were, of immediate suffocation. These fits generally continued, with short intermissions, from thirty-six hours to three days and nights successively; during which time I have often, in the seeming agonics of death, given myself over, and even wished for that termination of my miseries. "It was in a great measure in vain that I consulted the most eminent physicians in the metropolis; they only afforded me a transient and tantalizing relief. An amiable friend, and respectable surgeon at Hackney, first persuaded me to smoke the divine stramonium, to which I owe altogether, my present freedom from pain, and renewed capacity of enjoyment. It is the root only, and lower part of the stem, which seem to possess its anti-asthmatic virtue ; these should be cut into small pieces, and put into a common tobacco pipe, and the smoke must be swallowed together with the saliva produced by the smoke; after which the sufferer will, in a few minutes, be relieved from all the convulsive heavings, and probably drop into a comforta ble sleep, from which he will awake refreshed, and in general, perfectly recovered at least, this is the invariable effect produced upon myself. He should by all means avoid drink ing with the pipe, a too ordinary accompaniment of smoaking. I once took some brandy and water with the pipe, but it proved a very improper combination: a dish of coffee, however, I often take after it, and find it highly refreshing. I should mention that strong coffee has frequently been recommended to me, but never produced any beneficial effect as a cure for asthma. "The stramonium is delightfully fragrant; and although it has been regarded hitherto as of a poisonous nature when taken inwardly, yet I have smoked a dozen of pipes at a time, without experiencing from them any other inconvenience than slight excoriation, or soreness of the tongue. a "Some persons have regarded the smoking of stramonium as a species of ebriety, or as the use merely of one of those ordinary opiates, that people are apt to have recourse to in order to relieve a paroxysm of pain, whether it originates from a mental or a corporeal cause, by which they purchase a temporary suspension of misery at the expense of Jermanent injury. Stramonium, how ever, used in a proper manner, produces effects essentially different from that of any intoxicating drug that I am acquainted with. It acts favourably upon the feelings of the mind only inasmuch as it alleviates the pain of the body; neither is its first and happy influence succeeded, as in the use of opiates or marcotics by depression, lassitude, or stupor. "So far from stramonium having induced that torpor and sluggishness that smoking tobacco or hops has frequently occasioned, I am confident that without the assistance of that in valuable remedy, I should not have been able to go through the exertions that my daily avocations call for. As far as my experience has gone, and it is of some standing, the stramonium has not lost, by its frequently repeated use, one iota of its medicinal influence; and wherever it has been had recourse to, in a proper manner, within the sphere of my personal knowledge, it has been equally successful. Towards counteracting the tendency to spasmodic asthma, (for destroying it where it is implanted in the habit, I consider as impossible.)I have found nothing that has, in any important degree conduced but abstinence, together with a careful protection of the body against cold or damp, or any sudden vicissitudes of the weather. 66 The stramonium has hitherto been considered as a noxious weed, difficult to eradicate where it has once taken root, but which I hope will be seen growing, in the course of another year in every garden in the empire. When I first enquired for it at an herb-shop, in Covent Garden; I obtained a large bundle for three pence; and I now learu with equal surprize and indignation, that it has lately been sold at the enormous rate of 21s. per pound. I have experienced, in the course of a mingled life of business and amusement; many instances of baseness, and I have heard of many others. I never, however, met with such an imposition as I am about to notice. I had with infinite difficulty procured some seed of the stramonium, which I gave to the proprietor of a large nursery garden, in the immediate neighbourhood of Tavistock-square, and agreed with him to cultivate it; its produce exceeded 1000 fine plants, and it was almost weekly shown to me and my servants by the master who congratulated me upon the prospect of the crop. I remained perfectly satisfied that I should have an abundant supply, so much so, that I promised a portion of it to |