OBSERVATIONS ON EAST-INDIA SALTPETRE. Considered with a view to science, the process by which saltpetre is obtained from earth, and its reproduction in the same ground, are curious and deserving of diligent attention. The elementary substances, which form nitrous acid, are known to exist in the atmosphere; but the means by which they are attracted from the atmosphere, and conibined into a solid and concrete form, and on what principles certain articles exercise this power, are subjects of interesting and deep inquiry. ral at four or five rupees the mún, for internal consumption, or for traffic with different parts of India. The exportation of saltpetre to Europe is, at all times, chiefly confined to the Company's investment, and exceeds 50,000 máns. At the commencement of the late war, the exportation by private persons, whether British subjects or foreigners, was entirely prohibited, lest the enemy should be supplied from the British dominions. It was afterwards authorised under certain imitations. By a statement, published by the Court of Directors, of the quantity of saltpetre put up and sold from 1703 to 1792, it appears, that they sold 295,673 bags in thirteen years of peace from 1704 to 1776, or 22,744 per ann.; and 76.059 bags in six years of war, from 1777 to 1782, or 12,676 per ann.; and Common observers have noticed, that grounds much trodden by cattle, the walls of inhabited places, and, in short, any rubbish wherein putrifying animal substances abound, do naturally afford nitre and culinary331,301 bags in ten years of peace, from salt by exposure to the atmospherical air. 1783 to 1792; and likewise, that the smallArtificial beds are made in India as in Europe, est quantities sold, are in the four years from upon these principles, but with less trouble 1779 to 1782, when the war was most genethan in most other countries. It is only neral, viz. 39,598 bags, or, on a medium, cessary to collect the earth of old wails, or the 9,899 per aun. It seems almost incredible scrapings of roads, cow-pens, and other places that Great Britain should consume less sali-, frequented by cattle, and to leave mounds of petre when at war with all Europe, than in such earth exposed to the weather. Both a period of profound peace; and yet, as the nitre and culinary salt are naturally formed account of the saltpetre sold by the Company there and the salipetre is extracted by filis doubtless authentic, it follows that the great tering water through earth so impregnated difference between the quantity sold in peace with nitre, to dissolve and ring away the aud in war must be ascribed to the circumsalt which it contained. The brine is evapo- stance of exportation being prohibited in war. rated by boiling, and, when cold, affords The manufacturers of Great Britain, supnitre by crystallisation. The salt, thus ob-plied with the raw material at the rate of tained, is again dissolved, boiled, and scum- 30 per ton, must command every market med; and, when it has cooled, after sui- in Europe, so long as saltpetre cannot be ficient evaporation, the brine yields the salt-made in Europe for less than three times petre of commerce. The manufacture of saltpetre scarcely passes the eastern limits of Bihar. The parching winds from the west did not formerly extend beyond the same limits. It is a practical remark, that the production of nitre is greatest during the prevalence of the hot winds, which are perhaps essential to its abundant forination. In the change of seasons, which has been remarked within a few years last past, the hot winds have extended their influence to Bengal Proper. The actual extent of the manufacture would admit of a much greater production, than commerce is now supplied with. The present quantity, including the importation from provinces west of Bihar, falls short of 200,000 máns,* the greatest part of which passes into the Company's warehouses at the first cost, which does not much exceed two rupees for a mán. The rest, paying duty and charges of transport, and affording profit to several intermediate dealers, sells in gene. *A man weighs 74 lbs. 10 cz. 10 drs. that price. Unless foreign governments prohibit the importation of gunpowder, with a view to encourage their own establishments, their subjects will not as in Spain, pay £8 per ew, for that which is made from Spanish nitre, while they can be supplied with British gunpowder at £4. By economy in the charges, saltpetre might perhaps be afforded for £25 per ton. In Spain, the country of Europe most favourable to the manufacture of saltpetre, its prime cost is certainly not less than £88. 10s. per ton, (see Townsend's Tra vels); but, if it be true that the Spanish monopoly does not gain by selling at thirteen pence halfpenny per pound, the real cost is more than £120 per ton. Whether it be imported by private traders or by the Company, the market ought to be left unshackled; and the manufacturers of gunpowder would be thus better secured, thau by any compulsory expedients, in the certaintv of an ample and cheap supply of saltpetre. The production, increased in Bengal, and rewarded with a better price than is now left to the maker, would become one among many sources of wealth to those provinces. For the Literary Panorama. RELIGION AND COMMERCE, THE SUPPORTS way globe; they are the link of nations in the To the People of Great Britain, especially the world, that I can see no reason for His its Commercial Inhabitants. Friends and Fellow-countrymen, We stand high in the rank of nations; we are secure at present from having the seat of war among us: our resources are immense, and our commerce is bounded only by the Amits of the habitable world: to our com merce we are in a great measure indebted for our grandeur and security; the wealth procured by it enables us to keep a naval defence superior to that of all the nations of the earth put together. But to what do we owe the prosperity of our commerce ?—I answer with out hesitation, it is to our having the true and genuine religion of the Saviour of the Certain it is, world established among us. and that religion commerce have ever gone, as it were, hand in hand together. The first trafficking we hear of was in the Holy Land, through which the Ishmaelitish merchants went down into Egypt. The Jews (though intended, for wise reasons, to be a separate people, yet) under David and Solomon shared the commerce of the east with the Tyrians: the most commercial of all the nations of the then known world. After Alexander's time, when the Jews were settled in Alexandria, and had a temple there that city became the mart of the nations, and all the wealth of the east flowed through it to the west. After our Saviour's time, when the everlasting Gospel travelled to the west, commerce went along with it, Constantinople, Genoa, Lombardy, were the great emporia; but those nations debasing Christianity by vile superstitions, it took refuge in Great Britain and with it, came a commerce which makes her the mistress of the sea and the envy of the world. To secure the advantages that commerce bestows, let us not fail to preserve in our lives and examples that blessing which alone can make us truly happy in the possession of it. The wise restraints of the Christian religion, so far from abridging the comforts and pleasures of life, are calculated to secure then to us, and to give a zest to all our enjoyments. And let me press it upon you, my countrymen, that unless our Christianity keep pace with our commerce, we shall be sure to undergo the fate of Tyre so eloquently described in the prophecies of Isaiah and Ezekiel: "All our occupiers of merchandize, and all our inen of war that are in us, shall fall in the midst of the seas in the day of ruin." The Jews, who are now cominercial, are dispersed through every part of the habitable permitting the tyrant of Europe to proceed so rapidly in his career, but to overthrow the two great superstitions, of Popery and Mahommedism: and unknown to himself, and certainly undesigned by him, to clear the way for a reformation on the Continent, and ultimately to extend and establish the true religion. He then, is the "overflowing scourge," commissioned to punish the human race, by devastation and the sword; while we, by the more delightful employment of commerce and good faith, diffuse truth and happiness throughout the world. BARHAMIENSIS. TOMB OF HENRY, EARL OF DANBY, 1643. The following epitaph, written by G. Herbert, is inscribed on a fine marble tomb, in the small parish church of Dauntsey, in Wiltshire, which tomb commemorates Heury Earle "of Danby, 2nd. sonne to Sir Juo. Danvers,, "Knt, and Dame Elizabeth, daughter and "Coheire to Nevill Lord Latimer." He was born, June 28, 1573; and died, Jan. 28, 1043. "Sacred marble, safely keepe "His dust, who under thee must sleepe On the pediment of another tomb of the The windows of this church were once beautifully painted, though but little now remains of the original design, and of that which remains scarely any part is in its place, The colours are very vivid. Under different figures I could read the sentences" Sancta "Anna ora pro nobis."-" Sancta Dea genitrix ora p. nobis," and the date 1525. Inber, near Warminster, Wilts. Nov. 16, 1803. Sir, vours, POETRY. L'AMOUR MATERNEL. The following French lines were engraved under the representation of a Mother's Spirit ascending into heaven, while she pointed at a child reposing under a tree, and which attracted a great share of her interest and concern. The singularity with which the painter had treated the subject, was at least equalled by the excellence of the lines, which have at once a pathos, grandeur, and point about them, not often united in any, and very seldom in compositions of such brevity. The translation was the effect of the impression they made at the time, Oui, l'amour maternel survit à la mort même · En arrivant à toi, je l'éprouve, Seigneur; Tu ne révoques point l'aveu que j'ose en faire, Now tell me what pleasures you reap from your hoard, And I'll tell you what raptures your dross may afford; Amid numberless joys I will name only these→→ Gay days, happy nights, and a conscience at ease. Do you think, sordid wretch, when you turn a deaf ear To the suit of the orphan, that God does not hear? Do you hope to escape from the Searcher of hearts, When the tear of the widow no pity imparts? When the ag'd and infirm vainly put up their prayer For that mite, which your mass without missing could spare, The angel of vengeance your crime will enrol Amongst those of the demons, who murder the soul. Give a shilling to day, and the joy you'll denve To-morrow shall swell that small tribute to five; Progressive delight ev'ry hour shall increase, And at length a few guineas shall purchase your peace. Mon âme est toute à toi, mais mon cœur est à lui: If you spurn my advice, you're a blockhead and Et pour être, O mon Dieu, dans ton ciel aujourd'hui, Je n'ai point cessé d'être mère. TRANSLATION. dunce, You cannot serve God and your idol at once; Who traffics with Mammon will find in the end He has made a bad bargain and lost a good friend. C. From morn till eve, throughout the day, Nothing disturb'd my Chloe's smile, Z. OBSERVANDA EXTERNA. AMERICA, NORTH, is applied to objects which offer only the prospect of remote and moderate profit; and it also happens that a less sum being subscribed at first, than is actually requisite for completing the work, this proceeds slowly; the capital applied remains unReport of the Secretary of the Treasury, in obe-productive for a much longer time than was necesdience to a Resolution of the Senate of the Unitedsary, and the interest accruing during that period, States of North America, relative to Public Roads becomes, m fact, an injurious addition to the real and Canals; printed in April, 1808.-The ge- expense of the undertaking. neral utility of artificial roads and canals is at this time so universally admitted, as hardly to require any additional proofs. It is sufficiently evident that, whenever the annual expense of transportation on a certain route in its natural state, exceeds the interest on the capital employed in improving the communication, and the annual expense of transportation (exclusively of the tolls) by the improved route, the difference is an annual additional income to the nation. Nor does in that case the general result vary, although the tolls may not have been fixed at a rate sufficient to pay to the undertakers the interest on the capital laid out. They indeed, when that happens, lose; but the community is nevertheless benefited by the undertaking. The general gain is not confined to the difference between the expenses of the transportation of those articles which had been formerly conveyed by that route, but many, which were brought to market by other channels, will then find a new and more advantageous direction; and those which on account of their distance or weight could not be transported in any manner whatever, will acquire a value, and become a clear addition to the national wealth. Those and many other advantages have become so obvious, that in countries possessed of a large capital, where property is sufficiently secure to induce individuals to lay out that capital on permanent undertakings, and where a compact population creates an extensive commercial intercourse, within short distances, those improvements may often, in ordinary cases, be left to individual exertion, without any direct aid from government. There are, however, some circumstances, which, whilst they render the facility of communication throughout the United States an object of primary importance, naturally check the application of private capital and enterprize, to improvements on a large scale. The price of labour is not considered as a formidable obstacle, because, whatever it may be, it equally affects the expense of transportation, which is saved by the improvement, and that of effecting the improvement itself. The want of practical knowledge is no longer felt: and the occasional influence of mistaken local interests, in sometimes thwarting or giving an improper direction to public improvements, arises from the nature of man, and is common to all countries. The great demand for capital in the United States, and the extent of territory compared with the population, are, it is believed, the true causes which prevent new undertakings, and render those already accomplished, less profitable than had been expected. 2. The present population of the United States, compared with the extent of territory over which it' is spread, does not, except in the vicinity of the seaports, admit that extensive commercial intercourse with the short distances, which, in England and some other countries, forms the principal support of artificial roads and canals. With a few exceptions canals particularly cannot in America be undertaken with a view solely to the intercourse between the two extremes of, and along the intermediate ground which they occupy. It is necessary, in order to be productive, that the canal should open a communication with a natural extensive navigation which will flow through that new channel. It follows, that, whenever that navigation requires to be improved, or when it might at some distance be connected by another canal to another navigation, the first canal will remain comparatively unproductive, until the other improvements are effected, and till the other canal is also completed. Thus the intended canal between the Chesapeake and Delaware, will be deprived of the additional benefit arising from the intercourse between. New York and the Chesa peake, until an inland navigation shall have been opened between the Delaware and New York. Thus the expensive canals, completed around the falls of Potomac, will become more and more productive in proportion to the improvement, first of the navigation of the upper branches of the, river, and then of its communication with the western waters. Some works already executed. are unprofitable, many more remain unattempted, because their ultimate productiveness depends on other improvements, too extensive or too distant to be embraced by the same individuals.-The general government can alone remove these obstacles. -With resources amply sufficient for the completion of every practicable improvement, it will always supply the capital wanted for any work which it may undertake, as fast as the work itself can proceed, avoiding thereby the ruinous loss of interest on a dormant capital, and reducing the real expense to its lowest rate.-With these resources, and embracing the whole Union, it will complete on any given line all the improvements, however distant, which may be necessary to render the whole productive and eminently beneficial.-The early and efficient aid of the federal government is recommended by still more important considerations. The inconveniences, complaints, and perhaps dangers, which may result from a vast extent of territory, can no otherwise be radically removed, or prevented, than by opening speedy and easy communications through all its parts. Good roads and canals will shorten distances, fa 1. Notwithstanding the great increase of capi-cilitate commercial and personal intercourse, and tal during the last fifteen years, the objects for which it is required continue to be more numerous, and its application is generally more profit able than in Europe. A small portion therefore unite, by a still more intimate community of interests the most remote quarters of the United States. No other single operation, within the power of government, can more effectually tend to strength en and perpetuate that union, which secures external independence, domestic peace, and internal liberty. With that view of the subject, the facts respecting canals, which have been collected in pursuance of the resolution of the senate, havebeen arranged under the following heads: 1. Great canals, 'from north to south, along the Atlantic sea-coast. Communications between the Atlantic and Western Waters.-The Apalachian mountains, to use an ancient generic denomination, extend in a direction west of south, from the 42d to the 34th degree of north latitude, approaching the sea, and even washed by the tide in the state of New York, and thence, in their southerly course, gradually receding from the sea shore. Viewed as a whole, their breadth may be estimated at 110 miles, and they consist in a succession of parasiel ridges, following nearly the direction of the sea cast, irre 2. Communications between the Atlantic and Western Waters.-3. Communications between the Atlantic wate:, and those of the great lakes, and river St. Lawrence.-4. Interior canals. Great Canals, along the Atlantic Sea-Coast.gularly intersected by rivers, and divided by narThe map of the United States will shew that they possess a tide-water inland navigation, secure from storms and enemies, and which, from Massachu-known by the name of Allegheny, preserves setts to the southern extremity of Georgia, is principally, if not solely, interrupted by four row vallies. The ridge, which divides the Atlantic rivers from the western waters, generally throughout a nearly equal distance of 250 miles from the Atlantic ocean, and a nearly uniform elevation of 3,000 feet above the level of the sca. necks of land. These are the isthmus of Barnstable; that part of New Jersey, which extends Those mountains may, however, be perhaps from the Rariton to the Delaware; the peninsula considered as consisting of two principal chains: between the Delaware and the Chesapeake, and between these lies the fertile lime-stone valley, that low and marshy tract which divides the Che- which, although occasionally interrupted by sapeake from Albemarle Sound. It is ascertain- transversal ridges, and in one place, by the divided that a navigation for sea vessels, drawing eighting or Allegheny ridge, may be traced from Newfeet of water, may be effected across the thieeburgh and Esopus, on the Hudson river, to Knoxlast; and a canal is also believed to be practicable, ville on the Tennessee. not perhaps across the isthmus of Barnstable, but from the harbour of Boston to that of Rhode Island. The Massachusetts canal would be about twenty-six, the New Jersey about twenty-eight, and each of the two southern about twenty-two miles in length, making altogether less than one hundred miles. The eastern and narrowest chain is the Blue Ridge of Virginia, which, in its north east course, traverses under various names, the states of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, forms the highlands broken at West point by the tide of the Hudson, and then uniting with the green mountains, assumes a northerly direction, and divides the waters of the Hudson, and of lake Champlain, from those of Connecticut river. On the borders of Virginia and North Carolina, the Blue Ridge is united by an inferior mountain, with the great western chain, and thence to its southern extremity, becomes the principal or dividing mountain, discharging eastwardly the rivers Roanoke, Pedee, Santee, and Savannah, into the Atlantic Ocean; southwardly the Chatahouchee, and the Alabama into the Gulph of Mexico, and westwardly the New River and the Tennessee. The New River, taking a northwardly course, breaks through all the ridges of the great western chain, and, at a short distance beyond it, unites under the name of Kanhawa, with the Ohio. The Tonnessee pursues, at first, a south-west direction between the two chains, until hoving reached, and in a westwardly course turned, the southern extremnity of the great western chain, it assumes a northwardly direction, and joins its waters with those of the Ohio, a few miles above the conHuence of that river with the Mississippi, Should this great work, the expense of which, as will hereafter be shewn, is estimated at about three millions of dollars, be accomplished, a sea vessel entering the first canal in the harbour of Boston, would, through the bay of Rhode Island, Long Island sound, and the harbour of New York, reach Brunswick on the Rariton; thence pass through the second canal to Trenton on the Delaware, down that river to Christiana, or Newcastle, and through the third canal to Elk river, and the Chesapeake; whence sailing down that bay, and up Elizabeth river, it would, through the fourth canal, enter into the Albemarle Sound, and by Pamptico, Core, and Bogue sounds, reach Beaufort and Swainsborough, in North Carolina. From the last-mentioned place, the inland navigation, through Stumpy and Toomer's Sounds, is continued with a diminished draft of water, and by cutting two low and narrow necks, not exceeding three miles together, to Cape Fear river; and thence, by an open but short and direct run along the coast, is reached that chain of islands, between which and the main the island navigation is con- The western chain, much broader, and genetinued to St. Mary's along the coast of South Ca-rally more elevated, is known under the names rolina and Georgia. It is unnecessary to add of Cumberland and Gauley mountains, from its any comments on the utility of the work, in southern extremity, near the great bend of the peace or war, for the transportation of merchan-Tennessee river, until it becomes in Virginia the dize, or the conveyance of persons. principal or dividing mountain. Thence in its The following table is a recapitulation of the northerly course, towards the state of New York, distance to be cut out on the whole line, and of it discharges westwardly the Green Briar river, the estimated expense: which, by its junction with the New River, forms Distance Cockage Typence the Kanhawa, and the rivers Monongahela and Allegheny, which, from the confluence at Pittsburgh, assume the naine of Ohio. Eastwardly it pours into the Atlantic Ocean, James River, the Potomac, and the Susquehannah. From the northernmost and less elevated spurs of the chain, the Genesee flows into the lake Ontario; and in CANALS. Masazel ters. Chesapeake. DIRECTION. 26 250 100 148 40 Tural. Eliz. riv. to Pasquotank |