THE SELECTOR; AND LITERARY NOTICES OF NEW WORKS.

MECHANICAL POWER OF COALS.

The Menai Bridge, one of the most stupendous works of art that has been raised by man in modern ages, consists of a mass of iron, not less than four millions of pounds in weight, suspended at a medium height of about 120 feet above the sea. The consumption of seven hanhels of coal would suffice to raise it to the place where it hangs.

The great pyramid of Egypt is composed of granite. It is 700 feet in the side of its base, and 500 in perpendicular height, and stands on eleven acres of ground. Its weight is, therefore, 12,760 millions of pounds, at a medium height of 125 feet; consequently it would be raised by the effort of about 630 chaldrons of coal, a quantity consumed in some founderies in a week.

The annual consumption of coal in London is estimated at 1,500,000 chaldrons. The effort of this quantity would suffice to raise a cubical block of marble, 2,200 feet in the side, through a space equal to its own height, or to pile one such mountain upon another. The Monte Nuovo, near Pozzuoli, (which was erupted in a single night by volcanic fire,) might have been raised by such an effort from a depth of 40,000 feet, or about eight miles.—Cabinet Cyclopaedia, vol. xiv.

WONDROUS EFFECTS OF CHEMISTRY.

Not to mention the impulse which its progress has given to a host of other sciences, what strange and unexpected results has it not brought to light in its application to some of the most common objects! Who, for instance, would have conceived that linen rags were capable of producing more than their own weight of sugar, by the simple agency of one of the cheapest and most abundant acids?—that dry bones could be a magazine of nutriment, capable of preservation for years, and ready to yield up their sustenance in the form best adapted to the support of life, on the application of that powerful agent, steam, which enters so largely into all our processes, or of an acid at once cheap and durable?—that sawdust itself is susceptible of conversion into a substance bearing no remote analogy to bread; and though certainly less palatable than that of flour, yet noway disagreeable, and both wholesome and digestible as well as highly nutritive?

FIRST ENGLISH COLONY IN AMERICA.

The first attempt of the English to effect any settlement in America, was made by Sir Humphrey Gilbert, who, in the month of June, 1578, obtained a patent from Queen Elizabeth, authorizing him to plant a colony in that country. Gilbert's project failed; but it was afterwards resumed by his half-brother, the celebrated Sir Walter Raleigh, who, in 1584, obtained a patent similar to that which had been granted to Gilbert, and next year planted a colony at the mouth of the Roanoke, naming the country Virginia in honour of his royal mistress. But all these settlers, as well as others who crossed the Atlantic during the next twenty years, either perished by famine and disease, or by the hands of the Indians, or returned to England.—Cabinet Cyclopaedia, vol. xiii.; being vol. i. of the History of the Western World—United States of America.

TRADITIONS OF THE INDIANS.

According to the unambitious belief of the Osages, a people living on the banks of one of the lower tributaries of the Missouri, they are sprung from a snail and a beaver. The Mandans believe their ancestors once lived in a large village under ground, near a subterranean lake; that by means of a vine tree, which extended its roots to their cheerless habitation, they got a glimpse of the light; that informed by some adventurers, who had visited the upper world, of the numerous buffaloes pasturing on the plains, and of the trees loaded with delicious fruits, the whole nation, with one consent, began to ascend the roots of the vine; but that, when about the half of them had reached the surface, a corpulent woman climbing up, broke the roots by her weight; that the earth immediately closed, and concealed for ever from those below the cheering beams of the sun. From a people who entertain such fanciful notions of their origin, no valuable information concerning their early history can be expected.—Ibid.

POLITE SLAUGHTERING OF AN ENEMY.

At times, an Indian warrior, when about to kill and scalp a prostrate enemy, addresses him in such terms as the following:—

"My name is Cashegra: I am a famous warrior, and am going to kill you. When you reach the land of spirits, you will see the ghost of my father: tell him it was Cashegra sent you there." The uplifted tomahawk then descends upon his victim.—Ibid.