the combustible matter to be confined at a great distance below the surface of the earth, and in a dry state. While in this condition, it could not possibly produce any bad effects, as it must be inert. For, by one of the laws of chemical action, two combustible bodies may be in contact forever, without evincing any change, until some third agent be called into operation; which agent, in the present case, is water. The manner in which water travels through the earth, pervading its different stratifications, is familiar to philosophers: and every one conversant with the subject, well knows how easily a bed of combustible matter could thus be affected. It is no objection to the present explanation, that the phenomena of earthquakes are, in some situations, merely occasional, and not permanent. For the science of mineralogy will inform us, as will the practical effects of miners, that next to a stratum of pyrites, might be placed a stratum of some other mineralized substance, not, perhaps, combustible.— This is what every man, from the plain dictates of reason, would be apt to conclude.

M.

Suppose two planes, A and B, intersecting each other, at right angles, along the line C D, and two other planes, E and F, intersecting A and B. Let us call E A, E B, F A, and F B, the lines of the intersection of the planes, respectively designated by the same letters. (E A is the intersection of the planes E and A, &c.)

The angle made by E A and C D,

= 50°

E B and C D, = 45°

F A and C D, = 30°

F B and C D, = 40°

I ask, what angle the two planes E and F make?

T. A.

OLLA-FOR THE PORT FOLIO.

Accipe dum dolet---Strike while the iron's hot.

MR. OLDSCHOOL,

I HAVE often admired in Erasmus, that intimate knowledge of human nature, so frequently displayed in his works, a striking instance of which, is given us in his Naufragium. He there represents one of the passengers promising to present the virgin Mary with a wax-taper, as large as the mainmast of a ship, in case she would save his life; and being asked by one, who heard him, where he would get the wax, replied, "let me once get my foot on shore again, and she may look to that"-a picture, indeed, of ingratitude, too often found realized in life, by such as look for payment, when once the service is performed.

As a proper resentment of benefits,* is so seldom to be found among men, it is but doing justice to ourselves to guard against the want of it in others; which, as none more frequently experience than the gentlemen of the bar, and physicians, (however they may sometimes overrate the quiddam honorarium.) I shall, I trust, be excused when I transcribe, for their benefit, a few lines, Pately shown me by a friend, equally applicable to both:

Dum processus ventilatur,
Dum ægrotus ægrotatur,
Studeas accipere.

Nam processu ventilato,

Etæ groto relevato,

Nemo curat solovere.

Which I thus venture to translate.

Whilst the process is depending,
Or the patient slowly mending,

Be sure to claim your fees.

For if once the suit is over,

Or your patient should recover,

They'll pay you---when they please.

OF INSTINCT IN ANIMALS.

If there be no such thing as instinct in animals, (as some philosophers assert,) a monkey must be wiser than a man; otherwise

monsieur Vaillant need not have taken one with him, in his excursion from the cape. The philosopher, on that occasion, thought proper to have in his retinue, a cock, a cow, and an ape: the first to point out the hour of the morning when it was proper to rise; the second to supply him with milk; and, the last, to discover, by his art, any latent poisonous quality in the various vegetable productions, which might be met with on the way.

To suppose that animal instinct was not the means of this discovery, would certainly be attributing to the ape, a share of knowledge and sagacity, beyond the reach of man. It would, in fact, be endowing him with powers, to which reason cannot attain; and making Galen and Hippocrates children, compared to him. But memory alone, it may be said, will readily solve the problem. A French gentleman, in giving an account of a dog, who had followed his master from Pondicherry to B(a distance of some hundred miles) and losing him there, returned to the former place, remarks, it is an instance of memory, superior to any thing human; but what would he have said, had he known that a sucking pig, carried in a bag for miles, and crossing rivers in the way, will, if once let loose, return directly home? or, had he heard, as I have, from the best authority, that a horse put to pasture on a farm, and afterwards driven by his owner near sixty miles in a chair, with a blind-halter over his eyes, returned across the country, where he had never been before, to the pasture whence he was taken? Away with memory, then, unless you are willing to admit, that a pig has discovered the longitude, or that the horse knows more than his

master.

Art thou a spirit of health, or goblin damn'd!-HAMLET:

THE appearance of ghosts and hobgoblins has long since been doubted by the learned; and little but the voice of ignorance, can now be urged in its support. Brutus's evil genius, the duke of Buckingham's father, and the ghost of Samuel the prophet, are the principal instances in history, on which to ground the belief. The first may be readily accounted for, from the superstition of the times; and, when we recollect that Saul fell upon

his face, when told by the witch of Endor, that she had raised a prophet, we may reasonably doubt that he saw him.

I have heard of an Oxford student, who undertook to go in the night to the vault of a neighbouring church, and stick his penknife in the ground. He went, but staid so long, that his friends, taking the alarm, repaired together to the place; where they found him lying on the ground, to all appearance, lifeless. He had thrust the knife through his gown, and, turning about to retire, found himself checked, as he thought, by some invisible hand; the fright occasioned by which had thrown him into a swoon. Where I have met with this story, I cannot now recollect; though I will venture to say, that the following has not yet appeared in print.

A gentleman, in the Westindies, once laid a considerable bet, that he would watch all night, alone, in a church supposed to be haunted. He accordingly repaired thither, about midnight; and having obtained admission to the vestry-room, set himself quietly down, with two candles burning before him, and a pair of pistols on the table, calmly waiting the event. Not long, however, was he there, before he heard, (as he thought) the sound of human footsteps; when, taking a candle in one hand, and a loaded pistol in the other; and, proceeding along the ile, he was not a little alarmed with several notes from the organ, grating harshly on his ear. Determined, however, to persevere until he should discover the cause, he instantly mounted the staircase; and, coming at length to the organ, he found, to his great satisfaction, a favorite spaniel, who had followed him, running over the keys. R.

FOR THE PORT FOLIO. THE ADVERSARIA-NO. I.

THIS title was adopted some years ago by one of the correspondents of Conrad's Literary Magazine, as a suitable means of affording amusement to those who, like the lady that read Johnson's Dictionary, are fond of short sentences. The writer's pursuits as well as his taste, leading him from "grave to gayfrom lively to severe" his monthly lucubrations presented a

various scene where the idie were occasionally detained for a moment. In the genuine freedom of a magaziner he glanced at all subjects, though he utterly disclaimed the intention of discussing any. He thought, with the poet, that man wants but little here below, nor wants that little long: and as his friend, the editor of The Port Folio, has recently intimated to him a similar opinion, those readers whose curiosity is sometimes awa kened by the mysterious and noiseless tenor of an author's lifeand whose patience may induce them to tolerate an extract from one page and a remark on another-may be assured that he will be most uniformly desultory and laboriously idle, for their edification.

My lord Bacon very sagaciously observes in one of his profound books on natural history that "men drowsy do use to yawn and stretch." A few evenings ago I verily believe I was preserved from a dislocation of some of my limbs, while in the very act of reading one of Mr. Hayley's poetical effusions, by picking up a journal from Connecticut. My blood was not chilled by a story of a barbarous murder, nor my hair upraised by the legend of a "poor ghost." I read no soft tale of love, faithful, fond and warm, yet unrequited and deserted: I stopped not to hear the moans of a disconsolate mother for her impressed son: the prices of potash and pimento had no attractions for one who was without money, and a governor's speech or legisla tive resolution would have been more somniferous than the dullest of the dull rhymes that I had just escaped. But all my sympathies were excited by the following advertisement, which celebrates domestica facta which, we all know, occur in the most orderly families.

"Thomas Hutchings has advertised, that I have absented my. self from his bed and board, and forbid all persons trusting me on his account, and cautioned all persons against making me any payment on his account. I now advertize the public, that the same Thomas Hutchings came as a fortune-teller into this town, about a year ago, with recommendations which with some artful falsehoods, induced me to marry him. Of the four wives he had before me, the last he quarrelled away; how the other three came by their deaths, he can best inform the public; but I cau