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IN ADVANCE,
. LITERATURE. |
. © Boetey.
. LINES ON STONEBYRE’S FALL.
1} [This sublime snd picturesque cataract is upwards of eighty feet in height, an’
{+ thousands of salmon here congregate: but nature has
and strug;
» ; Jedgold. Hore they deposit their spawn in the streams below, where thousands
are caught by the young anglers and others during the spring season. ‘The
parr are caught at all seasons (whether they are of the salmon tribe or not we
shall not pretend to deterinine,) we have filled our basket frequently with sal.
1, mon fry in the Severn, that washes the walls of Shrewsbury, but never once re,
co) menther seeing any in this stream,’ The 10cks on each side of the Clyde seem
>! a0 if riven by wome tromendous force, as they eppear to fit each other were they
tu be closed ; that iz, on the one side there is a projection, on the other a cor-
++ responding cavity.) . a
4
“4
-. . From age to age still pours the foaming flood,
. : ‘To wondrous thousands that have, musing stood;
o ‘The sage and poct here bave gathered lore “
From nature’s hand that flings her silver store
From rocky mounds, the caves, and shelving stones,
Where sits the hawk to rear her little ones:
Here hanging woods and rocks still meet the eye,
: -', * A frightful yet romantic canopy; oT
>. ° * ? Yon frowning crag, where clasping ivies twine,
“ . Still dares the surge below to undermine.
a Perchance yon cave may hold the shade of one
. Who from ihese rocks his.guilty self has thrown;
° His ghost an echo that shall never slecp,
But doom’d to moan within yon hoary keep.
. - ‘This may or not—the rocky caverns groan;, 9 - + *
Still wailing sounds come furth from mouths of stone ;
Beneath the waters leap in sheeted foam,
:, And o’er the cauldron form a misty dome:
. Here winds of old held revels in the night,
And fairies gambol'd neath the moon’s pale light :
F’en water wraiths have sbriek’d with doleful din,
‘ Jn olden times they haunted round the Linn.
: *Mong yondcr rocks our sircs have hid of yore,
a When Eév. .ic’s banners wav'd on Clutha’s shore :
° Here Wallace trod, and marshalled in the night
- jlis veteran spearsmen eager for the fight;
os ’ Until exhausted flounders on his side ;
. "Phen down he sinks, to rest himself secure,
Beneath a stone that mocks the angler’s lure;
Here wends the sportsman with his angle bent,
: From rock to rock, until the salmon’s spent 5
: ’ ‘And wearicd out, then drags his prize on shore,
' With beating heart to smile and turn it oer;
. . Again he throws the line—another springs, .
: ‘Then from the recl harmonious music rings.
. ‘The trout and parr are tenants of the Linn,
. , And samlets here their watery course begin; .
, o Here have I angled on the summer eve,
**\ When scented blossosms round the cauldron wave
Jn all the beauty of the fairest sheen, . .
While rocks were hid beneath the foliage green. ,
> - * Sweet classic stream, I love thy siren bowers,
{ -Thy waterfalls, thy crags, and woodland flowers,
~~ 3° Eternal rocks around me—let me bend
The knee to Him who form’d and big you rend;
Yes, let me kneel; He grasps the mihty whol
Breath’d on the hills—they burst asunder wide, 2
_ And through the chasm downward hurd the Clyde. |
° 4 meee ° Feo
NEW-YORK, SAT
a
, faJJs in three distinct leaps. In the gulf or basin, during the spawning season,
formed an insuperable
barrier to their progress, and engraven on the everlasting rocks, “ Here must
- s.» you abide or downward roam.”” There they may be occasionally seen leaping
ggling to get over the barrier ; and when the evening's suu is shedding
‘his setting rays togild the cauldron, a more poetic scene can scarcely be ima-
gined, as they appear for the moment in the air, their scales shuing like spang-’
: {Ife weigh’d yon rocks and made the'cataract roll; wo ‘
‘ Cales and Sketches.
‘ M°CULLOCH, THE MECHANICIAN.
Inthe Scots Magazine for May 1789, there is a report by
Captain Philip ¢’Anvergne, of the Narcissus frigate, on the prac-
tical utility of Kenneth M’Culloch’s sea compasses. The cap-
tain, after aneighteen months’ trial of their merits, compared
with those of all the other kinds in use at the time, deseribes
them as immensely superior, and earnestly recommends. to the.
admirably their general intreduction into-the navy. - In’ passing
on one occasion, through the Race of Alderney, in the winter of
1787, there broke out a frightful storm, and so violent was the
opposition of the wind and tide, that while his vessel was sailing
at the rate of eleven miles on the surface, she was making scarce
any headway by the land. ‘fhe sea rose tremendously—at once
short, high, and irregular; and the motions of the vessel were so
fearfully abrupt: and violent, that’sear’sta seaman aboard could
stand on deck.’ At a time so critical, when none of the compas.
ses supplied froin his majesty’s stores would stand, but vacillated
more than three points on each side of the pole, “ it commanded,”
says the cuptain, “the admiration of the whole crew, winning
the confidence of even the most timerous, to sce how quickly and
teadily M’Calloch’s stecring compass recovered the vacillations
communicated to it by the motion ‘of the ship, and the shocks of
the sea, and how truly, in every brief interval of rest, it pointed
to the pole.” It is further added, that on the captain's recom-
mendation these compasses were tried on board the Andromeda,
commanded at the time by Prince William Henry, our late king,
and so satisfied was the prince of the utility of the invention; that
he too became a strenuous advocate for their gencral introduction,
and testified his regard for the ingenious inventor by appointing
‘| him his compass-maker.’ “M’Culloch, however, did not long sur.
vive the honor, dying a few years after, and we have been unable
to trace with any degree “of certainty the further history of his
improved compasses. But though only imperfectly informed re-
garding his various mventions,—and they are said to have been
many and singularly practical—we are tolerably well acquainted
with the story of his early life; and as it furnishes a striking il-
lustration of that instinct of genius, if we ay so express our-
selves, which leads the possessor to exactly the place in which
his services may be of most value to the community, by render.
ing him uscless and unhappy in every other, we think we cannot
do better than communicate it to the reader... .
‘There stood, about forty years ago, on the northern side of the
parish of Cromarty, an old farm-housc—one: of those low, long,
dark-looking erections of turf and stone, which still survive in the
remoter districts of Scotland, as if to show how littlé man may
soructimes improve, in even a civilized country, on the first rude
shelter which his necessities owed to his ingenuity. ‘Such was
the farm-house of Woodside, in which Kenneth MCulloch, the
son of the farmer was born some time in the early half of the last
century. The family from which he sprang—a race of honest,
plodding tenants—had held the place. from the proprietor of
Cromarty for more than a hundred years before, and it: was
deemed quite a matter of course that Kenneth, the eldest son,
should succced his father, in the farm. Never was there a time,
in at least this part of the country, in whicb agriculture stood
more {in need of the ‘services of original fand inventive minds
There was not a wheeled cart in the parish, nor a plough con.
structed on. the modern priniciple. There’ was no changing of
+} seed to suit the varieties of soil, no “green eropping,’ no rotatory
‘system of production ; and it scemed asif the main object of the
Sarmer had becr tg raise the least possible amount’ of grain at the
~ > ‘ ay OMe ws,
RDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 1840.
WEaBkaY «QuURRaAR,
of Scottish Kutelligence anv Biterature throughout the United States and Canada.
NO. 41.
OFFICE,
foswurre-st }
greatest possible expense of labor. ‘There was the single-stilted
plough, that did little more than scrateh the surface; the wooden
toothed harrow, that did hardly so much; the cumbrous sledge
—no inconsiderable load of itself—for carrying home the corn in
arvest ; and the basket-woven conical cart, with its rollers of
wood, for bearing out the manure in spring. And yet, now that
singularly inventive mind had come into existence on this very
farm, and though its attentions had been directed, as far as ex-
ternal influence could direct them, to the various emplyments of
the farmer, the interests of husbandry were to be in no degree
umproved by the circumstance, Nature in the midst of her wis-
dom, seems to cherish a dash of the eccentric. The ingenuity of
the farmer’s son was to be employed, not in facilitating the labors
of the farmer, but in inventing binnacle lamps, which would yield
an undiminished light amidst the agitations of a tempest, and in
constructing mariners’ compasses on a new principle.
Kenneth’s first employment was the tending of a flock of sheep,
the property of his father, anc Wivtegedis Wid he. acquit himself
of the charge. .-The farm’ is bounded ‘on the eastern ‘side by a
deep bosky ravine, through the bottom of which 4 scanty runnel
rather trickles than flows; and when it was discovered on any «
occasion that Kenneth’s flock had been left to take care of them-
sclyes, and of hie father’s corn to boot—and such oceasions were
wofully frequent—Kenneth himself was almost. invariably to be
found in this ravine. He would sit for hours among the bushes
engaged with his knife in carving uncouth faces on the heads of
walking.sticks, or in constructing little water mills, or in making
Liliputian puraps of the dried stalks of the larger hemlock, and
in raising the waters of the runnel to basins dug in the sides of
the hollow. .. Sometimes he quitted his charge altogether, and set
out fora meal-mill about a quarter of a. mile from the farm,
where he would linger for half a day at a time, watching the
motion of the wheels. His father’ complained that he could
make nothing of him. “The boy,” he said, “seemed to have
nearly as much sense as other boys of his years, and yet, for any
one useful purpose, he was nothing better than an idiot.”. . Ilis
mother, who was an easy, kind-hearted woman, had better hopes
ofhim, Kenneth, she affirmed, was only a little peculiar, and
would turn out well after all. He was growing up, however,
without improving in the slightest, and when he became tall
enough for the plough, he made a dead stand. He would go and
bo a tradesman, he said,—a mason, or smith, or house-carpenter
any thing his friends chose to made him; but a farmer he would
not be. His father, after a fruitless struggle to overcome his ob.
stinacy, carried him with him to ‘an acquaintance in Cromarty,
an ingenuous cabinet-maker, named Donald Sand.son; and after
candidly confessing that he was of no’ manner of use at home,
and would, he was afraid, be of little use any where; he bound
him by indenture to the mechanic for four years, “***’ © .
Kenneth's new master was one of the best workmen at his pro-
fession in the north of Scotland. He was an intelligent man,
too, as well as a superior mechanic, With all his general intelli.
gence, however, and all his shill, he failed to discover the latent
capabilities of his apprentice. . Kenneth was dull and absent, and
had no heart to his work ; and though he seemed to understaiid
the principles on which his master’s various tools were used, and
the articles of his trado constructed, as well as at least any work.
man jn the shop. An old botching carpenter who wrought ima
little shop at the other end of the town, was known to the boys
of the place by the humorous appellation of “ Spul-(or spoil) the-
wood,” and Kenneth came to be regarded 2s @ sort of accond of
the samo name—as a fashioner.of rickctty tables, ill-Gtted draw.
ers, and chairs,’ that, when sat upon, croaked like badly-tuned
organs, Such, in ghort, were his deficiencies‘as amechanic, tha
jm the third’ year of-his apprenticeship his ‘master avdised hia
se ec ane
epmmencnnteen nen)