My words respecting the question of

minating silver, it was estimated by me periments of Capt. Manby and others put only in its relation to an improper use of the question far beyond a doubt. it by the unwary; to this all my views have tended, and it is illogical to judge the identity of Eau Medicinale and Colof a whole from a part; it is certainly chicum Autumnale are not presumptive, disingenuous to judge of it irrevelantly; "I am happy to corroborate in some small in a point of view, it is obvious, that it measure," &c. Mr. A. seems not aware was never intended to be regarded. that Mr. Want's experience proves that neither acts as a sedative; this was all I pointed to.

I presume not to "lord" over any one. It never could be my intention to dictate to the experienced chemist, who must be allowed to be well-versed in the sum of risk.

The analysis of vegetable matter is so equivocal, that I should be inclined to question the prudence of an implicit reliance on the results. The more subtle and essential parts, in which their virtues principally reside, are intangible, and escape detection.

Mr. Howard's fulminating silver is that adverted to by Mr. A.; and he names besides Chenevix's and Berthollet's; now, I allude to none of these, but to Brugnatelli's. I name this to I have no hesitation to inform Mr. A. show that I have been anticipated. that I do not experiment on the living It is well known, notwithstanding Mr. system; I leave such experiments to the A.'s fearless demeanor, that fulminating hardier feelings of a Brodie and a Masilver explodes on the slightest possible jendie.

I wave all further remarks on my Researches on Vegetable Poisons, which would be improper here. I have submitted a detail of them to the Linnean Society, and have received the testimonial of approbation from an enlightened character, and one capable of appreciating them. J. MURRAY. Kettering; June 19, 1815.

friction, or the gentlest increment of tem- If opium, applied to the sciatic nerves, perature. It frequently even fulminates suspend electrical stimuli, and if acetic on the chalkstone; the friction of a glass acid counteract the sedative effect, is it stopper on the neck of a phial including not a fair analogy that acetic acid is the it, has produced serious consequences. neutralizer of opium? Surely it cannot have escaped the recollection of your correspondent, that the dreadful explosion in Dublin (of the fulminating silver), whereby some lives were lost, was occasioned merely by the slight friction of the knife employed; this speaks volumes in my favor; sophistry can never disturb this evidence. Is it wise to glory in an escape, which is not the calm and dispassionate result of the judgment? Does it follow that, because we have escaped often from the danger, that an accident may not occur? Let it be remem-IN your publication of last month, Mr. bered that the pitcher may go often to J. Jennings has favoured your readers the fountain, but it at last returns broken with an extract of a letter from Marfrom the cistern. seilles, and added thereto his own observations on the nature of our climate.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

SIR,

Mr. A.'s experiment on the fulminating silver is liable to the same objec- Mr. Jennings states, "that, notwithtions which I have already advanced; it standing snow rarely lies long on the would be now quite superfluous to re- ground here, vegetation is not commonly peat them. The gunpowder and fulmi- so forward as it is in the same altitudes nating silver, it appears, were wrapped at a greater distance from the sea;" but, in paper, and struck on an anvil, and with without pretending to deny this position, a hammer too. Gunpowder will not ex- so far as it regards the coasts of the Brisplode in the flame of a candle; the paper tok or the St. George's channel, or on is first inflamed by the fulminating silver, the more eastern parts of the kingdom, I which is attended by a flash of light; the paper it is which communicates the igaited spark to the gunpowder. The ex

will venture to assert that the contrary effect is the case on the southern coasts of the counties of Cornwall and Devon,

but of the former in particular. Count try, and fish, and of the fruits, vegetables, Rumford was of opinion "that the ocean, and water, cannot be surpassed, and they always temperate at its surface, softens, are to be procured during the different on the sea-coast, the rigours of winter;" seasons at a moderate price. The only and, consequently, we might conclude objection I have ever heard advanced that vegetation must be much more for- against this pleasant place is its distance ward, and the air milder and more con- from the metropolis; but which, in fact, genial to the emaciated faculties of the in- is nothing when compared to the south valid, on our coasts, than at a distance of France, or to the celebrated cities of from the sea. The truth of the count's antiquity in Itaty. hypothesis is placed beyond a doubt along the western shores of Cornwall, where the mildness of the climate is proverbial; and the spring much earlier than in any other part of the kingdom. Many of the early kind of vegetables and fruits are sent annually from Penzance and its neighbourhood for the supply of other towns, several weeks before their own produce can be brought to market; this port, for instance, is regularly supplied with new potatoes from thence for a month, at least, previous to any being produced in this neighbourhood.

The charming and fashionable watering places in this county, as Sidmouth, Exmouth, Teynmouth, Torquay, Starcross, Dawlish, &c. are no less deserving of notice, and the justly extolled beauties of Devon, whether delightfully diversified in wood and water, or hill and valley, are all amply deserving the attention and admiration of the lovers of native grandeur and rural scenery.

Possessing these advantages within our grasp, advantages which equally apply to the valetudinarian, to the tourist, or to the philosopher, can there be any just cause for their being disregarded? And do our countrymen, who willingly quit their fire-sides, and the charms of their native country, for the idle vanity of visiting France, deserve any pity for the treatment they have lately experienced on the other side of the water?They have learnt wisdom, and I hope they will not fail to profit by it. Plymouth.

J. E. BLEWETT.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

SIR,

The mildness of the climate, the salubrity of the air, the romantic and picturesque scenery of the neighbourhood, particularly of St. Michael's Mount, the enchanting walks and pleasant rides near the town, together with the conveniency of sea-bathing, and many other local advantages, renders Penzance one of the most delighful spots for the residence of the invalid that can possibly be desired. The noble and expansive bosom of the Mount's Bay presents throughout the summer and autumnal months an animating and busy scene, by being covered HE theory of public morals seems THE with numerous boats, and other craft, in England to be ill understood. employed on the fisheries, for which this Thus, for example, it is often overlooked coast is so justly celebrated. To the that wars, to be JUST, ought to be NECESsportsman, the neighbourhood affords a SARY: and, to be NECESSARY, can only fund of amusement by the abundance of be waged in SELF-DEFENCE. It is equally game and fish with which it abounds. lost sight of, that GLORY cannot be acTo the florist, the stores of Flora present quired in UNJUST WARS, and that, before gifts in profusion. To the pedestrian, the glory is ascribed to victors, it is needful rural and umbrageous walks of Alverton, to examine the previous question, whether or the grassy sand-bands from Marasion their cause was JUST, and whether the to Newlyn, furnishes an ample treat.- war in which they were engaged was And to the man of science the Geological NECESSARY or in SELF-DEFENCE; for, Society, recently formed there by the WITHOUT JUSTICE, THERE CAN BE NO learned, scientific, and indefatigable Dr. GLORY. Would it not tend to rescue us Paris, (of which society his royal highness from VULGAR ERRORS on such important the Prince Regent is, I believe, the pat- points, if all graduates were examined ron) affords an opportunity of devoting on questions of public law at our Unihis leisure hours to this delightful study. versities? PHILO-VERITATIS. The excellency of the meat, the poul

IT

SIR,

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. wrought on the shore, south of the mouth of the Brora river, by Jane Countess of [T will be recollected by many of Sutherland, in the reign of Queen Elizayour readers, that the doom of the beth, in 1598, and where she erected saltmany unfortunate colliers who perished works*; also, that, in 1614, John the in Felling-colliery, south-east of Newcas- fifth earl of Sutherland, the son of the tle, in 1812, (vol. 35, p. 649,) was sup- above countess, re-opened these pits. posed by many on the spot to be sealed, In the early parts of the last century by the necessity which existed, of closely the Earls of Sutherland prosecuted the covering over all the pits of that colliery, Inver-Brora coal-works, and tradition soon after the fire-damp explosion hap- points out one of the pits of this period, pened, in consequence of the same hav- in Shean park, in which fifteen men lost ing set fire to the loose coals in some their lives at the same time, by the falling parts of the works, and which fire there in of the roof of the pit! seemed no other immediate mode of extin- About the year 1764 the workings of the guishing. This is not a very uncommon Inver-Brora coal was again resumed by calamity, following the gazeous explosions Mr. John Williams, the since well-known in coal-works. On inquiry in the proper author of " The Mineral Kingdom," unquarters, I have been informed that the der a lease from the late Earl of Suburning of some refuse coal at the coal-pit therland; and at the same time Messrs. at Brora, in Sutherland, in the north of Robertson and Mackenzie, of Portsea, Scotland, which happened last summer, erected new salt-works there, under a of which mention is made, in an anony- lease from the earl, and Mr. Williams mous paragraph, in p. 448 of your last contracted to supply them with coals, at volume, did not happen through any pe- a stipulated price per ton. culiar property of these coals, occasioning their spontaneous combustion, as is there asserted; but happened, not on the pithill, as any one reading this loose and extraordinary notice might have supposed, but below in the works; and is said by my correspondent to have been solely occasioned by the neglect of preserving proper air-gates therein, as I will mention below, by which inflammable gas was accumulated, although the same is evolved in very small quantities only, in these works; and the accidental firing of this gas set the gob, or waste coals and rubbish, on fire, which had been improperly left in loose heaps in the works; but which fire was very soon extinguished, and the works soon after resumed, instead of their remaining shut up six or seven months after the event, "partly on account of this peculiar property of the coal," that is, of spontaneous deflagration, as is there asserted.

The coal-seam then in work was 3 feet 8 inches thick, in two beds, of a good quality of coal, but having between them an 8-inch black pyritic dirt-bed: it appears however, from the information of Major Hugh Houston, of Clyne-house, who when young assisted Mr. Williams, and has preserved many papers and documents, to which he kindly allowed me access, that Mr. W.'s practical knowledge of collierying was then very scanty, (although in twenty years afterwards he acquired so much knowledge and reputation in this art,) so much so, as not to discover the mischief of cutting down this pyritic dirt among the coals, which

* It furnishes a curious proof of the progressive rise of the Sea, of which I have had similar proofs on every coast of Britain, that the remaining walls of this old salt-house are washed now to a considerable height by the ordinary tides, which mostly flow higher than the tops of the fire-places, which are still visible, on which the salt-pans stood, and the tops of the coal-pit hillocks, that were made at this period, are most of them since covered by the shire, in North Wales, the pits sunk about the sea-beach! On the shore at Mostyn, in Flintyear 1640, in which the fire-damp explosions happened, which are recorded in the Phil. wheel and chain-pumps were used, that were Transactions, No. 136, and where the waterdrawn in 1684, and have been since engraved in Mr. Pennant's" Account of Holywell and Whitford," have now long had their tops covered by almost every tide?

MON. MAG. No. 272.

also the smallness of his coal-rooms and liams, until January 1776, when Mr. mode of working rendered exceedingly William Beaumont, a coal viewer from broken and small: nor did he discover Lime-kilns in Fifeshire, being employ(as will appear from his Min. King. 2d ed to examine and report on these coaledit. vol. ii. p. 32,) that this dirt, among works, first pointed out the defects of the broken coa, occasioned the sponta- management that have been mentioned neous firing of a large heap ofthese small above. In consequence of which, larger mixed coals on the pit-hill at Inver- rooms were adopted in working the coal, Brora, or the firing of a cargo of them at and a very careful separation of the pysea, in a vessel which was conveying ritic dirt-bed was made, as Mr. Beauthem to Portsea. mont had recommended; and thereupon These defects of management, occa- the coals proved free from sulphur in the sioned Mr. Williams' sale of coals to fall burning, or of any other defect, as the off, except to the salt company, (whose very ready sale of several cargoes of them pans and grate-bars were rapidly wasted at Inverness and Aberdeen, when subby the use of these foul coals,) and his sequently sent there by Mr. Houston affairs to become embarrassed; and, be- (as the produce of a new seam) fully ing also threatened by the kirk officers, proved; and which account of the quaon account of a natural child which was lity of this seam was confirmed to me by born to him (who was still living near the colliers at work at Brora in 1812, Brora, in 1812,) he gave up his coal who, in the previous year had opened lease and works to the salt company, and the Inver-Brora coal-seam on the shore, in the year 1769 removed to East Lo- and raised and burnt this coal for some thian, where the foundations of his well- time in their houses, and which, when deserved fame as a writer on coal-works divested of the middle dirt, proved sweet was laid, and his work compiled. and of good quality.

Mr. Houston succeeded to the ma- The Salt Company would now have nagement of the Inver-Brora coal-works, put down a steam-engine, and entered for the salt company, merely pursuing on a spirited working of this coal-seam, the system he had seen under Mr. Wil- of which a considerable space remains It seems to have been this circumstance, yet unwrought; but their lease being too of near 50 years standing, which has been re- near expiring, and the tutors of the previved,mixed up, and confounded with other recent events at Brora coal-pit, half-a-mile dis- sent Countess of Sutherland being unatant from this spot, and on a quite different ble, in her minority, to grant a new one seam of coal, by the writer of the paragraph of sufficient length, they soon after relinin page 448; who errs also, in supposing it to be peculiar to the Brora coal, or rather to its quished the concern altogether; and the accompanying dirt-bed, to fire spontaneously, colliery at Inver-Brora has since lain unsince Mr. Williams mentions another instance at Ayr, in Scotland; and, at Heanor, Ripley, wrought. Denby-hall, Donisthorp, and other collieries When the Marquis of Stafford and the in Derbyshire, a thin dirt-bed, swells and heats Countess of Sutherland, his lady, entered on access of the air, and actually fires the loose waste coals, if mixed with them, as I on their spirited and general system of have mentioned in my Report on that County, improvements on this fine, but hitherto vol. i, page 318; wherein I have also mentioned the probability, that the serious evil so well neglected county, Mr. William Hughes, known in the vicinity of Dudley, in Stafford- a coal-viewer from Flintshire, fixed on a shire, of the waste small coals in the hollows spot higher up the river, where advanof the thick coal hollows, taking fire after sev eral months, if the external air be not sooner tage might be taken of its fall, to turn excluded, is owing to some distinct bed of dirt wheels for pumping and drawing the between the coals, that might be found and coals, if found; and which, on boring separated, and remove this evil, that occasions the waste of so many coals. At Lasalla, Fon- there, were found, in a new double seam, taines, and other places in the Aubin coal- of excellent quality, at 79 yards deep; field, in the department of Aveyron in France; the upper bed being 34 feet, and the the same thing happens; (see Nicholson's Journal, vol. 29, p. 352.) On Cefn-mawr lower 14 feet thick, separated by 2 feet colliery pit-hill, in Ruabon in Denbighshire, a of black clunch, and dipping 1 in 43 large heap of mixed dirty coals, intended for

lime-burning, took fire, after the rain of a to the south-east; several tons of which thunder-storm in hot weather, in 1809; and coals had been raised previous to my other instances might be quoted, but none, I examining Brora, and were daily burned at Dunrobbin Castle, while I was there,

think, that would shew that coals themselves, in any instance, take fire spontaneously.

and gave great satisfaction to every one, from their quality in burning; but I was deprived of the advantage of inspecting the seam myself, by the pits then standing full of water, until the water-wheels and pumps should be finished.

Although the vast beds of gravel and blocks of stone scattered on this coast, and peat-lakes on these, rendered the field very difficult of investigation, yet it appeared from my survey, pretty clearly I think, that there is another workable seam of coals, between that so long worked at Inver-Brora and this Brora seam, and several thin ones below this; furnishing altogether a body of coal for ages of pretty extensive workings, or for centuries of supply to this county and its vicinity.

sequence have been met with, only a few trifling ones, or slips, which derange the coal but a few inches.

From this colliery a rail-way has been laid, by the side of the river Brora, to the shipping-place at its mouth; and ere this, the shipment at Portsea, Inverness, Aberdeen, &c. and to nearer places on the coast, has, I expect, commenced.

Two salt-pans had been some time erected for evaporating the sea-water, and two others were erecting, in conse quence of the success that promised to attend this manufacture. A Staffordshire brick and tile maker had settled at Brora, and was successfully employed; and plenty of clay, found adapted to the making of stone-ware, on trial by Mr. Spode, of Stoke, in the Staffordshire potteries, I will only further mention a few other being discovered, trials were making, to particulars of the Brora coal-works, &c. get some Scotch potter to settle at Brora. which have been communicated to me, In addition to the many pleasing inby letters, since I returned from Suther- stances of important Improvements lately land. It does not appear that Mr. introduced in this distant county, which, Hughes, who has been mentioned, was retaining still all the abuses arising out again consulted, after the Brora pits had of its former feudal state, required new been sunk, by an overseer and men from settling, as it were, when the Marquis Denbighshire, whom he brought there; and Lady Stafford, and Earl Gower, their but the entire management of the con- son, commenced their patriotic exertions, cern was entrusted to them, until the which are detailed in the Appendix to spring of 1814, when, it being seen that Capt. Henderson's Agricultural Report, they were unequal to the task, they were and from the inspection of which imchanged for another overseer and men, provements, of almost every kind known engaged in the coal-field of the Forth in England, I derived so high a satisfacand Clyde; it was, however, soon found tion while in Sutherland. I have learnt that these men managed with even still that a company had engaged with the less skill or propriety than their prede marquis for erecting a tan-work on a cessors, "the levels had been lost, no air- considerable scale at Golspie, with an exroads cut, the face of the coal irregularly tensive piggery, and house for slaughtercarried forwards, and the gob thrown ing and curing pork, and perhaps beef, against it, and part of it permitted to get for exportation to the ports of Inverness, on fire," &c. Aberdeen, &c. as one of the means beWhereupon, the marquis sent down come necessary, for vending the surplus Mr. John German, a coal overseer or of corn and improved live stock, which bailiff, from his Staffordshire collieries, this south-eastern coast of the county beand a gang of men who had been used gan to yield, Instead of having nothing to work under him, who are now settled to spare but a few half-starved cattle, at Brora, and are successfully prose- bred on the mountains in the interior. cuting the works; the level-gates have JOHN FAREY, sen. been cleared and perfected for about 100 12, Upper Crown-street, Westminster. yards south-west and north-east, and rail-ways or rolly-ways laid in them; For the Monthly Magazine. air-gates have been driven about the PARTICULARS of the HOLSTEIN CANAL. same distance up the rise, and two new HE passage through the Sound is pits are now sinking; the roof has proved now of less importance since the very sound and good, and the coal easily construction of the Holstein canal, which parts from it. No faults of the least con- joins the Baltic to the German ocean.

THE