Italy, where they are found in the hardest stones, but most commonly in marble, which is broken with large hammers to come at the fih, which is reckoned a great delicacy. It would not suit your miscellany to enter more at large into the history of this curious fish; I shall therefore, only farther observe that I have often found stones that had been preforated by pholades, deprived of their first inhabitant, whose place was supplied by other shell fish, such as oysters, muscles, &c. probably forced from their native beds by storms, when very young, and by a heaswell of the sea driven into the deserted habitation of the pholas, where they continue to encrease in size till they completely fill the original excavation. The pholas is also described by Rondelet lib. I. p. 49. Lister hist. anim. Angliæ, p. 172. Aldrovandus de testaceis lib. 3. Auctarium Balfouriani cc. By the by mentioning this last author brings to my remembrance what Mr D'Argenville says when giving a history of the most famous cabinets of nat. hist. in Europe, which you fhall have in his own words.

vy

"Le fameux cabinet d'André Balfourianus me decin, se voit dans la bibliotheque publique de la ville d'Edinbourg capitale d'Ecofse; c'est une composé de tout ce qu'on peut voir de plus rare en chaque genre, á en juger par le livre imprimé que nous en avons, sur tout depuis qu'on y a joint le cabinet de Robert Sibbaldus medecin, qui en a fait present á la ville, à condition de le rendre publique."

Can you tell, Mr Editor, where this famous collection is now kept; I fhould like to have a peep at it.

Z.

By inserting the following ode in the Bee, you will oblige your most obedient servant,

ODE TO AURORA.

FAIR Smiling goddess of the dawn,
That o'er the dew-bespangled lawn
Serenely beam'st with rosy eye,
All beauteous in the dappled sky;
Soon as thou cheer'st the mountain's height,
Purpling afar the orient wave,
Abafh'd the sable power of night

Shoots with increasing speed to dark Cimmerian cave:

Lo, startled by thy hostile beam,
Night's terrors fly the heavenly gleam;
And fire eyed forms and spectres pale
Flock fearful to the cavern'd dale.
So when fair science beams along,
The gloom of ignorance profound,
Aghast withdraws her blackening throng;

And beauty, order, truth, triumphant smile around.

Dimm'd by thy roseate lustre, fly

The nightly squadrons of the fky;

Save when the radiant queen of love *
Displays her emulous gem above:
Anon the thines with peerless light,
The brilliant harbinger of day,
Till streaming glorious on the sight,
Bursts from the golden wave Hyperion's flaming ray.

Wak'd by thy smile creative, glows
The landscape vivid as the rose :
The fields their goodliest tints unveil,
And fragrance floats upon the gale.
To thee the woodland pours its strains:
Mid solitude's enchanting sway

The lark, the songster of the plains,

Mounts from her lowly nest, and trills her matin lay.

Pleas'd the industrious peasant eyes

Thy plush, and to his labour hies;
Thou, murderous slumber dost controul,

And wak'st the vigour of the soul.

A. A.

*Venus, sometimes the morning, and sometimes the evening star. About the time of her greatest elongation from the sun, she is so bright as to continue visible, when to the west of him, till he rise; and to a sharp eye even when he is far above the horizon.

On sleep-chain'd health thou steal'st amain:

But slowly fhines thy lingering ray

To him, that on the bed of pain

At even laments the night, at morn bewails the day.

And slow's thy welcome to the wight
That hapless toils the tedious night
Tempestuous through the wintry wild,
Where horror roams, Gorgonian child:
And to the storm tofs'd wretch, forlorn
Amidst the darksome ocean's roar,
Who, by the boisterous waters born,
Dreads the unpitying strand, or rude basaltic shore.
Long, long in Thetis' caverns lost,
Thou quitt'st Lapponia's guilelets * coast,
And Nova Zerabla's icy plains,

Or where the Obyt sleeps in chains:
Long mourns in Greenland's snow-clad cave
The Troglodyte thine absence drear;

Till o'er th' illumin'd arctic wave

Thy saffron robe he spies, and hails the vernal year.

When Chaos' held his throne of old
Where frightful desolation scowl'd,
And o'er the monstrous waste profound
Night brooded horrible around;
Thy cheering light, full sweet, I ween,
Upspringing broke the midnight gloom;

And o'er creation's varied scene

Dispers'd its orient hues, and bade all nature bloom.

And sweet thy face, when first it glow'd
On Eden's heavenly prime, and sow'd
With glittering pearls the garnish'd ground,
And balmy odours breath'd around;
Or sweeter still, with pure delight

When soft eyed cherubs hail'd thy ray;

And, spoiling death, the lord of might

Victorious burst the tomb, and sought the realms of day.

Well may the muse, with rapturous voice,

In thy transporting charms rejoice:

Oft from Parnafsus' flowery swell,

Enchanted as by magic spell,

She views thy kindling form divine
Disporting in the eastern sky;
And borrows oft, to grace her line,

The roses of thy cheek, and radiance of thine eye.

Peterhead, May, 1793.

A. A ‡.

* Concerning the blest innocence of the Laplanders, see Linnæus's preface to his Flora Lapponica.

A river of Siberia.

The farther cerrespondence of this writer will prove very acptable.

MEMORIAL of the Earl of Galloway and others, to the Right Honourable the Lords Commissioners of His Majesty's Treasury, dated London April 15. 1783.

SHEWETH, That attempts have been lately made in Scotland, to salt beef and pork to a considerable extent, both for use of fhips in their voyages, and for exportation to foreign markets: And if reasonable encouragement is held out to such as may think proper to carry on this branch of trade in Great Britain, it might in time prove very beneficial both to the landed and commercial interests thereof; because the farmers and graziers would then have stronger inducements to raise and fatten cattle and hogs, when they could at all times find a good and ready market for them; and the merchant would not always be under the necefsity of either importing these articles from Ireland, or sending his fhips to that kingdom, not only for a supply to his correspondents abroad, but also for the very provisions requisite for the use of his hip during her voyage. Nevertheless, as the laws stand at present relative to the duties upon salt, and to the drawbacks upon the 'exportation of salted provisions, it appears absolutely impracticable, that any attempts made in Great Britain to cure beef and pork for exportation, or for the use of fhips during their voyage, can be attended with success to those who may engage in such a business. And, if such is the fact, which will appear by the following observations, it is equally impofsible, that the farmer or grazier can have sufficient encouragement to raise and fatten cattle and hogs, because he would not find a ready market for them, fhould he increase his present quantity to any considerable extent.

શ્રે

That, either owing to inattention, or some other cause, Scotland, as the laws stand at present, is not even upon a footing with England in the article of curing beef and pork for exportation, in two very efsential points, viz. 1. That in England, the drawback of five fhillings per barrel is received upon the exportation of a barrel containing 32 gallons of well cured beef or pork, whether it is cured with Eg1th or foreign salt separately, or with a mixture of each; whereas in Scotland, no such drawback, or any drawback whatever indeed, is allowed upon such a barrel, unless cured with foreign salt alone; nay, what is more remarkable, no beef or pork cured with a mixture of salt, can, as the law at present stands, be exported from Scotland, even without the bounty or drawback, and even although the Scots salt used therein has paid the equalizing duty with England. It is true, the commifsioners of the customs, upon application, generally permit such to be exported; but they never, and it is presumed cannot allow the drawback of five fhillings per barrel on the exportation of provisions so cured with a mixture of salts. Now, this hardship will appear particularly distressing to Scotland, when it is considered, that in order to cure beef and pork properly to stand a warm climate, it is essentially necefsary that it should be first rubbed with small or home made salt, as is the universal practice in Ireland, and lie in the pickle thereof from ten to twenty days, in order to draw off the blood and other superfluous juices, which is called pining; for, if great or foreign salt was used in this part of the process, the juices of the provisions would be so much exhausted by the strength thereof, and they would thereby become so dry and hard, that they would be unfit almost for use, at least for sale in a well supplied market. After being so rubbed. and pined with small salt, the provisions are taken out of