Oet: 16: ficiently accurate for common purposes, which any of your readers may pofsefs, by setting the twelve following plants in a row in the order here set down, all of which are either indigenous or naturalized in Great Britain, and seven of them grow wild in Scotland, which I have distinguished by the letter (S.) before the hour indicated in the margin.-If the sketches given in these two letters excite your correspondents to treat the subjects hinted at, it will give pleasure to Imp. corps of Nobl Cadets in St. Pete fburg. December 1792.

A VEGETABLE GARDEN CLOCK WITH TWO VEGE TBLE BAROMETERS.

Hours

of As there are but ten of the Eqninoxial opening plants which open at stated hours, the two first on the following list, are taken from fbutting those which but at a given hour.

or

ARCTICUS.

Broad leafed ditto.
8 Narrow leafed ditto.

7

Smooth ditto.

9

Carolina mallow.

Linnean Names. Dianthus prolifer. Sonchus palustris.

Tragapogon pratense.
Leontodon autumnale.
Sonchus oleraceus.
Hypocharis maculata.
Hieracium

umbella

tum.

Hieracium sabaudum:
Hieracium auricula.
Hypocharis glabra.
Malva Caroliniana;

open at English Names.

S.

to Garden letuce.

Linnean Names.
Lactuca saliva.

11

[Alpin

Alpine bastard hawk
weed.

12 Blue flowered alpine. To this curious vegetable time piece, a couple of vegetable barometers may be added, which act upon similar principles, and are likewise sufficiently accurate for the gardener and farmer. The first barometer is the African mary-gold, or CALENDULA pluvialis. If the African mary-gold opens not its flowers in the morning about seven o'clock, you are sure to have rain that day, except it is to be accompanied with thunder.

The second barometer is the Siberian sow thistle, or SONCHUS Sibericus.

If the flowers of the Siberian thistle keep open all night, you are sure of rain next day.

Crepis alpina.
Sonchus alpinus.

TWO CURIOUS FACTS RESPECTING NATURAL HISTORY,

SIR.

To the Editor of the Bee,

1

Your OUR correspondent M. has mentioned a pretty curious phenomenon, in vol. 13 p. 286 of the Bee, which you have explained in the most satisfactory manner. I will beg leave to add a similar fact, to which, though I had it from the most undoubted authority, some years ago, I could not give the full afsent of my mind, till I read the above paper. It will serve, at least, to corroborate your opinion.

A knife found in the heart of a growing tree. Two men in Rofs-thire being employed, sawing some large fir trees, observed a long black streak in one of the planks, pretty near the center, where,

on examining into the cause, they found, to their no small surprise, a large knife inclosed, of a kind very much used in this country of old, which could not be accounted for, but in the manner you mention. It will no doubt, be urged as an objection to the truth of this, that, as iron is of a corrosive nature, the knife would have been consumed with rust, during the very long time it must have lain there; it was however, far from that, though a good deal rusted. I suppose it would have continued to rust, till the tree closed about it so as to exclude the air, but afterwards, that it would not consume any This however, is but a conjecture.

more.

A much more wonderful fact than the above (to me at least) fell under my own observation a few days ago, which I would willingly see inserted in the Bee, if you thought it might serve any good purpose; or, if there is any thing new to you in seeing

Muscles in the heart of solid stone.

A gentleman in one of the most northern parishes in this county having occasion to burn some lime, was carrying the lime stone from an adjacent island, in the sea, below flood mark. Upon breaking the stones, to prepare them for the kiln, they were found to contain several living muscles, some of them. about the size of French beans. I was on the spot, saw the phenomenon, but could not explain it. I need not mention the queries that would occur to a superficial naturalist, like myself, upon seeing the above. I have only further to add, that every muscle, at whatever distance it was from the sea, had a communication with it, by a very small hole quite through the stone. I am, Sir, Th. R. Sutherland, May, 93.

THOUGHTS SUGGESTED BY READING,

LINES ADDED BY MR HASTINGS TO MUKLE'S LUSIAD.

For the Bee.

IN the tenth book of the Lusiad of Camoens, the goddefs predicts to Gama the future conquest of the Portuguese in India. After detailing the heroic actions of Pacheco, the laments his fate in the following passage, to which Mr Hastings, continuing the predictions to his own times, added the succeeding lines, which are distinguished by inverted commas. The additional thoughts are marked with single com

mas.

The lofty song, for paleness o'er her spread,

The nymph suspends, and bows the languid head;
Her faultering words are breath'd in plaintive sighs.
Ah! Belisarius! injured chief, the cries,
Ah! wipe thy tears;-in war thy rival see,
Godlike Pacheco falls despoiled like, thee;
In him, in thee, difhonoured virtue bleeds,
And valour weeps to view her fairest deeds:
Weeps o'er Pacheco where forelorn he lies,
Deep in the dungeon's gloom, and friendlefs dies.

"Yet fhrink not, gallant Lusian, nor repine
"That man's eternal destiny is thine!

Where'er succefs th' adventrous chief befriends,
"Fell malice on his parting step attends;
"On Britain's candidates for fame await,
"As now on thee, the stern decrees of fate.
"Thus are ambition's fondest hopes o'erreach'd;
"One dies imprison'd,--and one lives impeach'd."

And, let ambition's hopes be thus repaid,
The kind philanthropist indignant said.
Ambition! cursed pest of human kind,
Whose cruel vot'ries, impotent and blind,
Still hope, through guilt, tranquillity to gain;
'But in its stead find only grief and pain.
'Vainly they try their guilty heads to hide

Amid the dazzling glare of pomp and pride;
'Stern nature still afserts her sov'reign sway,
'Nor dare they her dread pow'r to disobey.

VOL. XVII.

II

'As starting from their troubled couch they rise-
"Sce! see the struggling innocent! -it dies!"
'The mother who till now hung o'er her child
With anxious hope, and trembling fear,
Now rolls her eye with chilling horror wild,

And marks the horrid scene-without a tear
'Her husband's mangled corse pollutes the plain

Which by his toil was fertiliz'd in vain.
'Her all is

"Death bath murder'd sleep," they cry,
With frantic gesture, claring eye,

gone,

And fhe, poor helpless innocent is left alone.
Incapable of thought, a while he stands,
With drooping head and folded hands,
Then starting from her trance, the rapid flies,
And plunging in the deep indignant dies.

If such the scenes which recollection brings 'Dearly is bought the pomp and wealth of kings!" And though ambition's mignions this may GLORY call Shall JUSTICE fheath her sword, nor let it on the dazzling culprit fall.' TIMOTHY HAIRBRAIN.

THE DRUM.

I HATE that drum's discordant sound,
Parading round, and round, and round;
To thoughtlefs youth it pleasure yields,
And lures from cities and from fields,
To sell their liberty for charms

Of tawdry lace and glittering arms;
And when ambition's voice commands,

To march, and fight, and fall in foreign lands.

I hate that drum's discordant sound,
Parading round, and round, and round.
To me it talks of ravag'd plains,
And burning towns, and ruin'd swains,
And mangled limbs, and dying groans,
And widow's tears and orphan's moans;
And all that misery's hand bestows
To fill the catalogue of human woes.

THE WAY TO GROW RICH.
Two tradesmen, in converse, were striving to learn,
What means to make use of great riches to earn ;
A friend who sat near them advis'd with a smile,
"Live on half of your incomes, and live a long while.",