naturally create, to take the lead in all great national objects to the north of the Tweed, and not leave them in the hands of political adventurers, whose greatest merit is what you call the gift of the gab, and who only take up such affairs in hopes that the landed and burgh interests in Scotland will defeat the application, to teize and distress government; not caring a farthing, or I am much mistaken, if you should all be obliged to live on what Johnson has learnedly discovered in his dictionary to be food for men in Scotland, and for horses in Engiand.

But to return to Mr Swagin's causes of want of success in the White Sea fishery, the last he states, and which led me into this long digrefsion, arises from the article salt, but not from old impolitic regulations respecting it, but a real deficiency in that necefsary and indispensible ingredient, which you certainly cannot complain of, surrounded as you are by the sea, more salt than that at Archangel. He gives the following little history of the different kinds of it used in the White Sea.

Whilst government kept the fishery, Spanish salt was used; and the company had no other.

In 1780 government imported a cargo of British salt, which lasted eleven years, or till 1791, so that we can guess at the extent of the trade; and since that is done, Rufsian salt is their only resource, which unfortunately is so scarce, that they have not permifsion to carry it out to salt their fish at sea; nay even on land, that necefsary operation feels the want of that abundance which would make it flourish if plentiful; although he thinks the her rings of the White Sea not so good as those caught by the Dutch on the coast of the island of Great Britain, partaking in some measure of the fat of that pampered country.

He pretends not to state the quantity cured by other adventurers in the fishery, but mentions his own at 120 small barrels yearly, which he makes of oak and larch.

On the economical uses of the helianthus annuus, or sun flower.

The seeds afford a good eatable oil; the stalks potash when burned. like those of Turkish corn. From the large quantity of pith obtaining in the stalks, paper may be made.

The young stalks are eat at Frankford on the Main as greens; and the old used as fire wood.

Lastly, the stalks when broken by the wind, will unite again if tied up *.

On the sesamum orientale.

All that I shall extract from this paper, as the plant will not answer in your climate, is that its seeds afford a salad oil equal to what is drawn from olives, in the large proportion of one half pound from two pounds of seed. This I only give as a matter of curiosity, although it may be useful in our colonies; but I have, and shall be more full, on all such hardy plants, as promise to be of use to Great Britain, for which you know my attachment, and contempt for all innovators who would trouble its peace, if the good sense of the nation did not keep them in awe.

I send you some very fresh seed just obtained from the Boucharian Tartars, of the sesamum orientale, which

*This plant has been recommended to the notice of the farmers in France some years ago, in the memoirs of the Society of Agriculture Paris, for nearly the same purposes as are mentioned here. It is à strong growing plant, but does not ripen its seeds soon enough to admit of being cultivated with any prospect of profit in Scotland or suppose in any part of Great Britain. Edit.

you may boldly send to the colonies, if you think it worth while, properly put up, without much fear of their being spoiled even by a long voyage, as you will probably think with me when you have read the following note on the incorruptibility, if I may use the exprefsion, of the singular species of oil contained in them. However, I should suppose that oily seeds fhould be best kept during such a voyage, fhut up in a glafs phial, well corked, waxed, and covered with bladder, so as to avoid as much as possible the rancidity of the oil, in spite of all I am going to relate of its powers to resist it.

First, we had information to day from Astrachan, that although the oil of the sesamum orientale, (several fine samples of which were shown in the society,) is brought to that city in bladders, and carried through all the other hot provinces, on very long journies, by the Boucha rian Tartars, who sell it; yet it always comes sweet and good; a singular quality in oil as said above, worth the attention of both the public and philosopher; as it offers to the first, a valuable article of food and commerce, and to the second, some new principle, or combination worth inquiring into. Whilst I think as hinted above, that it promises an uncommon power in the seeds to resist putrefaction, as they contain a fifth part of their bulk of that antiseptic oil, which appears a sort of paradox: I mean the term antiseptic applied to oil.

2dly, We had an account of its cultivation from general Beketoff in his large pofscfsions on the Volga, between Saratoff, and Astrachan, who is regarded as a most able and skilful econome in this empire; his remarks are as follow The sesamum orientale succeeded well on his estate, (situated as above ;) but he complains of the trouble of gathering its seeds, as they ripen unequally, and of course must be taken off the plaut at different times, VOL XVII.

:

E

and by degrees; so that he prefers to continue his ancient practice of extracting an excellent eating oil from musstard seed, which answers particulurly well for salads, &c.

There is again, I acknowledge, something new to me in the fact of extracting an eating oil from mustard seed; and we see what the invention of man will lead to, when impelled to search for a necessary article of food in warm climates, where the olive is wanting, but where the long fasts of the Greek church make oil an efsential object of meagre diet.

I fhall now finish with observing, that although the cultivation of the sesamum may not answer the purpose of a private gentleman; especially when he is already in possession of something of the kind that answers his purpose; still if it should be found an article of profit in our islands where negroes are kept, it may there pofsibly become an object of commerce with the Spaniards and French; if the last are still religious enough to eat fish and oil in lent. A propos to lent, what do the Newfoundland fishers say to the new Gallic religion, and that which their propagande are preaching to other catholic nations? Are they not afraid that they might take the whim of eating roast beef like yourselves on meagre days; and leave the poor persecuted fish in the sea, from a new refinement of philanthropy.

THIS little tale has been much admired in France; and it appeared so interesting to a respectable literary gentleman here to whom the Editor lent a copy of it, that he thought it worth his while to translate it; and with much politenefs sent the translation with the book when he returned it. The tale entire would perhaps be deemed rather long for this Miscellany. A small part of it is therefore now submitted to the consideration of the readers. And a fhort abstract only is given of the introductory part of it. The story is as under.

An English philosopher, a learned doctor, and member of the Royal Society in London, is represented as being sent out by that learned body to travel all over the world in quest of truth and the art of attaining happiness. He is made succefsively to visit the different countries in Europe, and to converse with the learned bodies of men afsociated in each of them: but from these the answers to all his questions prove unsatisfactory. He then goes to travel through Persia; to India, where after conversing with some brahmins apart, he resolves to visit the chief of that order in the famous temple Jaggernaut, who is represented to him as capable alone to answer all his questions. He visits that temple and converses with the chief brahmins, where, instead of what he sought, he finds only pride, vanity, and ignorance.

On his return from thence, much disappointed, he was overtaken by one of those hurricanes which in the Indies they call a typhon.

Extract.

The wind came from the sea, and caused the waters of the Ganges to flow back, dashing them in foam against the islands at its mouth. It raised from their fhores columns of sand, and from their forests clouds of leaves, which it carried in confusion across the river. and the plains, and up to the higher regions of the air. Sometimes it ingulphed itself in the bamboo alley, and although these Indian reeds were high as the tallest trees, it bent them like the grafs in the