but, the natural persistency of purpose, for the general good, has been repeatedly exemplified in this island, however, the causes which produce these variations, may have been hidden from us.

May I be permitted to speculate a little on a very interesting subject, and which is not altogether foreign to that we are treating of?

Would it be presumptuous to imagine that the intellect of man, in successive generations, expands in intelligence and capacity, and in that peculiar sagacity which seizes upon the display of the phenomena of the heavens and of the earth, of the vast accumulations of embedded organic remains, which speak of ages long past, before human creation, and impressively lays before our wondering gaze, the exemplifications of the wisdom and unbounded power of the great Author of the Universe, and the design of the existence of His varied creations?

The remarkable advances which have been made within the last and present centuries, would seem to give a colour to such a surmise; for, however true it may be that the love of sciences has from remote times been exhibited, certain it is, that like the reversion of the steps of a pyramid, knowledge has been progressively advancing in width and solidity, from a basal point, as it were, to a very extended summit, and if it should continue to progress with the same results as have attended geological research, and astronomical investigation, until the expansion of the human mind shall have reached to the ne plus ultra, which creative Providence has assigned to it, as a limit beyond which mortal attributes cannot soar, and that nothing farther shall be left for the exercise of the mind's ingenuity,-would it be presumptuous to imagine that the final day of man's existence on the earth shall arrive, when he shall pass at once from time to eternity, amidst the consummation of one of those grand material revolutions which this planet has undergone, to fit it for the reception of a new order of beings?

With respect to the pluvial change of weather, although generally, apparently connected in some measure with the spring tides, and the southerly and westerly winds, yet undoubtedly the agent of its action is often inactive throughout a lunation, and indeed many lunations: so that any prediction solely built on the age of the moon, and consequently on the rise of the tidal waters, and the quarter whence the wind blows, although it may prove correct in seven or eight instances out of twelve, yet anticipation, even from the assumed appearance of the clouds, which, when the modification of the nimbus occurs, offers reasonable expectation of a fall of rain, may be delusive throughout a lengthened period. Hence the proverbial expression among country persons that, "the rain is loth to come," when there has been every indication of its fall happening speedily, without a realization of their expectation.

Whatever may be the agent that creates a precipitation of moisture, it seems certain, that whether facilitated by auxiliary principles, or not, it has the power of acting independently of external influences; and that though generally attended by a south, S.W., or west wind, the movement of the air from any other quarter, offers no decisive check to its consummation. This is obvious, as we know from experience that with the wind from every point from west to north, round to east, 'and south, rain has fallen.

On the 31st May (1840) the new moon occurred; wind was at west,

and from appearances rain was anticipated, only very light and transient drizzles happened on the 2nd of June.-On the 5th, wind east, small rain, attended with fog, continued the whole day. We have, however, an important fact before us as occurring very lately, dry weather having continued for upwards of sixty consecutive days, a proof that the governing power is independent of lunar or tidal influences, or of the direction of the wind, that power, probably, being electricity.

The reverse of this has also occurred for a similar length of time, with trifling interruptions. These apparent irregularities seem inexplicable from any local influences acting conjointly with the sun's place and consequent power. They, most probably, were the result of general causes operating with overpowering energy for a universal purpose, of which we can have no conception, but can fully appreciate the wise dispensation; the benefits arising are manifest.

If electricity, as supposed, with reason, be the agent, although so far uncontrolled by other natural principles as to remain quiescent whilst the particular drought alluded to continued, it admits, perhaps, of cooperation under a conjunction of circumstances; and hence the regularity often observed in the recurrence of rain during spring tides, and, the reverse in neaps, which has given rise to the distinguishing appellatives to the phases of the moon, of the wet and the dry quarters.

I here close my essay on the changes of weather, and have only to hope that, the spirit of enquiry which appears to have been awakened by the important discovery of Mr. Redfield, (to which I shall advert in another paper, to direct attention to a point yet untouched,) will be followed up by master-minds to the fullest extent it is capable of being carried:

THE REPORT.

WHILST lying in our little schooner, nearly becalmed, a few miles from Cape St. Nicholas, in Hayti, the high land bearing N.N.E., the reports of several guns were heard in succession, and the circumstance duly entered on the log-board. The mid. of the watch, a self-opiniated youth, made his report to the lieutenant commanding, who, in a short time came up, with his telescope under his arm, and enquired of Rattle the mid, whence the sound proceeded. Rattle pointing to the high land of the Cape, replied that, the reports came from thence, and no doubt the vessel which had fired the guns was on the other side. "Indeed!" said the lieutenant smiling, "there is not, I believe, a tunnel through those hills. Hands up, make sail." This was speedily done, and the little barkey slid away to the S.S.W. The manœuvre astonished Rattle, who turning towards a brother mid., remarked, "Why he's running away from whence the sounds came !" "Perhaps." replied the other drily," he's only going to take a circumbendibus !" “D—n me, I think he must be a little shy, or confoundedly stupid to chase the sound, instead of looking round the corner for the substance," returned the vain mid. of the watch. "Ah!" edged in the old gunner, who had been listening very calmly to these remarks,-" Ah! Master

Rattle, ye dinna ken the thing just sufficiently. The leaftenant is na foo' I'll warrant ye, and I ha' kenn'd his metal afore to-day. Ye'll be larnin' better in a wee bit o' time.

At this moment, the stern steady voice of the commander was heard, Keep a good look-out ahead for strange sail-d'ye hear mastheadman?" "Aye, aye, Sir." "Astern, he means;" said Rattle, almost loud enough to be heard! "Ye desarves," smartly replied the old gunner, with a most indignant frown, "to ha' your starn-frame sarved out for that; I'll be telling ye, Master Rattle, y're a greenhorn yet, ye dinna ken the thing just particularly; ye'd better be clapping a stopper upon y'r rattle, mon. "Pshaw!" snapped the conceited mid.; " you do'nt pretend to tell me, old rusty-fusty, that I can't believe the evidence of my senses!" "But, indeed Master Rattle, I'll be telling ye just the vary same thing." "Sail O!;" reported the masthead-man; confounding the very able retort which "Master" Rattle was about to pour forth on the old seaman. He looked queer however, and was silent, as if conviction of his error was fitting across his brain; and was fairly startled when the "Right ahead Sir," of the look-out man, responded to the commander's interrogatory "Where?" and, the ejaculation "By Jupiter!" was scarcely out of his lips, when another sail was announced astern of the first.

"Go up, Mr. Rattle, with a glass, and see what you can make of them," said the lieutenant. In a short time, with rather a subdued tone of voice, the mid reported,-" A frigate in chase of a fore-top-sail schooner, Sir." "Hands up-wet sails;" followed the lengthened note of the boatswain's pipe. The engine played, and the breeze freshened as we drew off the land. In an hour we ran alongside of the schooner, which pouring in her broadside, and receiving ours, hauled down the tri-colour. She proved to be the well-known privateer Fleche, and a beautiful little craft she was. The noble frigate came ranging up, reducing her canvass in fine style, and backed her maintop-sail.

It appeared that the reports were from guns which she had fired at the chase, the times when heard by us corresponding. We were, of course, all in very good humour, and the the vain middy, in addition to his share of the forthcoming prize-money, got a "wrinkle," by learning, for the first time, that there was such a phenomeuon as reverberation of sound; and what was morally of more importance, he was corrected in one of the most common faults of the youthful aspirantjudging the motives of his senior officer through the medium of an immature mind, possessing little thought and less reflection.

When the guns were secured, old Lock, the gunner, came sheering up to young "Master" Rattle, who was preparing his "traps," in readiness to take charge of the prize; with a look of ineffable archness, whispered as he passed into his own berth-" Ye'll be just asking the doctor to tell ye the meaning of Hex-pari-hence-i-say-doo-set!"-" Go to Flanders, you old wad, and talk to the windmills in your d-d high Dutch coiled against the sun,"-retorted the mid. now in high glee. "Na reflections" drolled out the rawboned Heland doctor as he uncoiled his lengthy frame from the nut-shell berth,-" Na reflections, I pronoonce it capital, and be me faith it isn't every lock that hath sic a stock! ha, ha, ha!!"

At this moment, the clerk and purser's steward called loudly for the boatswain, but he, drowsy from his morning's labour, had taken his all-potent nor-wester," and laid himself at length on his chest, his heels protruding outside of his berth, and had fallen asleep.-"Where's the Bosen"-" I say Bosen?" Rattle who was as busy as a magpie with a ball of thread, packing up his "duds"; on the question being repeated, threw himself into a theatrical attitude, and suiting the action to the words, commenced singing the following beautiful extemporary stave !!

"Bosen?-there lays he as sound as a rock,
His nasal pipe a-sounding!

A fid knows not he from a purser's frock
In long loose threads abounding!

Like Paddy's queer band, his tune's all grunt,
When bound to Ballynamore!

There-steady he lies like the barge or the punt,
Without a rudder or oar !"

Seizing the lay, the doctor continued ;

"Wake up, wake up thou snoosing old sinner,
The Scribe and Pharisee call!

"Tis vulgar quite to snoose before dinner.
And drum of thy senses pall!

Rouse! rouse ye, thou son, of a tar barrel,
Dolphin are sporting amain!

Art thou less a professor than old Yar-rell ?*

Up then, and handle the grain!

Not a word, nor a laugh, nor a sound hears he,
Fast lock'd his upper-story;

The thunders may roll, and the lightnings flee,
For he's alone in his glory!"

[Shakes him without

success.

The circumstance above related was brought to my recollection when reading the following, in Mr. Benson Hill's work, "Reminiscences of an Artillery-officer:

"A singular illusion, for which I have never been able to account, occurred on our near approach to the American lines, at New Orleans. The roar of musketry and cannon seemed to proceed from the thick cypress-wood on our right, whilst the bright flashes of fire in our front, were not apparently accompanied by sound. This strange effect was probably produced by the state of the atmosphere and the character of the ground. But I leave the solution of the mystery to time and the curious." SONOR.

THE BONETTA ROCK.-The Wreck of the Charlotte.

THE excitement recently occasioned by the wilful loss of the Dryad, in the West Indies, and the Lucy, on the island of Sal, with all the proceedings consequent thereon, had scarcely sobered down, and passed by as a matter for history, when we meet in that invaluable record of maritime information, the Shipping and Mercantile Gazette, an account of the loss of the barque Charlotte, of Alloa, on the Bonetta Rock. Now the Bonetta Rock happened to be an old acquaintance of ours,— an old offender which had taken up his abode in the charts for many a long year, but shifting that abode in a very extraordinary manner, just as it suited the fashion of the day, and strictly accommodating him

* A well known Ichthyologist.

self always to the last place assigned to him. Indeed it would be difficult to find a reputed maritime danger to which a greater variety of positions had been most respectfully awarded, than the Bonetta Rock. Now, with a due regard for our old friend, who we found had got another new place, and remembering our exclusive right of investigating the title assumed by those terrors to navigators, the sunken dangers of the ocean, to hold the places thus so liberally assigned to them, we determined on looking into this last at all hazards, and accordingly prepared for what seamen would designate, an overhaul. We had scarcely sealed our resolution, when the following account of the event was received by her Majesty's Government, from the British consul at the Cape Verds, thus investing the new locality of the Bonetta Rock, with something of an official character, which tended still more to encourage our resolution.

Extract from Consul Rendall.

12, Cape Verdes, April 30th, 1841. "I have the honour to report to your Excellency, the total loss of the barque Charlotte, Capt. Forrester, bound to Sydney, with a cargo of sundry goods and live stock, in consequence of striking upon a sunken reef, twenty-three miles to the eastward of the Hartwell reef, at the northeast point of this island, which is laid down by the Captain to be in latitude 16° 17′ north, and longitude 22° 21' west. No lives lost.

"The reef upon which it is alleged the Charlotte struck, appears to be the same the Madeline, Capt. was wrecked upon in 1835, and the one sought for by one of her Majesty's vessels, under the command of Capt. Vidal, in 1838.

"I shall consider it my duty to learn every information concerning the reef in question, and report the particulars, with the loss of the Charlotte, to the senior officer of her Majesty's squadron on this coast. "I have, &c.,

"JOHN RENDALL."

Here, then, was enough for us to go to work upon in earnest; and remembering besides the search which had been unsuccessfully made by Capt. Vidal, in the Ætna, in which all the old-fashioned dwellings of the Bonetta Rock had been routed up, from the first to the last, and which search we had very carefully laid before our readers in our volume for 1839, our first step was to apply to the Captain of the Charlotte for his account of the place in which he found it, and also to the owner of the vessel for the use of her log, with a view to its publication. There is no denying that such formidable dangers as concealed rocks in the ocean, should be as publicly known as possible, and every possible means taken to put an end to those roving habits, which they are too fond of, and to fairly fix them in one unchangeable position, such as real rocks, generally do very properly assume as their own natural right. And so it appears, thought the owner of the Charlotte, the last of the Bonetta vessels, who, with the same feeling for the safety of navigation, which possesses all honest men, immediately conceded our request, and the result was the appearance of the Charlotte's log, in the September number of this journal. Now, then, we said within ourselves, we shall see what reality there is in the title which these ENLARGED SERIES.No. 12.-VOL. FOR 1841.

5 M