EXTRACT OF A LETTER.
"I have lately seen an account of a discovery of a singular and highly important character, announced in the latter part of August, at Paris, by a Professor Meinike, (a German probably) viz. an artificial gas, confined in glass, assuming, by the electric shock, a permanent, steady light, without heat or combustion!
"Here is a grand desideratum, indeed—a candle which can be thrust into carded cotton innoxious, or into a cistern of water unextinguished; which can be placed under one's pillow while we sleep, and taken out at pleasure. Our houses may be built with it in such a manner as to avoid the necessity of those cold holes of winter—windows.
"The whale may keep his blubber, and the shark his liver; the coasts of the ocean may be lined with those newly discovered (Pharoi) light bearers; they may be sunk on reefs, and shine up information through the deep; and, by anchoring them in lines through oceans, we may mark the ship road, and have guide posts which tell the best path, for each month in the year, across the parallels of this ball. Extravagant as this may seem, I assure you that I have often entertained the idea that an insulated mass of electron, (according to Augustus B. Woodward,) or some phosphorus, might be produced in a permanently useful form. We now bottle up lightning—we cork up the enemy of the small pox, and let him out at pleasure; we see our way by peeping at the skies, or into a box, (mariner's compass,) where we keep a little modicum of polar essence, to steer by, &c. You recollect that, in 1799, a hearty laugh was raised against the democrats, by comparing them to the philosopher of Lugghagg, extracting sunbeams from cucumbers. Dean Swift would have put into his philosophical whim-whams the bottling of lightning, together with the extracting of sun-beams from cucumbers, had he thought of it, or known that it was ever dreamed of. May Congress soon be supplied, every man of them, with a pocket light upon this new plan!"
The ingenious writer of this letter, adds the correspondent who communicated it, might have added, that this invention will be of excellent service to Captain Symmes and his fellow travellers, among the concentric spheres in the interior of our planet.
[Nat. Int.
Whale Fisheries.
Our whale fisheries are, perhaps, more flourishing now than at any former period. I have formed an estimate of the probable amount thus employed from Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, and this port, which would be at risk in case of a war with Spain, which may awaken the attention of those whom it may concern. From New Bedford, there are round Cape Horn or on their passage, 18 ships and 1 brig, whose tonnage is 5347 tons; and they with their outfits cost
| $565,000 | |
| Their return cargoes would probably amount in value to | 800,000 |
| From the Vineyard there are two ships which cost | 50,000 |
| Their return cargoes would probably amount to | 93,000 |
| From Nantucket fifty ships, which probably cost | 1,350,000 |
| Their return cargoes would probably amount to | 2,342,000 |
| From New Bedford, on this side Cape Horn, there are eleven ships and eight brigs, which probably cost | 277,000 |
| Their return cargoes probably will amount to | 363,000 |
| From Nantucket ten ships, which probably cost | 140,000 |
| And their return cargoes will probably amount to | 227,000 |
| Amounting in all to | $6,000,000 |
New Bedford Paper.]