RAPID MANUFACTURE.
Many years ago, the late Sir John Throckmorton sat down to dinner, dressed in a coat which, the same morning, had been wool on the back of the sheep. The animals were sheared; the wool washed, carded, spun, and woven; the cloth was scoured, fulled, sheared, dyed, and dressed; and then, by the tailor's aid, made into a coat, between sunrise and the hour of seven, when a party sat down to dinner, with Sir John, as their chairman, wearing the product of the active day!
DISCOVERIES ANTICIPATED.
From time immemorial, the inhabitants of some distant regions have carried on their nocturnal or underground manufactures by natural gas, obtained through a hollow reed thrust into the earth. Arriving at modern times, navigation by the Archimedes screw, as a propeller, through the means of steam, attracted the notice of the Scottish Society of Arts in 1840; but, above twenty years previously, an experiment with similar screws, adapted to a boat, on the lake Lochend, by Mr. Whytock, a member of the Society, proved the efficiency of the invention, though on a small scale. In Scotland, an Agricultural Society was established in 1723; a thrashing-machine appeared in 1735; and a reaping-machine in 1765.
THE FIRST USE OF JESUIT'S BARK.
A casual circumstance, it is said, discovered that excellent febrifuge, the Jesuit's Bark. An Indian in a delirious fever was left by his companions, as incurable, by the side of a river, to quench his burning thirst while dying. He naturally drank copious draughts of the water, which, having long imbibed the virtues of the bark, that floated abundantly on the stream, quickly dispersed the fever of the Indian. He returned to his friends, and explained the nature of his remedy; and the sick crowded about the margin of the holy stream (as they imagined it) till they had quite exhausted its virtues. The sages of the tribe found out at length, however, whence the efficacy of the stream arose. The Indians discovered it first, in 1640, to the lady of a Viceroy of Peru, who by its use recovered of a dangerous fever; and in 1643 it was known at Rome.