THE DUSKY WOLF. FROM RICHARDSON'S "ARCTIC ZOOLOGY." On the 14th of July, our travellers obtained their | first view of the sea; and when they reached the mouth of the Coppermine, the Indians quitted them. Mr. Wentzel also turned back, having previously received positive and repeated injunctions from Captain Franklin, to lay up a large store of provisions at rust Enterprise, and leave a letter there, informing him where he might expect to fall in with the hunters when he returned. On the 21st, the rest of the party embarked upon the open Polar Sea, in two frail canoes of birch bark, with provisions for only fifteen davs. With this slight equipment, they succeeded, however, in tracing the northern coast of America for upwards of 550 miles to the eastward from the Coppermine River,

which they expected to meet with; and every part of the baggage not absolutely wanted was left behind.

The extreme point of their progress in that direction was Point Turnagain, in lat. 68° 18' 50", and long. 109° 25' west. This they reached on the 16th of August, when the approach of winter obliged them to retrace their course back again.

They set off on the 31st of August, and soon afterwards, were surprised and alarmned by a heavy fall of snow. With this their sufferings began; they had now nothing to eat, and being destitute of the means of making a fire, remained two whole days in bed. When they resumed their march, they experienced all the bitter miseries of travelling through deep snow, in cold and boisterous weather, and over a barren country, which afforded scarcely a shrub for fuel, and for food only a species of lichen called tripe de rochean unpalatable weed, as scanty as it was nauseous. The despair and discontent of the Canadians became great, as the difficulties of the journey increased; and their negligence, or more probably their wilfulness, caused the destruction of the two canoes which they carried.

At length, on the 26th of September, they reached the banks of the Coppermine River, and the Canadians Before they had returned as far as the spot where now began to consider their misfortunes at an end; the river, which they had named after Hood, empties but the river was yet to be passed, before they could itself into the sea, their provisions were entirely con- approach the place of their destination, and their fatal sumed. They well knew from experience that the rashness had destroyed their only means of crossing it. coast along which their track lay would offer but very An immediate search was made for pines to construct scanty means of recruiting their exhausted supply, and a raft, but none were to be found. Willows were that even those means would gradually lessen, as the more plentiful, and a number were gathered and bound winter advanced. Accordingly, Captain Franklin re-into faggots, so as to form a sort of float. But this, solved to alter his intended route, and proceeding up from the wood being green, had very little buoyancy, Hood's River, to strike across the interior, and make and was rendered utterly useless by the want of oars directly for Fort Enterprise. They had, however, or poles to propel it against an unfavourable wind. scarcely advanced far up that stream, when they were Under these circumstances, there seemed nothing left stopped by finding pcur its whole body over a ledge for them but to remain where they were and starve. of rock, in a splendid fall 250 feet in height.* On the Dr. Richardson, however, nobly undertook to make a further side, the stream decreased so much, that they last effort for the relief of the suffering party, by prowere obliged to abandon its navigation, and pursue posing to swim across the river, (whose breadth was their journey on foot. For this purpose, the canoes about 130 yards,) with a line attached to his body, and were rendered more portable, their assistance being still then haul the raft after. "He launched into the needed to carry the party across the rivers and lakes stream," says Captain Franklin, "with a line round from the bank, his arms became benumbed with cold, his middle; but when he had got a short distance and he lost the power of moving them; still he perse

Our readers will find a view and description of this magnificent

cascade in the Family Magazine, No. 7, Vol. I. page 52, under the name of the Wilberforce Falls.

THE FAMILY MAGAZINE.

23

vered, and, turning on his back, had nearly gained the were decided by mere weapons, they commonly vanWe Romans used themselves soon to those monsters of opposite bank, when his legs also became powerless, quished: yet we see in history, that the Greeks and and, to our infinite alarm, we beheld him sink. instantly hauled upon the line, and he came again to war; they opened their ranks to let them go through the surface, and was gradually drawn ashore in an they did not attempt to wound them, but threw all Being rolled up in blankets, he their darts against their leaders, who were forced to almost lifeless state. was placed before a good fire of willows, and, fortu- surrender, and to calm the Elephants when separated nately, was just able to speak sufficiently to give some from their troops; and now that fire is become the slight directions respecting the manner of treating him. element of war, and the principal instrument of death, He recovered strength gradually, and, by the blessing the Elephants, who are afraid of the noise and the fire of God, was enabled, in the course of a few hours, to of the artillery, would be rather an incumbrance in "In those regions, however, where our cannons and converse, and by evening was sufficiently recovered battle, and more dangerous than useful. We then regretted to learn, to remove into the tent. that the skin of his whole left side was deprived of murdering arts are yet scarcely known, they fight still feeling, in consequence of exposure to too great heat. with Elephants. At Cochin, and in the other parts of He did not perfectly recover the sensation of that side Malabar, they do not make use of horses, and all those I cannot describe what who do not fight on foot are mounted upon Elephants. until the following summer. When he strip-grandees never ride but upon Elephants: on festival every one felt at beholding the skeleton which the In Tonquin, Siam, and Pegu, the king and all the Doctor's debilitated frame exhibited. ber of these animals richly caparisoned, and covered ped, the Canadians simultaneously exclaimed, Ah que days they are preceded and followed by a great numwith the richest stuffs. On comparing the relations of nous sommes maigres! travellers and historians, it appears that the Elephants are more numerous in Africa than in Asia; they are there also less mistrustful, not so wild, and, as if they knew the unskilfulness and the little power of the men with whom they have to deal in this part of the world, come every day without fear to their habitations.

NATURAL HISTORY.

THE ELEPHANT.
(Continued.)

"The Elephant, once tamed, becomes the most tractable and the most submissive of all animals; he conceives an affection for his leader, he caresses him, and seems to guess whatever can please him: in a little time he understands the signs, and even the expression of sounds; he distinguishes the tone of command, that of anger or good nature, and acts accordingly: he never mistakes the words of his master; he receives orders with attention, and executes them with prudence and eagerness, without precipitation; for his motions are always measured, and his character seems to participate of the gravity of his body; he is easily taught to bend the knee to assist those who will ride on his back; he caresses his friends with his trunk, and salutes with it the persons he is directed to take notice of: he makes use of it to lift burdens, and helps to load himself; he has no aversion to being clothed, and seems to delight in a golden harness or magnificent trappings; he is easily put to the traces of carts, and draws ships upon occasion: he draws evenly, without stopping, or any marks of dislike, provided he is not insulted by unreasonable correction, and provided his driver seems to be thankful for the spontaneous exertion of his strength. His leader is mounted on his neck, and makes use of an iron rod crooked at the end, with which he strikes him gently on the head to make him turn or increase his pace; but often a word is sufficient, especially if he has had time to make himself well acquainted with his leader, and has a confidence in him; his attachment is sometimes so strong and so lasting, and his affection so great, that commonly he refuses to serve under any other person, and he is known to have died of grief for having in anger killed his governor.

"The species of the Elephant is numerous, though they bring forth but one young once in two or three years; the shorter the life of animals is, the more they multiply in the Elephant, the length of his life compensates the small number; and if it is true, as has been affirmed, that he lives two hundred years, and that he begets when he is one hundred and twenty years old, each couple brings forth forty young in that space of time; besides, having nothing to fear from other animals, and little even from men, who take them with great difficulty, the species has not decreased, and is generally dispersed in all the southern parts of Africa and Asia.

"From time immemorial, the Indians made use of Elephants in war. Amongst those nations unacquainted with the European military discipline, they were the best troop of their armies; and as long as battles

"In general, the Elephants of Asia are of a larger size, and superior in strength to those of Africa; in par ticular, those of Ceylon, who exceed in courage and sagacity all those of Asia; probably they owe these qualifications to their education, more improved in "His head (says Mr. Bennett) is more oblong, and Ceylon than any where else. They differ also in other particulars, so as to constitute them a different species. his forehead presents in the centre a deep concavity between two lateral and rounded elevations; that of the African being round and convex in all its parts. The teeth of the former are composed of transverse vertical laminæ of equal breadth, while those of the latter form rhomboidal or lozenge-shaped divisions. ears of the Asiatic are also smaller, and descend no lower than his neck, and he exhibits four distinct toes on his hind feet; the African, on the contrary, is furnished with ears of much greater size, descending to his legs, and no more than three toes are visible in his posterior extremities."

The

"The Elephants of the Indies easily carry burthens of three or four thousand weight; the smallest, that is those of Africa, lift up freely with their trunks burdens of two hundred pounds weight, and place them on their shoulders; they take in this trunk a great quantity of water, which they throw out around them at seven or eight feet distance; they can carry burdens of more than a thousand weight upon their tusks; with their by their agility, considering at the same time the bulk trunk they break branches of trees, and with their tusks they root out the trees. One may judge of their strength of their body; they walk as fast as a small horse on the trot, and when they run, they can keep up with a horse on full gallop, which seldom happens in their wild state, except when they are provoked by anger, or frightened. The tame Elephants travel easily, and without fatigue, fifteen or twenty leagues a day; and when they are hurried, they may travel thirty-five or forty leagues. They are heard at a great distance, and may be followed very near on the track, for the traces which they leave on the ground are not equivocal; and on the ground where the steps of their feet are marked, they are fifteen or eighteen inches in diameter.

When the Elephant is taken care of, he lives a long while even in captivity. Some authors have written, that he lives four or five hundred years; others, two or three hundred; and the most credible, one hundred and twenty, thirty, and even one hundred and fifty

years. Whatever care, however, is taken of the Elephant, he does not live long in temperate countries, and still less in cold climates. The Elephant which the king of Portugal sent to Louis XIV. in 1668, and which was then but four years old, died in his seventeenth year, in Jan. 1681, and lived only thirteen years in the menagerie of Versailles, where he was treated with care and tenderness, and fed with profusion; he had every day four pounds of bread, twelve pints of wine, two buckets of porridge, with four or five pounds of bread, two buckets of rice boiled in water, without reckoning what was given to him by visiters: he had, besides, every day one sheaf of corn to amuse himself; for, after he had eaten the corn ears, he made a kind of whip of straw, and used it to drive away the flies; he delighted in breaking the straw in small bits, which he did with great dexterity with his trunk; and, as he was led to walk daily, he plucked the grass and ate it.

"The common colour of the Elephant is ash-grey, or blackish. The white are extremely scarce; some have been seen at different times in the Indies, where also some are found of a reddish colour.

"The Elephant has very small eyes comparatively with his enormous size, but they are sensible and lively; and what distinguishes them from all other animals is their pathetic, sentimental expression. He seems to reflect, to think, and to deliberate; and never acts till he has examined and observed several times, without passion or precipitation, the signs which he is to obey. Dogs, the eyes of which have much expression, are animals too lively to distinguish their successive sensations; but as the Elephant is naturally grave and sedate, one may read in his eyes the order and outward appearance of his interior affections.

"He has a quick hearing, and this organ is outwardly, like that of smelling, more marked in the Elephant than in any other animal; his ears are very large, even in proportion to his body; they are flat, and close to the head, like those of a man; they commonly hang down, but he raises them up, and moves them with great facility; he makes use of them to wipe his eyes, and to cover them against the inconveniency of dust and flies. He delights in the sound of instruments, and seems to like music; he soon learns to beat time, and to move accordingly: he seems animated by the beat of the drum and the sound of trumpets; he has an exquisite smell, and is passionately fond of perfumes of all sorts, and of fragrant flowers; he selects them one after another, and makes nosegays, which he smells with great eagerness, and then carries them to his mouth as if he intended to taste them.

"His sense of feeling centres in his trunk; but it is as delicate and as distinct in that sort of hand as in that of man; this trunk, composed of membranes, nerves, and muscles, is, at the same time, a member capable of motion, and an organ of sense: the animal cannot only move and bend it, but he can shorten, lengthen, and turn it always. The extremity of his trunk terminates by an edge, which projects above like a finger; it is with this sort of finger that the Elephant does whatever we do with ours; he picks up from the ground the smallest pieces of money; he gathers nuts and flowers, choosing them one after another; he unties knots, opens and shuts doors, turning the keys, and bolts them; he learns to draw regular characters with an instrument as small as a pen.

"Although the Elephant has a more retentive memory and more intelligence than any other animal, he has the brain smaller than most of them: he is at the same time a miracle of intelligence and a monster of matter; his body is very thick, without any suppleness; the neck is short and very stiff; the head small and deformed; the ears of an excessive diameter; and the nose is of a still more disproportionate length; the eyes are too small, as well as the mouth; his legs are like massive pillars, straight and stiff; the feet so

Sir Thomas Urquhart tells us that John Napier, the father of the first Lord, and the inventor of logarithms, had invented a destroying engine that would clear a space a mile in extent each way of the enemy; in other words of thirty thousand Turks without the loss of a Christian. But on being requested by his friends in his last illness to reveal the contrivance, he replied, "That if he could lessen the means already existing for the destruction of man, he would with all his might apply himself to the purpose, but that they should never by his means be increased." He died in 1617.

The tomb of Franklin is in the Friends' cemetery, at the corner of Fourth and Arch Streets, Philadelphia, by the third pannel of the wall. It has inscribed on it, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN,

1790.

It is a plain stone monument, elevated one foot above ground.

FULLING,

The art of cleansing, scouring, and pressing cloths, to make them stronger, closer, and firmer, which is done by means of a water mill, called a fulling or scouring mill. These mills are nearly the same as corn mills, except in the mill-stones and the hopper. In France, corn is ground and cloth is fulled by the motion of the same wheel: cloths and woollen stuffs are sometimes fulled by means of soap, in the following manner the cloth is laid in the trough of the fulling mill, and then the soap dissolved in pails of river spring water is to be poured upon it by little and little. The cloth, after lying two hours in the soap, is taken out, stretched, and then returned to the trough. Upon being taken out a second time, the grease and filth is then wrung out. This process is afterwards repeated, and when the cloth has thus been brought to the quality and thickness required, it is scoured in hot water until it is quite clean.

SECTION IV.

* See Jenkin's Reasonableness of Christianity, vol. i. pp. 339 He-343; Winder's History of Knowledge, vol. ii. chaps. x.—XX and Law's Theory of Religion, pp. 243-245, note z.

LITERATURE.

LANGUAGE.

One striking feature in the languages which sprung from the Confusion is, that many of their words consist of more than one syllable, contrary to the primitive language. And it may be generally remarked, that the further a language departs from its primitive character, and the more refined it becomes, the more it abounds in polysyllables; and vice versa of course. Our own tongue formerly abounded with monosyllables; insomuch that if one were to take the pains, he could express almost any thing necessary, without using words of more than one syllable.

NATURAL HISTORY.

THE ELEPHANT.
(Concluded.)

"The Elephant is yet singular in the conformation of the feet and the texture of the skin. He is not clothed with hair like other quadrupeds: his skin is bare; soine bristles issue out of the chops; they are very thin on the body, and thicker on the eyelids, on the back part of the head, within the ears, the thighs, and the legs. The epidermis, or outside skin, hard and callous, has two sorts of wrinkles, some hollow, others prominent. In man and other animals, the epidermis sticks every There have been various conjectures relative to the where close to the skin. In the Elephant, it is only number of languages occasioned by the Confusion. fastened by some points like two quilted stuffs one Some suppose there were as many as there were indi- above the other. This epidermis is naturally dry, and viduals mentioned by Moses in his genealogy of the soon acquires three or four lines of thickness, by the descendants of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, Gen. x. crusts which are generated one above the other drying Others suppose the number to have been seventy. up. It is this thickness of the epidermis which produThis they infer from the following passage:-"When ces the elephantiasis, or dry leprosy, to which man, the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance; whose skin is bare, like that of the Elephant, is somewhen he separated the sons of Adam; he set the times subject. This distemper is very common to bounds of the people according to the number of the Elephants; and to prevent it, the Indians take care to children of Israel." Deut. xxxii. 8. That is, (accord- rub them often with oil, and to preserve the skin suping to those of this opinion,) the number of the child-ple by frequent bathing. It is rather tender where it ren of Israel that went down to Egypt, viz. seventy. is not callous; and the Elephant is so fearful of the The Targum of Jonathan Ben Uziel favours this in- sting of the flies, that he not only employs his natural terpretation; but the Jerusalem Targum differs from motions, but even the resources of his intelligence, to it. According to this, the number of languages was get rid of them; he makes use of his tail, of his ears, but twelve, answering to the twelve tribes. The Greek of his trunk, to strike them; he contracts his skin and Latin fathers make the number seventy-two. We wherever he can, and squeezes them to death betwixt conclude, however, that it was much smaller than his wrinkles. His skin is cleaned by rubbing it with many suppose; much smaller than the number of the pumice stones, and afterwards pouring on it perfumed various dialects now existing in the world. We have oil and colours. The conformation of the feet and seen that the Chaldean and Hebrew were probably at legs is also singular, and different in the Elephant from first the same language. And it is the concurrent tes- that of other animals; the fore-legs seem to be higher timony of many authors, that the ancient Hebrew was than those behind, yet the hind-legs are the longest; likewise similar to the Phonecian, and probably to the they are not bent like the hind-legs of a horse or an ox, Assyrian language. Indeed, all the nations in those the thighs of which seem to be of the same piece with parts spoke and wrote the same language for a long the buttocks; their knee is very near the belly, and the time. Supposing, then, that other portions of mankind foot so high and so long, that it seems to make a great equally extensive had among each portion but one part of the leg. In the Elephant, on the contrary, this kind of language, the number of kinds must have been part is very short, and touches the ground; he has the very few. But in process of time, nation communica-knee, like man, in the middle of the leg, not near the ting with nation, and climates and local circumstances belly. This foot, so short and so small, is divided into combining, various additional dialects were formed, five toes, which are all covered with a skin, none apand the number of languages increased. Besides this, pearing outwardly; one sees only a sort of claws, the the difference between the languages which existed in number of which varies, though that of the toes is conconsequence of the Confusion, would from the same stant; for he has always five to each foot, and comcauses be increased. And thus, in our day, we find a monly also five claws; but he sometimes has no more great number of nations speaking diverse tongue to- than four, or even three; and, in this case, they do not tally unintelligible to one another. correspond exactly with the extremity of the fingers.

One subject of no little inquiry in relation to lan- "The ears of the Elephant are very long; his tail is guage, is the origin of letters. The speculations on not longer than the ear; it is commonly near three feet this point have been many and various." The Egyp-in length; it is rather thin, sharp, and garnished at the tians claimed the honour of the invention of letters for extremity with a tuft of large, black, shining, and solid Thyoth or Pathrusim, the king of Thebes, one of the bristles which are as large and as strong as wire; and sons of Mizraim. This Thyoth was the Hermes of a man cannot break them with his hands, as they are the Egyptians, and the Mercury of the Greeks. The elastic and pliant. This tuft of hair is an ornament most ancient fragments of Egyptian literature were which the Negro women are particularly fond of; and certain inscriptions on lumps of burnt earth, called they attribute to it some particular virtue, according to selai or pillars, which, some ages after the time of Pa- their superstitious notions; an Elephant's tail is somethrusim, were discovered in certain caves near Thebes times sold for two or three slaves; and the Negroes or Diospolis. Agathodæmon, called the second Mer- often hazard their lives to cut and snatch it from the cury, decyphered them. They were forty-two in num-living animal. berf thirty-six of which related to the origin of the "The largest Elephants of the Indies, and the eastworld and the history of mankind, and the remaining ern coast of Africa, are fourteen feet high; the smallsix to medicine. The thirty-six are supposed to have est, which are found in Senegal, and in the other westbeen the work of Thyoth, and the six that of Naphtu-ern parts of Africa, are not above ten or eleven feet; him or Tosorthrus, his brother, who was king of the parts of Egypt about Memphis, and was noted for his medical knowledge.

We have much additional matter to present our readers on the subject of language. Those who follow us cosely, will, we trust, be well repaid for their pains.

and those which have been brought young into Europe were not so high. That at the menagerie at Versailles, which came from Congo, was but seven feet and a half high in his seventeenth year. During thirteen years that he lived in France, he did not grow above a foot; so that at the age of four, when he was sent, he was only six feet and a half high.