e swept the statue from its pedestal with his
coat, with as much apparent ease as if it had been a wax doll. In the
next street, I could, without difficulty, look into the third floor of
the houses we were passing, and on reaching the market place, I found
myself elevated to the altitude of the church-clock; my bearers having
become as attenuated as the conductor. Here all consciousness left me,
and what farther became of me, I know not. On recovering myself, I lay
in the chair which stood in its old place. It was already near mid-day;
I therefore crept softly out of my fearful tenement, and luckily escaped
unobserved. My friends to whom I related my adventure, said, that I had
dreamed--that I had been visited by the nightmare--but to me it has
always appeared singular, that for the whole of the next day, my coat
had a smell as earthy as if it had lain in a grave; and that the storm
should this very night have thrown down the statue of the king from its
pedestal.

J.H.F.

* * * * *

SPIRIT OF DISCOVERY.

_Waterproof Composition._

Mr. Henry Hunt, the patentee of the "Waterproof Composition," informs us
that for the above invention we are indebted to the scientific
researches of Baron Charles Wetterstedz, the brother of one of the
ministers of state at the Court of Sweden, by whom it was employed to
prevent the infection of the plague, by means of absorption through the
pores of the soles of boots and shoes; but he accidentally discovered
that it rendered them waterproof, during a thaw in Sweden, when his
boots, being prepared with this composition, resisted the snow-water,
and remained perfectly dry, whilst the boots of other persons were
saturated, and resembled tripe.

Mr. Scott, an experienced engineer, has experimented upon leather
prepared with Mr. Hunt's Composition, and found it "impervious to
moisture at all degrees of pressure that leather will bear." The best
tannage becomes saturated at from ten to fourteen pounds upon the inch,
whilst that prepared with the Composition, was not penetrated at 180
lbs. upon the inch. With such testimony, we need not add our
recommendation of "the Waterproof Composition" as likely to prove of
great benefit, especially to our sporting and country friends.

_Preservation of Canvass._

The _Literary Gazette_ informs us, that an inhabitant of Troyes, in
Champagne, has discovered a method of preparing canvass, and every other
descripti