May 8. the company as proprietor of any fhare of stock, or which appears upon the back of any of their bank notes, as above stated, shall be deemed in law to be still a sharer in that company, and liable for the payment of its debts, even if he should have disposed of the whole of his share of stock in that company, until days after he had published in the newspaper, a notification to the fol lowing effect.

Notification.

"The public are hereby informed, that [here in"sert the name and designation,] this day disposed of "all the stock he held in the banking company of under the firm of , and gives "this public notification, that he has no longer any concern whatever in it.”—If the purchaser had no share formerly in the bank, there fhould be added, "the pur"chaser was, (add his name and designation.)

If a law to this effect were obtained, the public would be at all times in a condition to judge of the degree of credit, that ought to be annexed to the notes of every banking company, a security which they certainly have a just title to expect. I am, Sir, your wellwifher, though neither merchant nor banker.

LITERARY INTELLIGENCE FROM RUSSIA, TRANSMITTED BY ARCTICUS.

From Dr Pallas

On raising ferns, c. from seeds.

"THE rearing of Ferns, from their pulverulent seeds' is nothing new to meThe first observer of the fern seeds and their growth, next to Swammerdamm, was Dr Benjamin Stahelin, a Swifs, late Haller's friend, in the memoirs of the academy of Paris for the year 1730, and in his specimen Anatomico botanicum, Ba

sil 1734, 4to. I think some of the London gardeners, also have raised fern from seeds.

"Last winter, I got a parcel of leaves of the polypodium fragrans, used for tea, from Siberia, and covered a pot filled with peat mold with the dust of it, under a glafs cloak, and have had the pleasure to see some dozens of pretty plants of the same spring up, which are growing the whole summer, and had produced six or seven leaves each towards autumn. As the dust of fern leaves is easily collected, any body may make the experiment; if only the mold in the pots be kept continually moist under a glass, in the same manner as the subtile seeds of rhododendron, heaths, and the like are raised by gardeners."

This last circumstance is well worth adverting to by those in Britain, who have rhodondendrons come to flower; as, by collecting a thin coat of the surface earth below the fhrubs, and sprinkling it on the surface of peat mold, as above directed, many plants of that fine fhrub may be obtained.

Many fine plants may be also obtained from foreign parts, by bringing parcels of the thin parings of surface earth where plants have ripened their seeds, moderately dried, into this country, and sowing these with care after they arrive here. Not a particle of earth that is ever brought from a distant country, ought ever to be thrown `away.

Notices of the white marmot.

"There is now a natural curiosity at the Eremitage here which I never could procure during my travels, except a very bad fkin; viz. a white Russian marmot, or suroc, presented alive to the emprefs. I had the black variety some years ago, which is not so scarce, and chiefly found in the Ucraine but this white marmot, it is said came from Siberia.

Asiatic Sheep.

"I will endeavour, during my tour towards the Caucasus to get drawings of different varieties of sheep, and take patterns of their wool also; I will likewise not forget the mulberry seeds for Dr Anderson."

The Editor finds himself under very particular obliga. tions to this great man. It is only men of moderate talents who are never disposed to oblige. The man of a dignified mind like the sun in his course delights to diffuse light and heat to all who have the happiness of coming within the sphere of his influence.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

THE whimisical verses by Zam Zinn are received,

Amicus is very obliging. His communication is received, shall have a place when room can be found for it.

The communication by an Antirepublican is received, and though the Editor concurs very much in opinion with that writer, yet he thinks that the subject of his animadversions, had perhaps better be left to die away of itself, than to have it kept awake by remarks that seem now to be in a great measure unnecessary.

The continuation of the remarks on eminent authors is received. The critique on Ofsian's poems, by the same hand, will be very acceptable when it suits the conveniency of this obliging anonymous correspondent.

In answer to the queries of several correspondents let them be informed that the drawings of Botany Bay birds have been sent to London, to have them compared with such specimens of the same as can be found in Parkinson's museum or elsewhere in that metropolis, afsisting in the classification and description of such parts as do not appear on the drawing; which has occasioned the delay that some of them seem to regret.

The Editor requests that when his correspondents extract articles from any printed work, they will always be so good as mention it; that they may not be confounded with original communications. This is not meant to preclude such extracts, but merely to distinguish them.

The award of the premuims is at length come to hand, but too late for this number. It will be announced in our next.

1

HINTS RESPECTING EDUCATION.

THE intention of every system of education is to facilitate the acquisition of knowledge, and the end proposed by that acquisition is the attainment of happiness.

Health, and wealth, and knowledge, are supposed to be the most necefsary requisites for the attainment of happiness in this world, and therefore are objects of universal desire by mankind. Of these three, health is the most indispensibly necefsary for the comfortable enjoyment of life; and by that beneficence which universally characterises the dispensations of providence, this is not only put within the reach of every clafs of men, but the lower orders of the people, who are in a great measure deprived of the means of reaching the other attainments, are, from these very circumstances, insured in the pofsefsion of this valuable blessing in a much higher de-gree than others. Continued exercise, especially in the open air, is well known to be the surest means

May 15. of obtaining health; and labouring men, who are obliged from necefsity perpetually to labour, feel the blessed effects of it in that established health and firmness of constitution, which so eminently characterise them in all parts of the world. Persons in higher ranks, who endeavour to substitute voluntary exercise, instead of the necessary labours of the poor, do it in such a desultory, irregular, and imperfect manner, as never to be capable of enjoying this best portion of the blessings of life nearly in an equal degree. It is thus that heaven preserves that equality which the institutions of men in vain endeavour to establish.

If a large proportion of mankind are obliged to labour incessantly for the acquisition of health, by another dispensation equally beneficent, nature hath emplanted in the minds of a still greater proportion of mankind, an irresistible propensity to pursue with unabating eagerness, the acquisition of wealth, which gives a stimulus to activity that must otherwise have slackened the moment that the physical wants, of nature were supplied. This produces a new kind of necefsity that calls forth exertions, which if they do not so unavoidably contribute towards the attainment of health, as the labours of the poor, are strongly productive of that kind of mental agitation, that guards as effectually as bodily labour itself, against that miserable desease called tedium vita, the greatest bane of human happiness. Thus are the lower and the middling orders of men, insured in the possefsion of the most necefsary ingredients of happiness, from the very exertions that their situation in life of necefsity produce.