for its escape after a certain pressure, which, as the mountain itself forms the boiler, may be carried to many thousand atmospheres upon the square inch. The direction of this incalculable power, which will give the shareholders the command of the whole world, is a matter for future consideration; but it is proposed in the first instance to make Vesuvius instrumental to the complete excavation of Herculaneum and Pompeii-which seems but fair, as it was the sole cause of their destruction; and to project all the excavated rubbish into the Hellespont, so as to stop the passage of the Dardanelles to the Turkish fleet, and thus operate a favourable diversion for the Greeks. The projector is decidedly of opinion that by this enormous engine he can, if necessary, stop the diurnal -motion of the earth upon its axis-an invaluable security to our Asiatic possessions, as, in the event of a mutiny or revolution in that quarter, we could keep them in the dark for six months, and so ruin them in the cost of candles; or renew the days of Phaëton, by scorching them in the sun until they allowed us to rule the roast. A certain theorist has suggested that we might even raise the earth nearer to the sun, provided it was previously lightened by embarking in balloons all our heaviest and most bulky articles,-such as the History of Brazil, the Court of Aldermen, Busby's Lucretius, all our tomes of controversial divinity, the elephant at Exeter Change, &c. &c.but I confess I am disposed to consider this scheme as the chimæra of a visionary.

Others may perhaps be disposed to pronounce a

similar judgment upon the fourth project, which will, however, be very shortly in a course of actual experiment. It appears by the last papers from America that a Colonel Sims has proposed to the President to discover a new world, and has demanded a squadron for the purpose. This terra incognita he maintains to be situated within our own globe-that the old earth, in fact, has a young one in its stomach; and the arguments by which he supports this strange position are both numerous and plausible. If Columbus, by merely consulting a map of the world, became convinced that the equipoise of the system required a counter-ponderant continent in the southern ocean, the Colonel insists that we may à fortiori conclude that the earth must contain another within it. In the first place, he observes, that Nature is ever economical of her means, creating nothing in vain; but that if we presume the whole contents of our planet, which is nearly eight thousand miles in diameter, to be solid, there would not only be an incredible waste of materials, but the weight of such a prodigious mass would infallibly drag us out of our sphere in the system of the universe, and precipitate us into the blind abysses of space. M. Dupin calculates the weight of the great pyramid at above ten millions of tons; yet what is this huge pile, enormous as it is, compared to a single mountain? and what are all the mountains and seas upon the surface of the earth compared to its cubic contents? By supposing it to be hollow, its buoyancy in space becomes no longer inexplicable, and the principal difficulty that remains, is to discover

the door of entrance, which the Colonel confidently pronounces to be situated at the North Pole. It is conjectured that all the mountains of the undiscovered land are formed of loadstone, and that the position of the aperture leading to them occasions the polarity of the needle. Its name occasioned some little difficulty, the term New World being already applied, the New New World being deemed tautologous; Simsia was rejected as not being classical; Simia, as exposed to a ludicrous perversion; Subterranea, as not strictly accurate, the country being rather within than beneath our own on which account it was finally resolved to term it Interranea. A loan has already been raised for the new government, and the Interranean five per cents. are quoted at 96, having been done at a 100. Α bookseller in the Row has given a considerable sum for the copy-right of the voyage, and the public of both Continents (who now discover the appropriateness of that designation since they contain another within them) are looking with the utmost anxiety for the results of this interesting voyage.

A HINT TO PEDESTRIANS.

AN amusing public writer, with a very praiseworthy feeling, has lately been deploring the distressing vacancy that is likely to sit upon the countenances of the chance-meeters in the streets, when the pending proceedings of the Holly Alliance, and of Mr.

Mac Adam shall have been respectively brought to a conclusion.- After the magnificent events to which we have been lately accustomed, these are paltry topics; but drowning men will catch at straws, and these are infinitely better than nothing; infinitely better than the consciousness, that after we have met a friend at a sudden corner, and gone through the established routine of inquiries into the health of ourselves and our mutual acquaintances, and indulged in a few original speculations upon the appearances of the weather, we are positively at a nonplus for further subjects of conversation. Few dilemmas are more embarrassing than to find yourself in this state of conversational insolvency, writhing under the expectant look of your friend, who, from having made the last observation, has a sort of legal claim upon you for an impromptu in return. In vain do you search the pockets of your mind for an unexpended thought, you find nothing there but the health and the weather, which have been already tendered; and at length, with suffused cheeks, you are obliged to make a desperate effort, and get out of the scrape by a sudden good morning, and an abrupt rush across the street. After such an operation, the patients generally endeavour to walk off their embarrassments by a bustling acceleration of motion, as if anxious to make the energy of their bodies, atone for the sluggishness of their minds, and prove their command of limbs, if not of words.-This is a process. I can safely recommend; as the stretching of my legs, and swinging of my arms, (if duly persevered in,) has

scarcely ever failed in reconciling me to myself, and satisfying me that I was in fact a very brisk and clever personage. I have also obtained considerable relief from reflecting, that those who have the most solid sense are in general least gifted with the talent of prompt though superficial smattering, and that I was in the situation of a man who has plenty of money at his bankers, although he cannot give change for a one pound note as often as he may be asked for it in the streets.

There is a species of distress, however, occasioned by a superabundance of these tip-o'-the-tongue common-places, even more acute than that caused by the total want of them. Many a hasty bolt have I made across a knee-deep kennel, or down a blind alley, or into the sanctuary of a shop, when my keen eye has caught a glimpse of my approaching friend Loquax. His first operation is to harpoon his prey through the button-hole, or grasp his hand till the fingers tingle, gradually relaxing his hold while he pours out a torrent of voluble impertinence; and if you attempt to redeem your imprisoned limb, he gives it another friendly squeeze that brings the tears into your eyes, and leaves a fac-simile of your ring indented for some weeks upon the adjoining finger. Thus have I been detained on a rainy day in one of the most populous thoroughfares of London, stopping the whole living stream of Fleet-street, compelling some to walk into the kennel, but receiving the elbows of the far greater number in my ribs; having my hat repeatedly knocked into the puddle by umbrellas, and once nar