It has been observed that charcoal, powdered and laid in large heaps, heats strongly. Alder charcoal has been seen to take fire in the warehouse, in which it has been stored. Mr. Malet, commissary of gunpowder at Pontailler, near Dijon, has seen charcoal take fire under the pestle. He also informs us that when pieces of saltpetre and brimstone were put into the charcoal mortar, the explosion took place between the fifth and sixth stroke of the pestle. In consequence of the precaution now taken to pound the charcoal, brimstone and nitre separately, no explosions take place, and time is gained in the fabrication, since the paste is made in eight hours, that formerly required twenty-four."

Seeing that charcoal is liable to spontaneous inflammation by laying in a heat; by the pressure of a millstone, or the operation of pounding, it ought to teach those, who work in powdermills, to be careful in all their operations. Saltpetre will detonate with, or inflame charcoal, and other easily inflammable bodies at a red heat; hence operators should be extremely cautious when they unite charcoal with their saltpetre in a heated caldron (which is the practice of some) lest the coal be ignited or the caldron become red hot, and a detonation be the consequence, which may prove an injury to themselves and the property of their employers: nothing but a strict attention to the degree of heat will prevent such a fatal catastrophe. When nitre is deprived of its water of crystallization in a caldron care should be taken not to increase "the heat beyond one hundred and twenty of Farenheit, taking care to stir it all the while by which it will be brought to the consistence of fine sand, and is now ready to be manufac'ured into gunpowder.

The spontaneous combustion of charcoal ought likewise to put those persons on their guard, who are in the habit of keeping large quantities of powdered charcoal in their distilleries and liquor stores, for the purification of spiritous liquors, where the effects would indeed be terrible, should a combustion take place during the night. While on the subject of charcoal, I cannot help expressing my surprise that a patent should have been obtained in the United States, within a few years past, for the discovery of the use of charcoal for the purification of malt or other spirits from their empyreumatic oils; as the experiments of Lawitz and Crell had been published in many periodical works. Lawitz, a chymist of Petersburgh, was the first who made the discovery public; and

Crell, in his Chymical Journal, published in 1778, and translated in 1791, communicated to the world many interesting experiments on the subject of the purifying property of charcoal. Among many experiments which he related, the following, perhaps, may be particularly worthy of attention: 1. Common vinegar, on being boiled in a matrass with charcoal powder, became perfectly limpid like water. 2. Honey was deprived of its peculiar smell. 3. Brown, putrid, and stinking water, was not only immediately deprived of its offensive smell, by means of charcoal powder, but was also rendered transparent. Hence it would probably be of use for preserving fresh water during sea voyages, to add about five pounds of coarse charcoal powder to every cask of water, especially as the charcoal might easily he separated by filtering, whenever wanted, through a linen bag. Lastly, spirits distilled from malt or other grain, show by the smell evidently that their strength is much increased by purification with charcoal, without the help of distillation, insomuch that persons who were not informed of the manner in which the purification was effected, have taken such spirits for rectified spirits of wine. I divided, says Crell, ten pounds of ardent spirits into ten equal portions and added charcoal powder in the following increased proportions:

"Half a dram of charcoal powder produced scarcely any alteration in the smell, and the spirits had not become quite clear even after six months. One dram occasioned hardly any perceptible diminution of the smell, and the spirit did not become clear till after the space of four months. With two drams the spirit became clear in two months.

"Four drams occasioned a very perceptible diminution of the smell, and the powder completely settled in the course of a month. "One ounce took off the bad smell entirely, and the spirit became clear in a fortnight.

"With an ounce and a half the spirit became clear in eight days.

"With two ounces in six days.

"With three ounces in five days, and with four ounces in twenty-four hours.

"It is remarkable, that ardent spirits which have been completely purified by means of charcoal, give out a fine odour exactly resembling that of peaches.

"Empyreumatic oils, dissolved in a sufficient quantity of highly rectified spirit of wine, are entirely deprived of their colour and smell by charcoal." Crell.

Monsieur Cadet Devaux, a French chymist, "has used the powdered charcoal for the removal of that peculiar flavour of West India molasses, so as to use it for sugar." I could enumerate various uses to which charcoal powder has been applied, but I am sensible of having intruded on your pages; it is sufficient to show, that the discovery was not reserved for any of my country

men.

E. C.

TRAVELS IN FRANCE-FOR THE PORT FOLIO.

LETTER LXXIII.

WE sometimes met with persons who had served in America during our revolutionary war, and heard a great deal of the melancholy fate of others. D'Estaigne, Custine, and Dillon terminated their days at the guillotine, and the end of the marquis de la Ronarie, whom we knew by the name of Armand, though more obscure, was not less calamitous: Jike others of his rank he had carried back with him to France ideas of civil and political liberty, or at least a zeal for some (perhaps not well defined or well understood) improvement in the government which contributed to the troubles of '89; but he soon afterwards regretted the part that he had taken, entered into a correspondence with the exiled princes, and was the great spring of that fermentation which showed itself at no early period in Brittany, and ended in what is called the war of the Chouans: the whole history of this extraordinary man might well deserve the pen of some good writer; his early attachment in Paris to a dancer of the opera, who had too much honour, too much respect for the noble family of her lover, to consent to marry him; his attempt to poison himself, his life of penitence and mortification at La Trappe, where he was discovered by accident, his flight to America, his services there, his return to France, and the subsequent events which partake equally of romance, and tragedy, might form the subject of a very interesting volume. Disappointed in

his expectations of foreign succour, restrained from commencing his operations by the orders of the court at Coblentz, living in woods and marshes in continued danger of being taken, and affected at the death of the king with more than common affliction, he fell dangerously ill, and was compelled to ask shelter at the castle of Laguy omarais, near Lamballe, he knew the political principles of the family, and was personally known to them, but wishing, in case of the worst, not to expose them to the penalty of the law, he claimed hospitality and received it under a fictitious name. His illness soon proved fatal, he died, and was buried in a neighbouring wood-unfortunately a wretch, who had followed him as a servant for many years, thought himself injured by the family of the castle; they would not give up to him some effects of his late master, until they could be justified for so doing by the nearest relation; and he in revenge went privately to a neighbouring magistrate and betrayed the whole affair. If this sad history were ever written the attention of the reader would be as much excited by the events which followed as by those which precede the death of Armand. The whole family of Laguyomarais was destroyed; the husband, the wife, the daughter, the daughter's husband, the preceptor, and two or three old and faithful servants were conveyed to Paris and there executed;-and with them was a young lady of the name of Desille, accused of having secreted some important papers relative to the conspiracy in Britanny, having been mistaken for her sister, the person meant by the informer, she left the revolutionary tribunal, not as yet become familiar to scenes of cruelty and injustice, in their mistake, and died with all the resignation and tranquillity of a martyr. I saw Kosciusco, who served with reputation against Burgoyne, and in South Carolina, and who has since acted so distinguished a part in Poland; he lives in the outskirts of Paris with a family of friends, whose children play about him, and here he reads the newspapers, and cultivates his garden, and smokes his çigarr, forgetting the world as much as possible, and striving, I really believe, to be forgotten. I also saw La Fayette, whose character having been at one time elevated far beyond its intrinsic merit, has been since as unjustly decried. His object was probably never well defined even to himself, but that he meant the good of his country, connected indeed with his own exaltation, is not, I think, to be doubted. What the effect of the revolution will ultimately be to France, we are yet to learn, but to him it has been certainly productive of every evil. It has robbed him of rank, fortune, and friends, and has subjected him to exile, to imprisonment, and to disgrace. He nevertheless looks better than when I knew him many years ago, during the war, and has an air of tranquillity, and I should say of contentment, if I thought it possible, for he cannot but have some bitter moments-moments during which reflections must

force themselves upon him, not unlike those of Calista in the play, who sces her lover lifeless at her feet, who hears that her father is mortally wounded, and who now bewails those evils which her crimes and fatal follies had occasioned. His circumstances, which are far from being affluent, have been in some measure improved by the generous gratitude of the United States, but his friends will regret that he did not feel himself above accepting the bounty of the present government of France. The remnant of his estate furnishes him a farm to live upon about thirty miles from Paris, and he has there the comfort and satisfaction of being surrounded by a numerous and affectionate family. He speaks with great regard of America, and both he and madame de la Fayette appear to entertain the strongest sentiments of gratitude towards Mr. Hugn and Dr. Bolman, who so rashly but so gallantly attempted to rescue him. His confinement at Olmutz was not in a dungeon; it was upon the ground floor in a room which opened upon the court of the castle, and he was treated with more distinction and tenderness by far than his fellow-prisoners, he was the only one allowed to take exercise out of the castle, until the attempt to rescue him. His memoirs, if he were ever to publish them, would be scarcely less romantic, and still more interesting perhaps than those of Armand, and I wish he may one day publish them, for I like him well enough to wish that he could exculpate himself from two or three charges which still affect his character, even supposing we allowed of his good intentions, and suffered them to operate in his defence, for the evils which have flowed from his rash undertakings. I cannot believe that he was acquainted with, and still less that he intentionally promoted the flight to Varennes; but it is probable that the little numberless, mortifying restraints which he unnecessarily imposed upon the royal family, at the Thuilleries, contributed to impel them to that fatal step; and it is certain, that the queen used to disclose to the last moments of her life, that he was the only person upon earth whom she could not forgive. It is singular, that of all the various parties which have succeeded each other in France, no one has expressed itself satisfied with the conduct of La Fayette: with the personal courage of a grenadier, he seems to have wanted decision in moments of emergency. He might once have marched that very army to Paris, from which he was so soon after obliged to fly: if he was right, he was not enough so, and if criminal, it was his fate to be criminal only by halves; his conduct reminds me in short of what Hume applies to a duke of Norfolk in queen Elizabeth's time: "when men of good principles, he observes, engage in dangerous enterprises, they are too apt to balance between the execution of their designs, and their remorse, the fear of punishment and the hope of pardon, till they deprive themselves of all means of effective defence, and become an easy prey to their enemies."