nuo conjunction of contrasted figures, T In this race, the line ab makes a more acute the difference of ideas relative to beauty, is as much

Map of that section of the city in which the fire occurred-the portion in black, includes
what is now the ruins.

private loss, this calamity seriously affects every species of business, and every ramification of trade in the country: it is the fountain head that has been so dreadfully ravaged, and the whole nation feels the shock.

The history of the world affords but few instances, of his earnings. But independent of the affliction of of more awful desolation by fire, than that which was visited upon the city of New York, on the 16th and 17th of December, 1835. Indeed, there are but few examples of any calamities, of whatever nature, that have proved more extensive in their effects, or more distressing in their consequences. The New York seems ever to have been signally afdestruction of nearly seven hundred storehouses of flicted with conflagrations, and before giving the parthe first class, filled with the most valuable goods, ticulars in relation to the present deplorable one, covering about twenty acres of land, and giving perhaps it would not be uninteresting to present the which we copy from employment in their various connexions to several following historical summary, thousand persons, is entirely unprecedented in the the New York Sun:history of the United States. It is not, however, upon the individuals directly employed, nor upon the lessees or the owners of the buildings, nor upon the merchants, that the chief burden of this calamity falls; but it is the thousands of widows and orphans, who were dependant upon the dividends of their lit-to those of the present age, the actual amount of ile stock in the insurance companies for their daily property then destroyed, bore comparatively little bread, who are most afflicted by this unpitying de- proportion to that which occupies the same topographical space in modern commercial cities. This vastation; and next to them the manufacturer in al- result will also apply to the fires which have heretomost every district of the United States, however re-fore occurred in New York, the chief of which we mote is most irremediably and unfortunately despoiled shall enumerate.

The memorable fire of London, in 1666, desolated that city to the extent of 436 square acres, consuming 400 streets, 113,000 houses, and 86 churches, but nearly two thirds of these buildings being constructed of wood, and the productions of the arts and manufactures of that period being far inferior in value

On the 21st of September, 1776, a fire occurred long and expanded ravages of the destroyer now which consumed the Trinity church, the Lutheran spread forth to the dismay of her citizens, and to the church, and nearly one thousand houses; but these terrified astonishment of the stranger within her were mostly of little value compared to those now gates? It may well be doubted whether all the destanding in almost any part of the city, and the struction by fire, which has occurred in the city since whole loss was estimated at less than one million of its foundation, taken in an arithmetical aggregate, dollars. On the 7th of August, 1778, more than would greatly exceed, if more than equal, the im300 houses were consumed by fire; and no other mense loss which has been occasioned by this one very destructive conflagration occurred in the city calamity. We have attempted the best calculation until the 9th of December, 1796, when a fire broke of this question which our data could afford, and we out in Maiden Lane which burnt between 60 and 70 are of opinion that all the preceding fires in this houses, about half of which were stores. This was city, of which we have any account, have destroyed followed, nine days afterwards, by a fire which be- only about twenty-three millions of dollars, which gan at 104 Front street and burnt about 40 houses. includes a liberal annual average of loss over and But to show the rapid growth of commerce in this above that occasioned by fires of the larger class. city within the last forty years, we need only state This ONE fire probably cannot be repaired for that these forty houses and their contents were val- fifteen millions. ued at only $106,700! which is far less than half the amount of merchandise consumed during Wednesday night in several of our principal stores! On June the 5th, and again December 15th, 1810, there were some heavy fires; and on May the 19th, 1811, one commenced at the corner of Duane and Chatham streets which destroyed 90 or 100 houses. Two others occurred on October the 29th and November the 3d, in the same year. In 1813, August the 12th, there was a severe fire in Beekman street; and on the 31st of the same month, 21 houses were burnt on Dover and Water streets. On December the 4th and 5th, 1816, there was a very ruinous fire in Water street, the estimated loss from which was $200,000.

On the night preceding this unequalled calamity, a fire broke out in Water street, which eventually destroyed eight houses and other property there to the amount of $50,000. Before these flames were extinguished, others were seen to ascend in an upper part of the town which proved to be Chrystie street, in the square between Delancy and Rivingston streets, by which 11 houses were reduced to ashes, and many poor shivering families were driven out into the most severely piercing wind that has been known in this latitude for many years. So intense, indeed, was the cold, that many of the engines were rendered inoperative by the freezing of their hose, to say nothing of the exhaustion of the firemen. These two fres, however, were only gentle preludes to the solemn requiem which was soon to be heard -mere symphonies to the grand anthem of desolation.

In 1817, the principal fires occurred on January 15th, in Chatham street, and on March 3d, in Broadway and Wall street. Between this period and 1828, no very remarkable conflagrations appear to At nine o'clock on the night of Wednesday, the be recorded; but it appears from the report of the 16th of December, 1835-a date which will long be chief engineer to the Common Council, that in 1828 memorable in the history, not only of New York, but there were 131 fires, occasioning a supposed loss of of the nation of which she forms the first commer$680,402, including the Bowery theatre, which was cial emporium-smoke and flames were seen to issue burnt on May the 28th of that year. There have from a five-story building in Merchant street, forbeen several other destructive fires in this city, the merly Hanover street, in the vicinity of the Merdates of which we have not at present the means of chants' Exchange, and in a part of the city the most ascertaining, among which was one that occurred crowded with wholesale warehouses and stores, on the site of the present Fulton market, one which filled with the most costly productions of foreign and destroyed the Park theatre, and another that burnt domestic manufacture. The flames soon leapt forth many valuable warehouses in Front and Water in fury through every aperture, and seized on the streets. The destruction of the entire block bound- two adjoining houses for their immediate prey. The ed by Vandam, Varick, and Charlton streets, on the street being narrow and confined, and a fierce north4th July, 1831; and that which consumed nearly east wind having arisen with continually-increasing ten squares of buildings, with 50 horses, in Green- force, the flames embraced the opposite houses, wich village, in September, 1832, must be yet vivid- until the whole triangular block, formed by Wall, ly remembered by our readers. The smaller class William and Pearl streets, became one lofty altar of of fires, such as more recently occurred in Gold waving fires. Taking then the direction of Wall street, Spring street, and in twenty other parts of street, below Pearl, on the one hand, and Pearl this seemingly fire-devoted city, both time and space street, below Wall, on the other, the flames rolled would fail us in enumerating. But that one which on, mocking all human efforts to restrain them. was the most destructive of all others, that has oc- Advancing thus in two grand divisions, the conflacurred within the recollection of the present gene-gration, as contrasted with the red masses of buildration, was the late desolating conflagration in Ann, ings which they alternately illuminated and wrapped Fulton, and Nassau streets, in which about forty in huge volumes of smoke, conveyed to us the idea, buildings, mostly of the first class, worth with their contents, more than a million of dollars, were soon reduced to smouldering and unsightly ruins.

But what was even that dreadful event, making though it did, a more frightful chasm in the heart of New York, than any which had hitherto befallen her-what was even that when contrasted with the

on the elevated position from which we some time viewed it, of some fabulous monster of destruction, waving its wings over its helpless and devoted prey In Wall street, after destroying the Phoenix buildings, it pursued its way to Water street, Front street, and at length as the morning dawned, to South street, adjoining the East river. But advancing at the

same time, through Pearl street, on both sides, towards Hanover square, it crossed and speedily devoured Governeur lane, Jones's lane, and the whole of Front and Water streets, that lay between Wall street and Franklin market. In the meantime, it was furiously extending through Exchange street and Exchange place to William street, and to all the buildings in the rear of the Merchants' Exchange. This magnificent and beautiful edifice, the pride of our city and country, for the purity and grandeur of its architecture, it was hoped would rear its dome in the sky, though all around it should become a scene of desolation; for there being no flames between it and the course of the wind, it seemed fortunately secure from any imminent danger. And so much confidence was reposed in this, that it was selected as the grand depot of the dry goods and all other kinds of merchandise which could be rescued from the adjacent streets, and with which its great hall was completely piled. Every precaution, too, was taken to preserve it, by conveying hose to its roof, and by spreading wet blankets along those parts of its windows and cornices the most exposed to heat. But all proved vain! At about one o'clock in the morning it took fire, and although the flames preyed on it but slowly for some time, they at length burst forth from its roof and dome, and

"Weaved a pall of ruin o'er its walls."

the tender mercy of their creditors, and the aid of the banks, and of the state and city treasury. To the merchants, whose business has been deranged and broken up, and are under heavy bonds to the cus toms, Congress has already taken measures to give an extension of time. Through the manifest synpathy of the whole country, and its apparent readi

ness to sustain the sufferers under this awful calamity, the publick credit of the city will be sustained, and business readily restored to its accustomed channels and pristine character.

THE OSTRICH.

It has been thought that after depositing its eggs in the sand, this remarkable bird generally leaves them to be hatched by the genial rays of the sunthis is an errour.

"On approaching the nest," says the Rev. S. Broadbent, "we saw the female ostrich sitting upon it; and though she had been disturbed before by the Hottentots, she remained till we were very near, and then ran off at the report of two guns which were fired. The ground was sandy for several miles round, and covered with thinly scattered bushes. There lay a great number of loose ostrich feathers about the nest, which appeared to have come off the For full half an hour, the flames arose in pyramidal female while sitting; and she had the naked appear columns from its dome, up to an immense height in ance which domestick fowls have at such times. the troubled sky, and rendered it a most sublime "The eggs were forty-two in number, arrayed with though fearful object. But before the unhappy apparent exactness, sixteen in the middle of the nest, persons who had made it the refuge for their pro-and on these the ostrich was sitting. The remaining perty from the terrible enemy that was abroad, could twenty-six were uniformly in a circle, about three again rescue scarcely an article, its dome fell in, or four feet from those in the middle. burying beneath it the beautiful statue of HAMILTON, quite fresh. The Hottentots say the ostrich proThey were so recently erected to adorn it! vides them against the hatching of those in the middle, when she would break them, one after another, and give them to her young ones for food; and that by the time they are all thus disposed of, the young ostrich will be able to go abroad with their motherinstinct. The ostrich watched the visiters from a short distance for an hour. The eggs weighed three pounds each, and measured seventeen inches in cir

cumference."

After crossing William street, the fire continued in the direction of Old Slip, and communicated to several vessels; their crews, however, were able to subdue it. The course of the fire in the direction of Broad street, was arrested by blowing up the buildings not yet ignited, with gunpowder. The dark surface upon the map, indicates the extent of the ruins. Within that limit, but one building remains standing. It will be observed that Broad street was not reached, and a considerable portion of the south side of Wall street was preserved. The whole is included in that triangular section, formed by Broad and Wall streets, and the East river. The fire raged sixteen hours, and was arrested by the aid of gunpowder. The engines were disenabled by the extreme cold weather. The only public buildings de- and takes out our brains to make room for it.

stroyed, are the Merchants' Exchange, the Reformed Dutch church, and the Franklin market. The postoffice, and the publishing offices of several papers, were comprised in the ruins. The whole loss is estimated at from ten to fifteen millions of dollars. This falls chiefly upon the insurance companiesthey, however, combined, have not that amount in capital. It is presumed, nevertheless, that they will be able to meet the whole of their responsibilities, through

As no roads are so rough as those that have just been mended, so no sinners are so intolerant as those that have just turned saints.

When dunces cali us fools, without proving us to be so, our best retort is to prove them to be fools, without condescending to call them so.

Pedantry crams our heads with learned lumber,

THE KNICKERBOCKER: December, 1835.

This very excellent periodical has reached the conclusion of its 6th volume. The present number contains an index and a very neat vignette titlepage. The matter of the number before us we think inferiour to many of its predecessors, still, the fact only leads us to expect something as far superiour in the next. This magazine is scientifick, and didactical, philosophical and poetical, and usually contains about one hundred pages, monthly, of as interesting and instructive original matter as one can reasonably desire.