Various - The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 20, No. 578, December 1, 1832

TANFIELD ARCH, DURHAM.

Tanfield is a considerable village, situated seven miles from Gateshead, in the county of Durham, and eight miles in a south-west direction from Newcastle-on-Tyne. The above arch is about a mile from the village, and crosses a deep dell, called Causey Burne, down which an insignificant streamlet finds its sinuous course. The site possesses some picturesque beauty, though its silvan pride be

It has much of the poet's "bosky bourne," and beside

his pensive mind may feed upon the natural glories of the scene; while, attuned to melancholy,

The ARCH was an architectural wonder of the last century. It was built in the year 1729, as a passage for the wagon-way, or rail-road for the conveyance of coals from collieries in the vicinity of Tanfield, which were the property of an association called "the Great Allies." It is a magnificent stone structure, one hundred and thirty feet in the span, springing from abutments nine feet high, to the height of sixty feet: a dial is placed on the top with a suitable inscription. The expense of its construction is stated to have amounted to 12,000 l. ; the masonry is reputed to be extremely good, and the arch itself is nearly perfect, though it is now only known as a foot-way, the collieries for the use of which it was built, being no longer worked: previously it was but a private road-way. In Cooke's Topography we find it stated, (though it is not mentioned upon what authority,) that the architect built a former arch which fell, and that the apprehension of the second experiencing the same fate induced him to commit suicide.

Before the building of the New London Bridge, the arch at Tanfield is said to have been the largest stone arch in existence. The span of the central arch of the bridge is 152 feet; and that of the arches on each side of the centre, 140 feet: the span of the arches of Waterloo Bridge is 120 feet; so that the reader may form a tolerably correct estimate of the arch at Tanfield.

A warm—hearted Correspondent, "W.C." of Milton (who is anxious for our accuracy on all points), wishes us to correct an error or two in the account of Eclipse , at p. 362, vol. xix. of The Mirror . It is there stated that Mr. Wildman sold the moiety of Eclipse to Colonel O'Kelly, for 650 guineas; and that O'Kelly subsequently bought the other moiety for 1,100 guineas. But, our Correspondent, who was for many years intimate with both the above gentlemen, assures us that "the Colonel gave to Mr. Wildman 2,000 l. for a moiety of Eclipse, and subsequently 2,000 l. for the other moiety—making the whole purchase-money 4,000 l ."

In the page wherein the above mis-statement appears is another error, respecting the speed of Childers —"over the round course at Newmarket, 3 miles, 6 furlongs, and 93 yards, in 6 minutes and 40 seconds; to perform which, he must have moved 82-1/2 feet in a second of time, or at the rate of nearly one mile in a minute." We have referred to the work whence the above was quoted ( Hist. Epsom , p. 103), and find it to correspond with our reprint. The calculation is evidently incorrect: for Childers would thus appear scarcely to have exceeded half a mile a minute.

Mr. Madden, whilst in Thebes, killed one of these animals, for the purpose of extracting its poison, which he found in a small membrane in the front of the jaw under the two hollow teeth. Having collected the venom carefully on a piece of glass, he examined it with a microscope, and found it to consist of sharp, saline spiculae, of a reticular appearance, extremely minute. "Half of this I gave to a dog, in a piece of meat—it produced no sensible effect; I then diluted the remainder, smeared the point of a lancet with it, and wounded the dog in the shoulder: this application he only survived three hours."'— Madden's Travels.

Captain Crow, in a work published a short time since, relates the following as having occurred on a voyage to Memel:—"One morning during a cairn, when near the Hebrides, all hands were called up at three o'clock, to witness a battle between several of the fish called thrashers and some sword-fish on one side, and an enormous whale on the other. It was in the middle of summer, and the weather being clear, and the fish close to the vessel, we had a fine opportunity of witnessing the contest. As soon as the whale's back appeared above the water, the thrashers, springing several yards into the air, descended with great violence upon the object of their rancour, and inflicted upon him the most severe slaps with their tails, the sound of which resembled the reports of muskets fired at a distance. The sword-fish, in their turn, attacked the distressed whale, stabbing him from below;—and thus beset on all sides, and wounded, when the poor creature appeared, the water around him was dyed with blood. In this manner they continued tormenting and wounding him for many hours, until we lost sight of him; and I have no doubt they, in the end, accomplished his destruction."

"Should the body sue the mind before a court of judicature, for damages, it would be found that the mind would prove to have been a ruinous tenant to its landlord."— Plutarch .

[We abridge these interesting facts from "An Inquiry into the Influence of the Mind and Passions on the Body, in the production of Disease"—in No. 11 of the London Medical and Surgical Journal . 1 1 A cleverly conducted work containing more popular information on Medicine, Surgery, and what are termed the collateral sciences, than we are accustomed to find in a "professional" journal. The whole paper is written in as clear, concise, and popular a style as the subject will allow, and its importance demands the attention of the reader; although we have not thought it to our purpose to follow the writer to the main object—or how these causes operate in the production of disease .]