In a quaint old book by Gabriel Thomas, will be found the following description of Philadelphia when it was a mere village: " In the said city are several good schools for youth, for the attainment of arts and sciences - also reading and writing. Here is to be had, on any day of the week, cakes, tarts, and pies; we have also several cook-shops, both roasting and boiling, as in the city of London: happy blessings, for which we owe the highest gratitude to our plentiful Provider, the great Creator of heaven and earth." Let us describe this great city as it now is: In the said city are several small squares of ground called "public squares," for youth and gray squirrels - also for the entertainment of jumping the rope. Here is to be had, on every day in the week, except in winter, when they are shut up, air a little purer only than in the streets, and the sight of a deer, which gores you without charge. We have also belonging to the town a fine site for a park, both for land and water, not improved as in the city of London. Happy blessings, for which we are called upon for the highest gratitude to the great Councils who have taken us all in. - India-rubber, now so abundant, was thus noticed in the Monthly Review, in 1772: "Our readers, perhaps, who employ themselves in the art of drawing, will be pleased with a transcript of the following advertisement: ' I have seen,' says Dr. Priestley,' a substance excellently adapted to wiping from paper the marks of a black lead pencil.

It must, therefore, be of singular use to those who practise drawing. It is sold by Mr. Nairne, mathematical instrument maker, opposite the Royal Exchange. He sells a cubical piece, of about half an inch, for three shillings, and he says it will last for several years.'" - Chinese proverbs sometimes contain much pith, as for instance: "Let every man sweep the snow from before his own door, and not busy himself about the frost on his neighbors' tiles." Another: "The ripest fruit will not fall into your mouth." And again: "Dig a well before you are thirsty".

A monster pumpkin was raised, last season, in England - a "Citronille," measuring seven feet in circumference, and weighing 150 pounds; previously, one of the weight of 212 had astonished the gazers. As these valuable articles do not keep well after having been cut open, smaller kinds are greatly preferable. The French make great use of these, particularly the Yellow Poitron and the Brazilian Sugar Gourd. A larger weight of wholesome winter food, both for man and his cattle, can hardly be obtained from the same space of ground than from these articles; the tender extremities of the shoots form the best spinach known, though they are little employed in this way in America. - The Truffle is now said, by a French writer, to be produced by the "truffle fly," which stings the root of the oak-trees, and produces the truffle in the same manner as the gall insect produces the gall-nut; and a Mr. Ravel, of Switzerland, asserts that he can supply the larva) of the insect; adding that each species of truffle has its own kind of oak and its own truffle fly. We wish some of our insects would produce something as good.

But Dr. Lindley poses the Frenchman by asserting that truffles are propagated by spawn in the same way as mushrooms. - The Pampas Grass continues to receive attention abroad, and we have a specimen coming on favorably. On stems nine feet high, it produces noble panicles of flowers; one, in England, had eighteen panicles, and, when it spreads, it will be a fine ornament for a lawn.

There are annually manufactured in the United States 2,160,000 shovels, or about six hundred dozen per day. They are made entirely in this country; about one third the number in Massachusetts, the rest in Philadelphia, Pittsburg, and other cities. As the shovel is one of the civilizers of the world, the annual demand for that useful article shows how much the people of the United States are contributing, by their labor, towards improving the social condition of mankind. - A new number (the third) of Dr. Hooker's beautiful Flora of Tasmania has been issued. The plates consist wholly of composites; the letterpress extends into Ericaceae. - Pinus Austriaca is found to be an excellent plant for moving; they may be transferred without much risk, nine or ten feet high. - The solution of gum shellac in alcohol, which gardeners employ for covering cuts and wounds in trees, has been used with success, in Westminster Abbey, as a cement to the loose crumbling parts of old monuments, so that the ancient form and appearance are permanently preserved.

If melted white wax is carefully run upon marble for the open air, it will preserve it for an indefinite period, the wax being highly indestructible. - Though the name of Sir Janisetjee Jejeebhoy sounds very outlandish, it belongs to a princely minded Parsee in India, who has just given the sum of $50,000 to establish a school of design in Bombay. One of our Philadelphia merchants rejoices in a correspondent thence who has the name of Pah-Butty- Bassy-Baboo, and a very rich Baboo he is. - Two most important points are now attracting the attention of practical people - steam culture, and drying of grain in bulk as soon as gathered; both promise immense advantages, amounting to a "revolution." - A great deposit of copper has been opened, by an earthquake, in New Zealand. A region of about 4,600 square miles was raised in some places one foot, and, in others, much more. A chain of ancient rocks was upheaved vertically, and now forms a cliff nine feet high, which can be followed for ninety miles, exhibiting the veins of copper. - A new process for extracting sugar from all kinds of vegetables, has been published by the Academy of Sciences at Paris; it is the discovery of M. Maurice, that sugar exposed to the action of cold water undergoes a change known to chemists, which prevents its crystallization.

A beet-root, dug up and stowed away, is a cone of cold water, and the longer it lies the more is the sugar diminished, keeping it under shelter making no difference; and the same with sugar-cane. The remedy is to crush out the juice at once, discharge it into large cisterns, and throw in a quantity of lime whereby a saocharate of lime is formed which will keep a whole year, and an immense increase of sugar over the old processes is the result. - At Wilton Park, the place mentioned by Emerson, in his English Traits, so handsomely, there are some remarkable Cedars of Lebanon - one, the bole of which measures twenty-three and one-half feet in circumference, with a fine head in proportion; there are also several others nearly equally large. Those who have been accustomed to see the South American Orchids grown in a high temperature, would be surprised to see the luxuriance of these plants here; they stand in vineries in which are a quantity of grapes: consequently, they are exposed to currents of air both day and night. - Alfred Delvan has written some curious articles on the trees of Paris. He states that the climate of that city has been unfavorably modified since the destruction of the woods and forests.