Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

The Arabs who inhabit the neighborhood of the great cemeteries of Upper Egypt have a strange way of cooking their victuals. Whenever fuel is wanting, they descend into their tombs, and, dis-lodging a mummy, and throwing it on their shoulders, return to their tent. Then taking a hatchet, and seizing the mummy by one leg, […]

In no country is there a creature so destructive of property as the rat is in Jamaica; their ravages are inconceivable. One year with another, it is supposed that they destroy at least about a twentieth part of the sugar-canes throughout the island, amounting to little short of L.200,000 currency per annum. The sugar-cane is […]

Volumes on the subject of the United States continue to succeed each other in London with a rapidity, which proves that a deep interest has been awakened in the minds of the people of England, with regard to our country. We find the following notice of the quick growth of Vandalia, in Illinois, in a […]

A Portuguese surgeon was accosted one day by a young Moor from the country, who, addressing him by the usual appellation of foreign doctors in that place, requested him to give him some drogues to kill his father, and, as an inducement, promised to pay him well. The surgeon was a little surprised at first, […]

This Beetle belongs to the weevil tribe, and its scientific denomination is the Imperial Weevil. It inhabits South America, chiefly Brazil, and is the most resplendently colored of all the insect class. The ground color of the wings is a coal black, with numerous parallel lines of sparkling indentations round, which are of a green […]

Is a bird which bears much resemblance to the pheasant, though naturalists have agreed in considering it as a distinct genus. It comprehends four or five species, with some varieties, but they are all of them foreign birds, and belong only to the warm climates of America. They are mostly about the size of a […]

LEDYARD was an American. He was born at Groton, in Connecticut, in 1751. He was first designed for the law, a study which did not suit his romantic turn of mind; secondly, for a missionary among the Indians, which proved as uncongenial to his habits and dispositions. While prosecuting his theological studies at College, to […]

Nothing is more interesting than those general laws by which God preserves the order of the world. If we had a complete knowledge of all the wonderful contrivances that surround us, we should be filled with admiration and awe: to contemplate those with which we are acquainted, is the highest of intellectual pleasures. One of […]

The ostrich of South Africa is a prudent and wary animal, and displays little of that stupidity ascribed to this bird by some naturalists. On the borders of the Cape Colony, at least, where it is eagerly pursued for the sake of its valuable plumage, the ostrich displays no want of sagacity in providing for […]

The city of Antwerp stands on the east or right bank of the Schelde, in north lat. 51° 14′, and about twenty-five miles in a straight line nearly due north of Brussels, the present capital of Belgium. The Flemish name for this place is Antwerpe the Spaniards, who once possessed it, call it Amberes, and […]