In the month of August, 1867, some men were engaged in cultivating a piece of ground on the rear half of lot number twelve, in the second range of the township of Ross, in the county of Renfrew, Ontario, while turning up the soil, as it is said, they came upon a queer looking instrument, which upon examination proved to be an astrolabe an instrument used in former times to mark the position of the stars, and to assist in computing latitudes, but long since gone out of use. Upon its face was engraved the date 1603. Now, Champlain's first journey up the Ottawa was made in the summer of 1613, and he must have passed at or near the identical spot where the astrolabe was found. It is claimed that this instrument belonged to Champlain, and that it was lost by him in this place. In support of this claim it is represented that Champlain's latitudes were always computed with reasonable exactness up to the time of his passing through the portage of which the plot of ground whereon the instrument was found forms a part. After that time his computations are generally erroneous--so erroneous, indeed, as to have led some readers of his journal very seriously astray in following out his course. This, in reality, is all the evidence to be found as to the ownership of the lost astrolabe. Taken by itself, it is reasonably strong circumstantial evidence. On the other hand it may be contended that astrolabes had pretty well gone out of use before the year 1613, and Champlain was a man not likely to be behind his times in the matter of scientific appliances. But the strongest argument is to be found in the fact that Champlain's journal, which contains minute details of everything that happened from day to day, makes no allusion whatever to his having lost his astraolabe--a circumstance, it would seem, not very likely to be omitted. The question is of course an open one, and has given rise, as has already been said, to much discussion among Canadian archaeologists. It is, however, of little historical importance, and needs no further allusion in these pages. THE HON. WILLIAM OSGOODE. In view of the fact that this gentleman's name has a very fair chance of immortality in this Province, it is to be regretted that so little is accurately known about him, and that only the merest outline of his career has come down to the present times. Many Canadians would gladly know something more of the life of the first man who filled the important position of Chief-Justice of Upper Canada, and the desire for such knowledge is by no means confined to members of the legal profession. He was the faithful friend and adviser of our first Lieutenant-Governor, and it is doubtless to his legal acumen that we owe those eight wise statues which were passed during the first session of our first Provincial Parliament, which assembled at Newark on the 17th of September, 1792.