"I have lately seen an account of a discovery of a singular and highly important character, announced in the latter part of August, at Paris, by a Professor _Meinike_, (a German probably) viz. an artificial _gas_, confined in _glass_, assuming, by the electric shock, a permanent, steady light, without _heat_ or _combustion_! "Here is a grand desideratum, indeed--a candle which can be thrust into _carded cotton_ innoxious, or into a cistern of water unextinguished; which can be placed under one's pillow while we sleep, and taken out at pleasure. Our houses may be built with it in such a manner as to avoid the necessity of those cold holes of winter--windows. "The whale may keep his _blubber_, and the shark his _liver_; the coasts of the ocean may be lined with those newly discovered (_Pharoi_) light bearers; they may be sunk on reefs, and _shine_ up _information_ through the deep; and, by anchoring them in lines through oceans, we may mark the _ship road_, and have _guide posts_ which tell the best path, for each month in the year, across the parallels of this ball. Extravagant as this may seem, I assure you that I have often entertained the idea that an insulated mass of _electron_, (according to Augustus B. Woodward,) or some _phosphorus_, might be produced in a permanently useful form. We now _bottle_ up _lightning_--we _cork_ up the enemy of the _small pox_, and let him out at pleasure; we see our way by peeping at the skies, or into a box, (mariner's compass,) where we keep a little modicum of _polar essence_, to steer by, &c. You recollect that, in 1799, a hearty laugh was raised against the democrats, by comparing them to the philosopher of Lugghagg, extracting _sunbeams from cucumbers_. Dean Swift would have put into his philosophical _whim-whams_ the bottling of lightning, together with the extracting of sun-beams from cucumbers, had he thought of it, or known that it was ever dreamed of. May Congress soon be supplied, every man of them, with a _pocket light_ upon this new plan!" The ingenious writer of this letter, adds the correspondent who communicated it, might have added, that this invention will be of excellent service to Captain Symmes and his fellow travellers, among the _concentric spheres_ in the interior of our planet. [_Nat. Int._ _Whale Fisheries._ Our whale fisheries are, perhaps, more flourishing now than at any former period. I have formed an estimate of the probable amount thus employed from Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, and this port, which would be at risk in case of a war with Spain, which may awaken the attention of those whom it may concern. From New Bedford, there are round Cape Horn or on their passage, 18 ships and 1 brig, whose tonnage is 5347 tons; and they with their outfits cost $565,000 Their return cargoes would probably amount in value to 800,000 From the Vineyard there are two ships which cost 50,000