AMERICAN WOOD ADVENTURES.—" On Thursday last," says the Western Inquirer,
U. S., "Jenison Alkire took with him his sister Elizabeth, and proceeded about three miles from home, for the purpose of watching a deer lick. They staid all night at the lick, and Jenison killed a deer. In the morning, finding his horse had left him, he pre- railed on Elizabeth to stay at the camp with the deer, until he should go home and return with the horse. Jenison went home, returned with a horse, but found that his sister had left the camp. He called her in vain. He then hastened home to give the alarm ; the nearest neigh- bours were immediately convened, and proceeded in search of the child. William London, David Alkire, and Joseph Burnett (all good woodsmen), ascertained which way she had started, pursued the trail through laurel thickets, and over mountains that were almost impassable. She had pursued a pretty straight course until she got within a short distance of the settlement on Holly, through thickets that bears can scarcely penetrate, crossed the river upwards of sixty times, and got within a short distance of Mr. Thomas M. Hammond's when night overtook her. With a tomahawk which she carried with her, she peeled the bark from the birch tree, scraped off the inside of the bark, and ate it. She then broke off the branches from some bushes, laid them in the bark for a bed ; collected some more of which she made a covering ; peeled the bark off a hickory withe, tied one end round the neck of a dog which accompanied her, and the other end round her wrist, and in this manner laid down in her couch of bark, and slept all night. When they found her she seemed perfectly composed, and showed no signs of alarm. The girl is only eight or nine years old, and must have travelled twenty miles, through a wilder- ness rough and dreary enough to dishearten and alarm the most robust and resolute. She satisfactorily explained the cause of her having left the deer, by stating, that while Denison was absent, a panther came and laid bold of it. Notwithstanding the hideous appearance of this un- expected visitant, she had the courage and presence of mind to advance and untie the dog before she took to flight."
There are now living in Sicily three boys, who appear to be gifted with a similar aptitude for mathematical calculations. At the head of the triumvirate stands Vincent Zucchero, to whose extraordinary feats in calculation the public curiosity has of late been repeatedly directed. Two years ago, he was ignorant even of his alphabet; but, in conse- quence of the pains taken with him by the Abb6 Minardi, who has been engaged as his tutor, through the liberal interposition of the Go- vernment and Corporation of Palermo, he is at this moment able to read off-hand the most difficult of the Latin and Italian classics, and has given public proofs of the unprecedented extent of his acquire- ments. Two other boys, by name Ignatius Landolina and Joseph Puglisi, have come forward to enter the lists against him. The former has not reached his tenth year, though he has already attended several public meetings, and resolved some of the most abstruse questions in the highest branch of geometry, which were put to him by Professors Nobili, Scuderi, and Alessi, of the University of Catania. On these Occasions, Landolina did not confine himself to a mere dry answer, but assigned ihe reason for the result ; and entered acutely into the meta- 1 Physics of the science. The third child, Puglisi, who is about seven Years old, afforded no less striking and indisputable proofs of his ex- 1 . traordinary talent in giving off-hand answers to problems, which usually 'require tedious arithmetical calculations. The precocious talents of =these three infant:lac mathematicians would seem to indicate that the ,epirit of Archimedes still lingers on its native soil.--,From a Sicilian -steurnal.
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