One of the most important discoveries or improvements of the age, is a new species of candle which has been recently made in Cincinnati, and which will shortly be offered extensively for sale.  It is calculated to supersede all other kinds in use by its beauty, freedom from guttering, hardness, and capacity of giving light, in all which respects it is superior to every other species of candle.  This candle is nearly translucent, and can be made to exhibit the wick, when the candle is held up between the eye and the light, while the surface is as glossy as polished wax or varnish.  The principal ingredient is lard; and the value of this manufacture can be hardly exaggerated.  Taking durability into account, it can be made as cheap as any other candle; and there exists no single element of comfort, convenience, profit, and economy, in which this article has not the advantage of sperm, star, wax, or tallow candles.  It will be readily conceded that the days of all other portable or table light, including lard-oil, are numbered.  In fact, except where intense light, as in public buildings, is an object, gas itself cannot compete with it for public favour.—­American Paper.

CALIFORNIA ITEMS.

Some idea of the traffic between San Francisco and the southern mines may be formed from the fact, that there are at this moment ten steamers plying between San Francisco and Sacramento.  The latter are for the most part of a larger size than those on the San Joaquin river; and make the trip of about 120 miles in from seven to eight hours.  In the elegance of their accommodations and the luxuries of their larder, they might compare favourably with any passenger-vessels in the world.  There are ten other steamers plying from Sacramento to different places above that city.  One year ago there was but one steamboat in Oregon—­the Columbia; now there are eleven of different kinds running in the Columbia and Willamette rivers, not including the Pacific steamers, Sea-gull and Columbia, running between Oregon and California.

THE NOBLE MARINER.

BY THE REV.  JAMES GILBORNE LYONS, LL.D.

Most readers of these lines will remember that when the ship Ocean Monarch was turned off Liverpool on the 24th of August 1848, Frederick Jerome of New York saved fifteen lives by an act of singular courage and benevolence.  They will also lament that one so ready to help others should himself perish by violence:  he was killed in Central America in the autumn of 1851.

    Shout the noble seaman’s name,
    Deeds like his belong to fame: 
    Cottage roof and kingly dome,
    Sound the praise of brave Jerome. 
    Let his acts be told and sung,
    While his own high Saxon tongue—­
    Herald meet for worth sublime—­
    Peals from conquered clime to clime.