MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE.

I. MECHANICAL SCIENCE. [◊]

1. On the combined Action of a Current of Air and the Pressure of the Atmosphere.

The first simplification by M. Hachette was to make the nozzle of a pair of double chamber-bellows terminate in the middle of a flat plate; he found that when the bellows were worked, effects were produced opposite the jet of air of the kind described by M. Clement, disks of card and other substances being drawn towards the aperture against the direction of the current. At the same time that he described this experiment, he also announced his having produced the same effects by using a stream of water instead of a stream of air.

Fig. 1.

Fig. 2.

The apparatus was still further simplified, so as to make the stream of air from the mouth sufficient to produce the effect. A tin tube, A, Fig. 1, was soldered to the middle of a round tin plate, in the centre of which was a small orifice, E; three or four small projections of the tin, f f, were left at the edges of the plate, to prevent the disks of paper, card, or metal, from slipping off sideways. The figure is on a scale of one-half. Instead of the tin plate, a piece [p194] of smooth cork may be used, and for the tin tube, a glass tube, or one made by rolling up a piece of paper.

If the tube be held horizontally, or inclining a little upward, and a disk of card or paper be placed loosely against the aperture in the plate, it will be found that, on applying the mouth to the end of the tube, and blowing air through, that the disk will not be driven away, but actually made to apply closely to the surface of the plate; and if turned towards the ground it will be found to remain opposite the hole, and not to fall until the current of air is stopped. Even a plate of tin may in this way be suspended by a current of air; which at first would be supposed to conjoin with gravity in forcing it to the ground. When the disk is flexible and slightly elastic, a heavy sound, and sometimes even a shrill tone, is produced by the vibrations of the plate.

In explanation of this experiment, M. Hachette says, “The air is pushed from the mouth A of the tube, towards the orifice E of the plate; it strikes the part of the disk opposed to this orifice, and the mean pressure on that part is greater than the pressure of the atmosphere. The blown air then takes place of that between the plate and the disk opposed to it; it moves in this interval with a velocity decreasing from the edges of the aperture: the elastic force of this air decreases at the same time, so that its mean pressure between the plate and the inner face of the disk becomes less than the atmospheric pressure; and as this last pressure is exerted on the whole external face of the disk H, I, this disk, subject at the same time to the two contrary pressures on its opposing faces, obeys the greater, and is pushed towards the plate C D.”

“It is not necessary that the disk, C D, should be near the orifice E, of the tube A E. Let Fig. 2 be an instrument composed of a hollow cylinder, C D F G, and a flat border of the dimensions C″ F, or G D″. Let a tube, A E, be fixed to the bottom of the cylinder, the orifice E having a diameter of about three millimeters (0.12 of inch). If air be blown in at A, against the disk, H I, in the neighbourhood of the flat border, the disk will be urged towards the orifice E. This instrument is also delineated on a scale of one half. The disk, with the attached weight, weighs about 12 grammes (184.87 grains), being 54 millimeters in diameter; the pressure of the atmosphere upon it equals 23 kilogrammes: from which it follows that, in this experiment, the pressure of the air blown upon the inner surface of the disk, and the atmospheric pressure exerted on the exterior of the same disk, only differs from each other by about one two-thousandth part of the latter.”—Annales de Chimie, xxxv. 34.

[34] See the last volume of this Journal, p. 473.

2. Considerations relative to Capillary Action, by M. Poisson.

Suppose that two different fluids, A, B, are contained in a vessel, and separated the one from the other by a vertical division; the heights being in an inverse ratio to the densities, so that the points, a and b, in the two faces of the division, and situated in the same horizontal plane, shall support equal and opposite pressures: suppose also that the division is pierced with one or more holes of small diameter, or, in other words, that it is traversed by several very narrow canals, as a, b, perpendicular to the two faces, and which may be regarded at first as filled with air, or any other fluid.

If the substance of the division exerts upon each of the two liquids an action superior to the half of that which the liquid has upon itself, each liquid will enter into the canal a, b, just as it would rise above its ordinary level in a capillary tube of the same size and substance. It would also be urged, by the excess of pressure which it would exert at the extremity of the canal, against the elasticity of the included air. When the two fluids have penetrated the interior of a, b, the air will be pushed on both sides in different directions by forces each of which is equal to the primitive pressure augmented by the corresponding capillary force, i. e. augmented by forces proportional, according to the known theory of M. Laplace, to double the action of the tube on the liquid, less the proper action of the liquid itself. It will only be in the case when the capillary force shall be the same on both sides, that the air, after being compressed to a certain degree, will remain at rest: for whenever this force preponderates at one end of the canal, the air will be driven out at the opposite end, and the liquid with the strongest capillary attraction will entirely fill the canal.

Suppose this liquid to be A, then let us consider the forces which will act on the portion a, b, of this liquid. At the extremity a, it will be submitted to the attraction of the exterior fluid A: at the extremity b, it will be attracted in the opposite direction by the liquid B. Now the two liquids being different, their attractions will be unequal, and we will suppose that that of B, on the matter [p196] of A, is greater than that of A for itself. As to the action of the canal on the portion a, b, that will be equal, and exerted in contrary directions at its two extremities; it will not, therefore, be either adverse or favourable to the movement of the fluid in the canal: and the same will be the case with respect to the pressures exerted at a and b, by the external liquids, as long as they are equal: nevertheless, the action of the canal, and the external pressures, will prevent the thread of fluid from being broken, so that it will move without interruption in the direction in which it is drawn by the greatest attraction, or from a to b. Hence will result an elevation of the level of B, and, consequently, an increase of pressure at the extremity b, of the passage, and this elevation will proceed until the difference of pressure in a and b shall be equal to that of the attractions exerted by the two fluids A and B, on the thread a b; this effect will be produced the more rapidly as the division is pierced with a greater number of passages similar to that which has been considered.

Now let us examine what would occur if the division were formed of two others different in their nature, and exactly superposed; exerting no action on one of the liquids, B for example, and one only acting on the other liquid. The liquid B will then retain its original position undisturbed; in consequence of the action it exerts upon itself it cannot penetrate the canal a b, just as mercury cannot escape by a capillary aperture made in a barometer-tube. It will be the same with A, when that face of the division which exerts no action upon the liquid is turned towards it; so that how numerous soever the apertures, the two liquids would, under such circumstances, remain separate and preserve their original level. But if the division be turned so that the face which acts upon A shall be in contact with that liquid, it will penetrate the canal a b by means of capillary attraction; and the velocity which the liquid urged by this force may acquire, may make it pass that point in the canal where the division changes its nature, and even make it reach the extremity in the liquid B, so that it is possible that the liquid A should entirely fill the canal a b, as in the case which has already been examined. Then if we always suppose the attraction of B for A to be superior to that which A has for itself, the thread a b will flow into B until the level of the latter is so far altered that the excess of pressure at b can balance the difference of attractions exerted by the two liquids at a and b.

M. Poisson then observes that, without pretending to assign a cause, exclusive of all others, for the phenomena of absorption by vegetable and animal membranes observed by M. Dutrochet, his object is to show that effects which have at least a great resemblance to these important phenomena, may be produced by capillary action conjoined with the difference of affinity existing between heterogeneous substances without the assistance of electricity, either moving or quiescent. It appears that M. Dutrochet afterwards [p197] found mineral substances, as a piece of slate, might be substituted for the organized tissues; this being the case, the opinion which refers such effects to a general cause, as capillary attraction, acquires more probability.

3. Novel Use of the Plough.

Three ploughs were employed; the first had two handles, a coulter, and a share, the latter being in the form of a wedge. This plough was preferred in the beds and gravelly grounds; and it was found advantageous to give it an oscillatory movement by the handles during its progress. Drawn by eight horses, it could turn up 25,000 cubic feet of an argillaceous soil, in three hours; with ten horses it turned up 19,800 cubic feet of a gravelly soil, in the same time. This plough was tried in 1815, against fifteen others of the ordinary kind, in the construction of a watercourse for a mill; all the fifteen were quickly broken by the work.

The second plough had two handles and a coulter, but the share had only one cutting edge, which was rounded and with an ear. It was made five times as strong as an ordinary plough, and succeeded well in compact and argillaceous soils, where, with eight horses and four men, it moved 48,000 cubic feet of earth in three hours. In case of fracture ten minutes sufficed to change the coulter and share, and, during the work, 2,300,000 cubic feet of earth were loosened by it.

The third plough was smaller and lighter, it had two handles, a coulter, an ear, and a share, the latter lance-shaped. It was used for excavating the sides of the canal, on which the horses attached to the first plough found it difficult to walk because of the inclination. It was worked by ten or twelve men.

To establish an accurate comparison between the work of these ploughs and that done by the pickaxe and spade, a piece of ground was wrought solely in the latter manner by six strong working men. The result of a long trial was the breaking of 150 cubic feet of ground by each man in nine hours. Comparing this result with the work of the ploughs, the following are the results:—The first plough did the work of 477 men, the second of 960 men, and the third that of 50 or 60 men. The canal was finished on April 30th, 1825, the ploughs having saved 32,000 days, according to the work-day of a labourer.—Bull. Univ. D. vii. 343. [p198]

4. Discovery of Rocks under the Surface of the Sea.
5. Paper to resist Humidity.
6. Professor Amici’s Microscopes.

The reflector is a modification of the original construction recommended by the Professor, who seems to have profited by the schooling he received from Dr. Goring, and now sails much closer to the wind than he did. His objective metal is now two inches focus, with an aperture of 112 inch; but half an inch is cut off for the purpose of preventing the bad effect of the marginal rays, so that only 1 inch of the central portion of the metal is employed;—the diameter of the diagonal mirror is also reduced to its proper standard, by which means the blot in the centre of the visual pencil is rendered as small as possible. It may be asserted of this instrument, that it does as much as can possibly be expected from an objective part of 2 inches focus, showing many test-objects faintly, and with much effort; but it is totally unable to compete with deeper ones equally perfect and of the same angular opening. The Professor has, in some of his instruments, reduced the focus of the elliptic metal to 112 inch, and will, no doubt, gradually slide into the adoption of that radical reform in his instrument, so happily carried into effect in this country by Dr. Goring, in conjunction with Mr. Cuthbert,—at least if the figuration of elliptic metals of 310 inch focus with 210 inch of aperture shall not surpass his powers of execution. During the Professor’s stay in this country there was a grand field-day at his hotel, at which both his microscopes were tried against the Goringian modification of the reflector, the superior weight of metal of which completely beat every thing opposed to it. For the honour of the Professor it must be stated, that he admitted this defeat with great candour and good sense, and even had some difficulty in believing in the identity of some of the objects used, so differently was the ordinary apparent structure developed by the English improvements on his instrument. It may with safety be averred that no refractor, at least, will ever be [p200] made to surpass Dr. Goring’s improved Amician Engiscope; and it seems equally certain that no other reflector will ever be invented capable of the same facilities of application to the examination of both opaque and transparent objects. If Professor Amici has been beaten, it has been done with his own weapons,—the copy has surpassed the original,—the child, by virtue of foreign nursing and tuition, has exceeded the stature and strength of the father.

II. CHEMICAL SCIENCE. [◊]

1. On the Specific Heat of Gases, by MM. de la Rive and Marcet.

Two methods of applying heat were resorted to: in one the balloon, containing the gas at a certain temperature, was placed in water at a higher but constant degree, for a certain time (generally 4′), and the elevation of temperature noticed: in the other, the balloon with the gas was inclosed in a larger copper balloon, blackened inside, and the space between the two exhausted as much as possible of air; the apparatus being then immersed in warm water, the heat gained access slowly to the gas, and the time of each experiment was increased, at the same time that certain sources of error were avoided.

The gases experimented with were, atmospheric air, oxygen, azote, hydrogen, carbonic acid, olefiant gas, oxide of carbon, nitrous oxide, nitrous gas, sulphuretted hydrogen, ammonia, sulphurous acid, muriatic acid, and cyanogen. Great care was taken in their preparation. The result of the experiment was very unexpected; for, during the five minutes allotted for each, all had acquired the same temperature,—a circumstance which proves that they all have the same specific heat. The equal volumes of gas at the pressure of 65 centimeters (15.59 inches) and the temperature of 20° C., being exposed to a source of heat at 30° C., acquired a mean temperature of 6.32 degrees in five minutes, the extreme difference, in any of the experiments, not being more than 0.04 of a [p201] degree. One gas only forms an exception to the above statement, namely, hydrogen, which was always heated more than the others, namely, to 6.6 degrees in the five minutes. This effect is considered as due not to any difference in specific heat, but to a difference in conducting power.

Experiments were then made with dilated gases, to ascertain whether dilatation caused any change in capacity, and it was found to diminish slowly but regularly with the diminution of pressure. These results, with a third which is also interesting, have been thus generally expressed by the authors at the end of their memoir.

i. All gases in equal volumes, and at the same pressure, have the same specific heat.

ii. Other circumstances being the same, the specific heat of gases diminishes with diminution of pressure, and equally for all the gases: the progression converges slightly and in a ratio much less than that of the pressures.

iii. Each gas has a different conducting power, i.e., all the gases have not the some power of communicating or receiving heat.—Ann. de Chimie, xxxv. 5.

2. On the Incandescence and Light of Lime.
3. Evolution of Heat during the Compression of Water. May 14, 1827.
4. On Electrical Excitation.
5. Magnetic Repulsion.
6. Diminished Solubility of Substances by Heat.

Solutions were obtained by occasionally agitating this salt with water in the proportion of 2 ounces to a pint of the fluid, for four days; being then decanted and filtered, they had a sweetish taste. A quantity of this fluid being heated in a water-bath, became turbid before the temperature had attained 120° F.; at 212° a cloudy precipitate slowly subsided, and the supernatant fluid became nearly transparent. The precipitate was found to be anhydrous phosphate of magnesia; and, by further experiment, the difference in solubility was found to be such, that water at 45°, dissolving 1744th part its weight of the anhydrous salt, water at 212° only dissolved 11151th part. When in the state of crystals, or as hydrate, the proportions of salt were 1322 and 1498 to 1 of water.

Mere continuance of the heat had no effect in increasing the precipitate either of this salt, or from aqueous solution of lime, provided no part of the solution was at any time converted into vapour; but if the solution only occupied a small part of the vessel, and ebullition came on, then, although all the water might be returned to the solution, yet the precipitation went on, and might be [p203] increased ad libitum, particularly in the case of lime water. The cause of the precipitate appears to be the same in all these cases. The moment a drop of the solution is converted into vapour, it deposits the quantity of lime or salt which it held in solution; and in the case of bodies which dissolve so sparingly and with so much difficulty, although the water be returned again to the solution, it is incapable of re-dissolving what it has deposited. We know that it would be a hopeless task to form a saturated solution of lime by agitating with the water no more than the few grains which it is capable of dissolving; and in the case of ebullition, when the lime is once deposited, there should be the same difficulty in taking it up.

Mr. Graham states that he has observed this effect not only in lime-water and in solution of phosphate of magnesia, but to a certain extent in all bodies of difficult solubility, in the sulphate of lime, for instance, even when greatly diluted; and he believes that the deposite from slight boiling observed in many mineral waters, and generally attributed to the dissipation of carbonic acid gas, depends, in some instances, upon this cause. However weak the solution may be, it is evident that a portion of the salt may be deposited in this way.

7. On the Composition of Cyanic Acid.
8. Iodous Acid.

These statements apply only to the iodous acid: as to the oxide of iodine, no source of chlorine exists in the process last described by M. Sementini.

[35] See the last volume of this Journal, p. 477.

9. On Manganesic Acid, by M. Unverdorben.

Manganesate of potash was analysed by distilling it with excess of sulphuric acid, collecting the oxygen disengaged, and estimating the proportion of protoxide of manganese and salts of potash remaining in the retort. According to these experiments the acid consists of

Manganese 58.74
Oxygen 41.26
100.00
And the
manganesate
of potash of		 Or being
calcined
Potash 25.63 32.75
Manganese acid 52.44 67.25
Water 21.93100.00
100.00

Ann. des Mines, 1827, p. 145.

10. Heavy Muriatic Ether, and Hydrocarburet of Chlorine or Chloric Ether.

Whilst passing the chlorine into the alcohol, M. Vogel observed [p205] that if the sun shone upon the substances when the action was nearly complete, each bubble of chlorine as it entered the alcohol produced a bright purple flame, a dense white vapour, and caused violent concussions in the liquid; another curious instance, in addition to the many that are known, of the power of solar light over chemical action.—Journ. de Pharm. 1826, p. 627.

11. Test for the Presence of Nitric Acid.
12. Peculiar Formation of Nitre.
13. Experiments on Fluoric Acid and Fluates, by M. Kuhlman.

As Berzelius found 100 parts of fluor spar, when acted upon by sulphuric acid, to yield 175 parts of sulphate of lime, equal to 73.553 parts of lime, or 52.819 of calcium, it follows that 100 parts of fluoride of calcium should contain 47.181 of fluorine and 52.819 of calcium. By the assistance of this result, and further experiments, M. Kuhlman proceeded to ascertain the composition of hydro-fluoric acid. Dry muriatic acid gas was passed over calcined fluor spar heated to redness in a tube of platina; the fluoride of calcium was decomposed, free hydro-fluoric acid was evolved, and chloride of lime remained in the tube. The hydro-fluoric acid acted upon the glass tubes, but being received in water was entirely dissolved, with the exception of the silica it had separated from the glass: no trace of hydrogen appeared. One hundred parts of fluoride of calcium thus treated became 143.417 parts of chloride of calcium, the 52.819 parts of calcium having united to 90.598 parts of chlorine. But this latter quantity must have liberated 2.511 parts of hydrogen, which must, therefore, have combined with the 47.181 parts of fluorine in the spar, to form 49.692 parts of hydro-fluoric acid. This latter body, therefore, consists of 94.941 fluorine, and 5.059 of hydrogen per cent. A small quantity of chlorine was set at liberty during the experiment, the author thinks, from a little manganese in the fluor spar.

M. Kuhlman found that all the chlorides, when subjected to the action of anhydrous sulphuric acid in vapour, resisted decomposition, except the chloride of sodium, which gave a small quantity of sulphate of soda, and a double salt of soda and platina, crystallizing in fine needles of a yellow colour. No doubt is entertained that, in the latter case, the common salt and sulphuric acid were not perfectly dry.—Bull. Univ.

14. Crystallization of Phosphorous.
15. Solutions of Phosphorus in Oils.
16. On the Inflammation of Powder when struck by Brass, &c.
17. Cementation of Iron by Cast Iron.
18. On the Preparation of Ferro-prussiate of Potash, by M. Gautier.
Blood, considered
as in the dry state,		3 parts
Nitre1 part
Iron scales150 of the blood
employed.

The blood is first to be coagulated in a large copper cauldron, and the serum being separated by means of a press, the coagulum is to be returned to the cauldron with the nitre and iron. The quantity of water contained in the blood is sufficient to liquify the salt, so as to allow of an uniform mixture being effected. The mixture is then removed, and exposed in an airy situation to dry, the putrefaction of the blood being prevented by the nitre. When the desiccation is complete, the mixture is charged into cast iron cylinders, which are fixed in a reverberatory furnace, and in all things resemble those used in the preparation of animal charcoal. These are to be raised to a brown red heat, until no more vapour is disengaged, and then left until nearly cold, after which the contents are to be withdrawn and put into a wooden vat, with twelve or fifteen times their weight of water, for an hour. The fluid is then to be filtered through a cloth, and evaporated until of 32° of Beaué (specific gravity 1.284.) Being then left to cool, a large quantity of well-crystallized bi-carbonate of potash is obtained. M. Gautier says he has not, as yet, been able to explain how it is that this bi-carbonate has been formed at so high a temperature; a portion also appears to be decomposed during the evaporation of the solution, which, at first but slightly alkaline, becomes sensibly so by a prolonged evaporation.

As the same product is not obtained when potash is used in place of nitre, it is probable that the elements of the nitric acid perform a particular part in the operation.

The solution which has given the crystals of carbonate of potash contains a little carbonate of potash, and much ferro-prussiate of potash. It is to be concentrated to 34° (specific gravity 1.306), and placed in wooden vessels lined with lead. In the course of some days a greenish crystalline mass is obtained, which being redissolved in a fresh quantity of pure water, and evaporated to 32° or 33° (specific gravity 1.295), is to be recrystallized.

Sometimes, when using potash, M. Gautier has mixed nitre with it, and has always obtained a richer product than when potash alone had been employed.—Jour. de Phar. 1827, p. 11.

19. Sulphocyanide of Potassium in Saliva.
20. Decomposition of Sulphate of Copper by Tartaric Acid.
21. Separation of Arsenic from Nickel or Cobalt.

The method of freeing cobalt from arsenic, is the same as for nickel; but it is then necessary to perform the operation a second time. The cobalt (that of Tunaberg) has never been perfectly freed from arsenic by one operation, but has never retained any after the second.—Archiv für Bergbau, 1826, p. 186.

22. Compounds of Gold.
1 atom gold25
3 " oxygen 3
28

and is consequently a teroxide. Muriate of gold consists of

2 atoms muriatic acid 9.25
1 " per oxide of gold28.
5 " water 5.625
42.875

Edin. Journal, p. 182.

23. Chemical Researches relative to certain Ancient Substances.

M. D’Arcet has examined a bone from the fore part of an ox, which had been placed as an offering to the divinity in an Egyptian tomb, and found that it contained as much gelatine as recent bone, although rather less is obtained by muriatic acid, (20 per cent. instead of 27) because of a deterioration of the bone. When burnt, it gave an animal black as deep in colour as that from recent bone.

M. Le Baillif has examined some grains of corn, which were so well preserved, that when put into boiling water iodine produced the blue colour dependent upon starch. He also made some experiments on a gummy substance, and on two cords from a musical instrument; the latter were of animal substance.

M. Raspail examined some grain which was supposed to be wheat, but found it to be torrified barley; it was covered with a substance communicated probably by the oil and incense with which the grains were bathed when consecrated. Similar grains were obtained by roasting common barley.

The account of most of these researches is given in the Catalogue raisonné et historique des Antiquités découvertes en Egypte, by M. Passalacqua.—Bull. Univ. A. vii. 264.

24. On the Bitter Substance produced by the action of Nitric Acid on Indigo, Silk, and Aloes, by M. Just Liebeg.

To obtain the substance perfectly pure, the crystals must be re-dissolved in boiling water, and neutralized by carbonate of potash. Upon cooling, a salt of potash will crystallize, which should be purified by repeated crystallizations.

On mixing the first mother liquor with water, a considerable brown precipitate will be obtained, which being dissolved in boiling [p211] water, and neutralized by carbonate of potash, will furnish a large quantity of the potash salt. All the potash salt obtained in these operations is to be re-dissolved in boiling water, and nitric, muriatic, or sulphuric acid added; as the solution cools, the peculiar substance will be observed to form very brilliant plates of a clear yellow colour, generally in equilateral triangular forms.

Sometimes crystals are not formed after the action of the nitric acid on the indigo, in which case the liquor must be evaporated, and water added, when the substance will precipitate, and must be purified as already described. Four parts of indigo yield one of the pure substance.

When the substance is heated, it fuses, and is volatilized without decomposition; when subjected to a sudden strong heat, it inflames without explosion, its vapours burning with a yellow flame, and a carbonaceous residue remaining. It is but little soluble in cold water, but much more in boiling water; the solution has a bright yellow colour, reddens litmus, has an extremely bitter taste, and acts like a strong acid on metallic oxides, dissolving them, and forming peculiar crystallizable salts.—Ether and alcohol dissolve the substance readily.

When fused in chlorine or with iodine, it is not decomposed, nor does solution of chlorine affect it. Cold sulphuric acid has no action on it; when hot, it dissolves it, but water separates the substance without alteration. Boiling muriatic acid does not affect it, and nitro-muriatic acid only with great difficulty.

These results show that no nitric acid is present in the substance, and other experiments prove that no oxide of nitrogen exists in it; it contains no oxalic or other organic acid, for when its salt is boiled with chloride of gold, the latter is not reduced.

When heated to redness with oxide of copper, it gave a mixture of nitrogen and carbonic acid, in the exact proportion of 1 volume of the former, to 5 of the latter. This was a constant result, and in no case was any sulphuric or muriatic acid left in the copper. 0.0625 grammes of the substance thus decomposed, gave 45 cubic centimeters of the mixed gases, estimated at 0° C. (32° F.) and the pressure of 28 inches of mercury, according to which the acid would be composed of carbon 32.392; nitrogen 15.2144; oxygen 52.3936 per cent. From the mean of several experiments, it appeared that the following might represent the composition correctly.—

1212 atoms of carbon 93.75or 31.5128
 212 " azote 43.75" 14.7060
16 " oxygen160.00" 53.7812
297.5100.

100 parts of the acid neutralize a quantity of base equivalent to 3.26 of oxygen, which is to the oxygen of the acid, as 1:16; the equivalent number of the acid derived from the analysis of the [p212] barytic salt was 306.3; by adding only 14 per cent. to the quantity of baryta obtained in the experiment, 297.5, or the number expressed by the above formula, would be obtained.

When a salt of potash or baryta was decomposed by oxide of copper and heat, the quantity of carbonic acid produced was a little short of five times the quantity of nitrogen; but, upon adding that retained by the alkali or earth, the proportion became exactly the same as in the former cases.

Welter’s bitter principle was prepared by acting on silk with ten or twelve times its weight of nitric acid. The liquid, slightly coloured at first, acquired a deep yellow upon adding water. It was neutralized by carbonate of potash whilst hot, and left to cool, and the salt of potash thus obtained, decomposed by muriatic, nitric, or sulphuric acid. This acid, crystallized like that from indigo, formed the same salts, and was composed in the same manner. Silk furnishes much less of the substance than indigo. Dr. Liebeg has called this substance carbazotic acid. The most important salts formed by it have the following properties:—

Carbazotate of Potash—crystallizes in long yellow quadrilateral needles, semi-transparent and very brilliant; it dissolves in 260 parts of water at 59° F., and in much less, boiling water: a saturated boiling solution becomes a yellow mass of needles, from which scarcely any fluid will run. Strong acids decompose it; yet when an alcoholic solution of carbazotic acid is added to a solution of nitre, crystallized carbazotate of potash, after some time, precipitates.—Alcohol does not dissolve it. When a little is gradually heated in a glass tube, it first fuses, and then suddenly explodes, breaking the tube to atoms; traces of charcoal are observed on the fragments. This salt precipitates a solution of the protonitrate of mercury, but not salts, containing the peroxide, or those of copper, lead, cobalt, iron, lime, baryta, strontia, or magnesia. The slight solubility of this salt supplies an easy method of testing and separating potash in a fluid. Even the potash in tincture of litmus may be discovered by it; for, on adding a few drops of carbazotic acid, dissolved in alcohol, to infusion of litmus, crystals of the salt gradually separated. The saturated solution of the salt at 50° F., is not troubled by muriate of platina. The salt contains no water of crystallization. It was analyzed by converting a portion of it into chloride of potassium by muriatic acid: its composition is,—

Carbazotic acid 83.79
Potash 16.21
100.00

Carbazotate of Soda—crystallizes in fine silky yellow needles, having the general properties of the salt of potash, but soluble in from 20 to 24 parts of water, at 59° F.

Carbazotate of Ammonia forms very long, flattened, brilliant, [p213] yellow crystals, very soluble in water. Heated carefully in a glass tube, it fuses, and is volatilized without decomposition; heated suddenly, it inflames without explosion, and leaves much carbonaceous residue.

Carbazotate of Baryta, obtained by heating carbonate of baryta, and carbazotic acid with water. It crystallizes in quadrangular prisms of a deep colour, and dissolves easily in water. When heated, it fuses, and is decomposed with very powerful explosion, producing a vivid yellow flame. The explosion is as powerful as that of fulminating silver; a solution of chloride of potassium to which carbazotate of baryta has been added, produces a precipitate of the potash salt, and not more than 112 per cent. of potash remains in solution. 100 parts of the crystallized salt contain,—

Carbazotic acid 69.16oxygen of the acid16
Baryta 21.60oxygen of the earth 1
Water  9.24oxygen of the water 8
100.00

Carbazotate of Lime, obtained like the salt of baryta, forms flattened quadrangular prisms, very soluble in water, and detonating like the salt of potash.

Carbazotate of Magnesia forms very long indistinct needles, of a clear yellow colour; is very soluble, and detonates violently.

Carbazotate of Copper, prepared by decomposing sulphate of copper by carbazotate of baryta: it crystallizes with difficulty, the crystals being of a fine green colour; it is deliquescent; when heated, it is decomposed without explosion, and even without inflammation.

Carbazotate of Silver.—Carbazotic acid readily dissolves oxide of silver, when heated with it and water; and the solution, gradually evaporated, yields starry groups of fine acicular crystals of the colour and lustre of gold; the salt dissolves readily in water; when heated to a certain degree, it does not detonate, but fuses like gunpowder.

Proto-Carbazotate of Mercury, obtained in small yellow triangular crystals, by mixing boiling solutions of the carbazotate of potash or soda, and proto-nitrate of mercury. It requires more than 1200 parts of water for its solution: for its perfect purification, it should be heated with a solution of chloride of potassium, the insoluble portion separated whilst the liquid is lost, and the peculiar salt allowed to deposit as the temperature falls. When heated, it behaves like the salt of silver.

All these salts detonate much more powerfully when heated in close vessels, than when heated in the air; and it was a curious thing to observe, that those with bases yielding oxygen most readily, were those which exploded with least force. By heating some of the salts previously mixed with chloride of potassium, &c., to retard the action, it appeared that no carbonic oxide, but only carbonic [p214] acid and azote were evolved during their decomposition by heat.

On the Bitter Principle from Aloes.—Upon distilling 8 parts of nitric acid from 1 part of the extract of aloes, and adding water to the remaining fluid, a resinous reddish yellow substance precipitated, which, by washing, became pulverulent—it was discovered by M. Braconnot. Upon evaporating the liquid separated from the precipitate, it gave large yellow rhomboidal crystals, not transparent, and but slightly soluble. These crystals, at first mistaken for a particular substance, were soon found to be a combination of oxalic acid with the bitter of aloes. The bitter substances of aloes dissolved in 800 parts of water, at 59° F., but in a smaller quantity of boiling water. This solution has a superb purple colour. Silk boiled in it acquired a very fine purple colour, on which neither soap nor acids effected any change, except nitric acid; this changed the colour to yellow, but it was restored simply by washing in water. All shades may be given to this colour by proper mordants. Wool is dyed black in a peculiarly beautiful manner, by the same process, and light has no influence on the colour. Leather acquires a purple colour; cotton, a rose colour; but the latter will not resist soap. Dr. Liebeg thinks that this is the only substance from which a permanent rose dye for silk may be expected.—Ann. de Chimie, xxxv. 72.

25. On the Existence of Crystals of Oxalate of Lime in Plants.

The latter crystals were observed, for the first time, by Rafn and Jurine, who regarded them as organs of which they knew not the use. They were then observed by M. de Candolle, who called them raphides, and gave a figure of them, which, however, is inaccurate. These crystals are really very regular tetraedrons. In many plants, as orchis, pandanus, ornithogalum, jacinthus, phytolaca decandria, mesembryanthemum deltoides, &c. they are very small, not being more than 1200 of a millimetre (.0002 of an inch) in width, and 110 (.004 of an inch) in length. But, in the tubercles of the Florence iris, they are as much as 150 (.0008 of an inch) in width, and 13 (.01312 of an inch) in length, so as to be easily capable of examination.—Bull. Univ. B. xi. 376.

26. Fallacy of Infusion of Litmus as a Test, by M. Magnus.
27. Tests for the Natural Colouring Matter of Wine.
28. Test of the Presence of Opium.
29. Denarcotized Laudanum.
30. Extraction of Morphia from Dry Poppy Heads, by M. Tilloy.
31. Preparation of Morphia.

M. Henry observed, at the same time, that, from experiments made at La Pharmacie Centrale, it appeared that much more morphia was obtained in those processes in which lime had been used to precipitate the morphia, than in those in which magnesia had been used.—Bull. Univ. C. xi. 225.

32. Easy Method of obtaining Meconic Acid, by Dr. Hare.
33. On a New Vegetable Acid.
34. Altheine, a new Vegetable Principle.
35. Rheine, a new Substance from Rhubarb.
36. On Dragon’s Blood, and a new Substance which it contains, by M. Melandri.

Supposing that this substance might contain a principle analogous to that latterly observed by M. Pelletier in logwood, &c. a portion of it was dissolved in strong alcohol, the solution evaporated until very concentrated, and then poured into cold water, an agglomerated spongy substance was precipitated, which, after being washed with cold water and filtered, was triturated with water containing 1100th of sulphuric acid, and exhibited traces of chemical action at a temperature of 22° (61°.6 F.) It then deposited a substance upon the sides of the vessel, and the liquid became yellow and very acid. The sediment, being carefully washed with water, was of a fine red colour, varying according to the state of aggregation; it had no taste or smell; was flexible between the fingers, and was quite fluid at 55° (131° F.). This substance, which the author has called Dracine, has some analogy with the vegeto-alkalis, although its affinity for acids is but slight. The sulphate may be obtained, he says, by adding sulphuric acid diluted with alcohol to an alcoholic solution of dracine, precipitating the mixture by cold water, and then applying a little heat; the sulphate of dracine collects at the bottom, is to be washed with cold water until the latter no longer reddens litmus paper, and then dissolved in hot water. This solution becomes red by the smallest quantity of alkalis, and may be used as a very sensible test of their presence. Dracine is also a good test for acids, assuming a yellow colour with them. The small quantity of carbonate of lime in filtering paper may be detected by sulphate of dracine, the yellow solution instantly becoming red from its action, and thus showing its presence.—Bull. Univ. C. xi. p. 157.

37. Purification of Madder, by the Separation of its Yellow Colouring Matter.

On commencing the operation, 50 or 55 lb. of pulverised madder are to be put into the first vessel, water is to be added, and stirred into the mass until it stands 112 inch above the madder. The whole is then to be left until fermentation comes on and has formed a coat of madder at the surface; this usually takes place in 36 hours, and at latest in 48 hours, according to the temperature. The mass should now be transferred into the second vessel, which is then to be filled with water, and being left for two hours, the madder will fall to the bottom. The upper cock is then to be opened, after that the second, and then the third; and the water which runs from the two latter is to be put into the third vessel, that the rest of the madder may separate from it. The madder in the second vessel is then to be washed a second, third, or fourth time until the washing water is colourless. Thus purified, the madder may be used in the processes of dyeing, according to the known methods; but it is important in summer that it should be used immediately, that a new (the vinous) fermentation may be avoided. The madder deposited in the third vessel, when washed and deposited, may be used like the rest. The liquid first separated after the fermentation may be used in the preparation of hot indigo baths, &c. instead of madder.—Bull. Univ. P. vii. 352.

[36] See page 239 of the last volume.

38. On Indigo and Indigogene, by M. Liebeg.

This white substance was called Indigogene. It did not change colour in dry air, but under water became of a deep blue, which by drying, assumed a coppery appearance. The blue substance volatilized by heat without leaving any residue, forming purple vapours, which condensed, when cold, into crystals differing in nothing from sublimed indigo. Indigogene dissolves in alkalis without neutralizing them: it is also soluble in alcohol, but insoluble in water or acids.

A given quantity of this indigogene was acted upon by ammonia, and the weight of the undissolved blue portion ascertained, it appeared that the weight of the pure portion dissolved was 0.404 grammes (6.224 grains.) The solution was put into an inverted [p221] jar, over mercury, and oxygen gas gradually passed in until absorption ceased, and then the liquid containing the precipitated indigo was evaporated to dryness at 212°. The weight of the substance was increased to 0.047, i. e. 11.5 per cent.

Not having obtained indigogene perfectly pure, M. Liebeg did not attempt to analyze it for the ultimate composition. He remarks, that indigo is, perhaps, the only organic body from which one of its constituent parts may be taken without total decomposition; and which, by oxidation, passes to the state of an indifferent body, having much analogy with peroxides.—Ann. de Chimie, xxxv. 269.

39. On the mutual Action of Ethers, and other Substances.

Nitric and acetic ethers are described as being easily decomposed by the action of many bodies without the assistance of heat, if aided by time. Amongst the products of the action are the acids of the ethers, acetates, and alcohol which dissolves the salts formed.—Jour. de Chimie Méd.

40. Faraday’s Chemical Manipulation.

The mistake, which arose from using the wrong specific gravity of two that were required in calculation, occurs in the paragraphs (599, 600,) but fortunately is prevented from occasioning any experimental error by the directions given in (602). The acid of specific gravity, 1.141, directed to be used, is too strong for the quantities marked upon the tube. The substitution of one of specific gravity 1.127, will correct the error, and may be obtained very nearly by mixing 19 parts, by weight, of strong oil of vitriol, with 81 parts of water.

The alterations required may be made in the volume with a pen, as for errors of the press, by reading “1.127” for “1.141” in lines 25 and 30 of page 276, and lines 2 and 13 of page 277; and “nineteen” for “one” in line 27, and “eighty-one” for “four” in line 28 of page 276.—M. F. [p222]

III. NATURAL HISTORY. [◊]

1. On the Supposed Influence of the Moon, by M. Arago.

M. Arago explains this observation of practical men, by a reference to the facts and principles established by Dr. Wells. He has shown that, in a clear night, exposed bodies may frequently have their temperatures reduced below that of the surrounding atmosphere, solely by the effect of radiation, the difference being as much as 6, 7, 10, or more degrees, but that it does not take place when the heavens are obscured. M. Arago then observes, that the temperature is often not more than 4, 5, or 6 degrees above the freezing point during the nights of April and May, and that when the night is clear, consequently when the moon is bright, the temperature of the leaves and buds may often be brought by radiation below the freezing point, whilst the air remains above it, and consequently an effect be produced, which, though not dependent upon, accompanies the brilliant unobscured state of the moon—the absence of these injurious effects, when the moon is obscured, being also as perfectly accounted for by these principles, from the knowledge that the same clouds which obscure the moon will prevent the radiation of heat from the plants. Hence, as M. Arago observes, the observation of the gardener is correct as far as it goes, though the interpretation of the effect which he generally gives is incorrect.—Annuaire du Bureau des Long. 1827, p. 162.

2. Luminous Appearances in the Atmosphere.
3. On the Determination of the Mean Temperature of the Air.

v = 12 (x f + xe)−0.33 + 0.41 sin. [(n−1) 30° + 124° 8′] v = mean temperature. n = the ordinal number of the month for which the temperature is to be calculated (thus, for March, n = 3). 12 (x f + x e) = the mean temperature taken as the mean of observations taken at ten o’clock in the morning and evening. In winter 12 (x f + x e) = v very nearly; whilst, in summer, this quantity is 34 of a degree greater than v at Paris, Halle, and Abo.—Annal. der Phys. und Chem. 1825, p. 373.

4. Indelible Writing.
5. Peculiar Crystals of Quartz.
6. Native Iron not Meteoric.

The specimen has been examined chemically, by Mr. Shepherd, at Yale College. It is invested with highly crystalline plumbago, and splits by the intervention of plates of plumbago into pyramidal and tetrahedral masses. It is not equal to meteoric iron in malleability, toughness, and flexibility, and has not the silvery white appearance of that iron. Its specific gravity is from 5.95 to 6.72. It has native steel intermingled in it, but contains no nickel, or any other alloy.

Major Barrall has only been to the place where this iron occurred once, and no other person has ever been to the place, or knows where it is.—Silliman’s Journal, xii. 154. [p225]

7. Native Argentiferous Gold.
Native Gold of Marmato.—Pale yellow octoedral crystals:
Gold73.453 atoms73.40
Silver26.481 "26.60
Loss00.07
Native Gold of Titiribi:
Gold74.003 atoms73.40
Silver26.001 "26.60
Native Gold of Malpaso.—Yellow irregular flattened grains:
Gold88.248 atoms88.04
Silver11.761 "11.96
Native Gold of Rio-Sucio.—Deep-coloured large irregular grains:
Gold87.948 atoms88.04
Silver12.061 "11.96
Native Gold of the Otra Mina.—Pale yellow octoedral crystals:
Gold73.43 atoms73.40
Silver26.61 "26.60
Native Gold of Guamo.—Brass-yellow indeterminate crystals:
Gold73.683 atoms73.40
Silver26.321 "26.60
Native Gold of Llano.—Small flattened grains—reddish:
Gold88.588 atoms88.04
Silver11.421 "11.96
Native Gold of Baja.—Porous:
Gold88.158 atoms88.04
Silver11.851 "11.96
Native Gold of Ojas-Anchas.—Yellowish red plates:
Gold84.56 atoms84.71
Silver15.51 "15.29
Native Gold of Trinidad, near Santa Rosa de Osos.—A solid piece of 50 grains:
Gold82.44 atoms82.14
Silver17.61 "17.86
Native Gold of Transylvania (Europe).—Pale yellow cubic crystals:
Gold64.522 atoms64.77
Silver35.481 "35.23
Native Gold of Santa Rosa de Osos.—A mass weighing 710 grains:
Gold64.932 atoms64.77
Silver35.071 "35.23

M. Boussingault has remarked a singlar deficiency in the [p226] specific gravity of the native alloys of gold and silver when compared with calculation, or with the results obtained from an alloy similar in composition prepared by fusion; thus the native gold of Marmato has a specific gravity of 12.666, whereas, by calculation, it ought to be 16.931. The gold of Malpaso, by experiment, is 14.706, by calculation, 18.223, and by fusion, 18.1. The gold of Santa Rosa, by experiment, is 14.149, and by calculation, 16.175. This difference, M. Boussingault says, is not due to porosity in the native gold, as he has observed it in the granular and fine varieties, but a peculiar character of the metal in this state. Such an enormous difference, however, is one that can be admitted only upon repeated experimental proofs, made in the most unexceptionable manner; and, considering that it is only in some of the metals that any permanent difference in specific gravity can be established, and even with them to but a small extent, would be a fact so important as to be worth extreme trouble in the verification.—Annales de Chimie, xxxiv. 408.

8. Prothéeïte—a new Mineral.
9. Volcanic Bisulphuret of Copper.

M. Covelli descended into the crater, until within 300 feet of the edge of the large eastern opening, from which the great current of lava flowed in 1822. Here the fumeroles presented the most beautiful crystallizations of sulphate of lime and sulphur. On examining the scoria they were found incrusted and covered with a substance, having all the shades of colour belonging to blue, green, and black. Sometimes it resembled a spider’s web in appearance, sometimes soot deposited in the cavities of the scoria. Many specimens were collected, and also a portion of water condensed from the vapours which issued forth, and which evidently contained sulphuretted hydrogen and muriatic acid. The temperature of the vapour was as high as 85° C., in some places, and even up to 90°, at half a foot beneath the surface.

The water being examined was found to contain only a little sulphuretted hydrogen, and a little muriatic acid. The black substance was soon ascertained to be a pure sulphuret of copper. Being analyzed, 100 parts yielded 32 parts of sulphur, and 66 of copper, a loss of two parts being incurred, which accords very nearly with the composition of the bi-sulphuret of copper. The blue and bluish-green substances were found to be mixtures of this sulphuret with sulphate and hydro-sulphuret of copper.

M. Covelli concludes that this substance has been formed by the action of sulphuretted hydrogen on the sulphate and muriate of copper evolved by these fumeroles; and observes, that its composition accords with such an opinion, the deutoxide being that which forms the Vesuvian cupreous salts.—Ann. de Chimie, xxxv. 105.

10. Fall of the Lake Souwando in Russia.
11. Vegetable Torpor observed in the Roots of the Black Mulberry-tree.
12. Method of increasing the Odour of Roses.
13. Pine Apples.
14. Mode of Condensing and Preserving Vegetable Substances for Ships’ Provision, &c.
15. Rewards for the Discovery of Quinia, and for Lithotrity.
16. Upon the Gaseous Exhalations of the Skin.

From the experiments of M. Collard de Martigny, he deduces,

i. That a gaseous exhalation really takes place from the skin.

ii. This exhalation is not morbid: it is observable in health.

iii. It is composed of carbonic acid and azote, in very variable proportions. The following experiment was frequently made. The bubbles of air which are disengaged from the skin were received into a funnel, the top of which was closed: they were then passed into a graduated tube, and agitated with a solution of potash. The height to which the solution rose in the tube indicated the quantities of carbonic acid that had been absorbed. All these operations were made at the same temperature and pressure. Neither hydrogen nor oxygen gas were discovered in this air.

iv. It does occur continually; but very often we may vainly attempt to discover it, which has been the cause of error in the results of Priestley, Fontana and Fourcroy. It is especially suspended after exercise long continued in the middle of the day, or immediately after taking an abundant meal. Sometimes it is suspended without any apparent cause.

v. The quantity also is very variable; but it was observed to be constantly in an inverse ratio to the cutaneous absorption.

vi. The proportions of the two gases vary very much, and sometimes the exhaled gas consists almost entirely of azote: in other instances the predominance of carbonic acid is so great that it appears to be the only product.—Med. Rep., N. S. v. 75.

17. Effects of Galvanism in Cases of Asphyxia by submersion.
18. Recovery from Drowning.
19. Preservation of Cantharides.
20. Chloride of Lime in cases of Burns.
21. Cure of Nasal Polypi.
22. Bite of the Viper.
23. Experiments on the Poison of the Viper.
24. Destruction of Moles.
25. On growing Salad-herbs at Sea.

Provide one, two, or three deal boards, made of well-seasoned inch stuff, sixteen inches square, with a ledge all round, rising one inch above the smooth surface of the board; and as it is intended to hold water, the ledges must be closely and neatly fitted: at each corner a nail, or small hook, should be placed, with strings tied into a loop above, by which the board may be slung in the necessary horizontal position; a thin covering-board, made of the same material and dimensions, is also necessary, and which will serve for all the boards.

Pieces of the thickest flannel must be had for each board, cut so as to fit exactly within the ledges. These flannels require to be well soaked, and repeatedly washed in boiling water, before they can be used, to discharge from them whatever is pernicious to vegetation as they come from the manufacturer’s hands.

The board and flannel thus prepared, dip the flannel in water, and place on the boards; sow the seeds pretty thick and regularly; sprinkle them lightly with the hand, till all are moistened and the flannel completely saturated; in which state it should always be kept during the growth of the plants. Too much water floats the seeds when first put on, and are thereby shifted from their places by the motion of the ship. The cover-board must now be put on, and the whole hung up in its place. The use of this board is to assist the vegetation of the seeds, which it will do sufficiently in the course of twenty-four hours; after which it may be laid aside.

The board must be frequently examined, and when the moisture thereon is diminished by evaporation, or imbibed by the crop, a supply must be given, just enough to keep the flannel in the proper saturated state.

In six or seven days the crop will be (if the weather has been favourable) two inches high,—it is then fit for use. The produce [p234] of one board yields about as much as will fill a middle-sized salad-bowl, and when dressed up with the usual condiments of onion, salt, vinegar, and oil, a most agreeable salad will be composed, and a most acceptable treat to the guests at the captain’s table.

It is necessary that the board, as well as the flannel, be scalded, well washed, and dried in the sun, before it can be used again;—and as one board yields one crop per week, two, or even three boards may be used at the same time, in order to secure a regular supply. Larger boards are not so convenient, because they can only be hung in some by-corner of a cabin, quarter-gallery, or state-room, where they may not only be out of the way, but out of the sun and currents of air.

The herbs suitable to be raised in this way are, radish, mustard, and common garden-cress. The two first answer best within the tropics; the last does not, being too delicate and diminutive;—but this does very well when the ship is no nearer the equator than thirty degrees of latitude. One peck of radish, another of mustard, and two quarts of cress, will be sufficient for an India and China voyage,—a supply of which may be had in China.

I. M.

26. Chinese Method of fattening Fish.

A few observations on their piscinas, or fish-stews, is the design of this paper; not merely as an historical description, but as an object for imitation in this or any other country.

For twenty or thirty miles round Canton, and as far as the eye can reach on each side of the river on which that city stands, the general face of the country appears nearly a level plain, with but little undulation of surface. The level is, however, richly studded with beautiful hills, which diversify the landscape, and seem to rise out of the plain so abruptly, that they form the most picturesque features, united with the most pleasing combinations. The soil of the plain consists of a pure alluvial earth of great fertility and depth, and very retentive of water; which, by the by, is a proof that, notwithstanding their claim to high chronological antiquity, the waters of the deluge remained much longer (perhaps for ages) on this portion of the continent of Asia, than it did in the interior: and the circumstance of many of their hills being cultivated to the [p235] very top, their numerous water-plants, and their almost amphibious habits as to their domiciles, are still further proofs that the country was, once, more of an aquaium than it now is. Hence the facility of making canals, which are their high-roads (as wheel-carriages, and beasts of draught, are too expensive appendages, for the systematic economy of the celestial empire!) and hence the ease with which a pond may be made in any otherwise useless corner. Such tanks, or ponds, are generally met with in market-garden grounds, where they serve the double purpose of a reservoir, and a stew for rearing and fattening fish.

When a pond is made for this purpose, and filled with water, the owner goes to market, and buys as many young store-fish as his pond can conveniently hold; this he can easily do, as almost all their fish are brought to market alive. Placed in the stew, they are regularly fed morning and evening, or as often as the feeder finds it necessary; their food is chiefly boiled rice, to which is added, the blood of any animals they may kill, wash from their stewing-pots and dishes, &c., indeed any animal offal or vegetable matter which the fish will eat. It is said, they also use some oleaceous medicament in the food, to make the fish more voracious, in order to accelerate their fattening; but of this the writer could obtain no authentic account.

Fish so fed and treated, advance in size rapidly, though not to any great weight; as the kind (a species of perch) which came under observation, never arrive at much more than a pound avoirdupois; but from the length of three or four inches, when first put in, they grow to eight or nine in a few months, and are then marketable. Drafts from the pond are then occasionally made; the largest are first taken off, and conveyed in large shallow tubs of water to market: if sold, well; if not, they are brought back and replaced in the stew, until they can be disposed of.

This business of fish-feeding is so managed that the stock are all fattened off about the time the water is most wanted for the garden-crops. The pond is then cleaned out, the mud carefully saved, or spread as manure,—again filled with water, stocked with young fry, and fed as before.

An intelligent Chinaman, from whom the writer had the above detail, and who showed him as much of the process as could be seen during a residence of three months, declared as his belief, that a spot of ground, containing from twenty to thirty square yards, would yield a greater annual profit as a stew, than it would in any other way to which it could possibly be applied.

That fish may be tamed, suffer themselves to be caressed, and even raised out of their natural element by the hand, has been long known to naturalists; witness the famous old carp formerly in the pond of some religious house at Chantilly, in France, with many other instances on record. But it is probable no people has carried the art of stew-feeding fish, and practising it as a profitable concern, to such lengths, as is done by the Chinese at this day. I. M.

METEOROLOGICAL DIARY for the Months of June, July, and August, 1827, kept at EARL SPENCER’s Seat at Althorp, in Northamptonshire. [◊] The Thermometer hangs in a North-eastern Aspect, about five feet from the ground, and a foot from the wall.

FOR JUNE, 1827.
Thermometer.Barometer.Wind.
LowestHighestMorn.Eve.Morn.Eve.
Friday1476529.5029.50SWSW
Saturday24262.529.6029.43SWbS
Sunday3446329.6729.67WW
Monday4446229.7029.79WW
Tuesday5475929.7029.59WW
Wednesday6475829.4729.60WNW
Thursday7436029.7829.88WNW
Friday8366330.0230.07NWW
Saturday9457230.1330.17WW
Sunday104868.530.1730.10NENE
Monday114670.530.0930.02NENE
Tuesday12466630.0230.02NENE
Wednesday13516530.0229.94NENE
Thursday14486529.8929.78NENE
Friday15516029.7029.60NENE
Saturday16527129.6029.57NES
Sunday17547329.6629.66WSWW
Monday185472.529.7829.79WW
Tuesday19506829.7929.69WW
Wednesday20486529.6529.67WWbS
Thursday214466.529.7029.73SWW
Friday22436429.8029.88WW
Saturday23486329.9029.94WW
Sunday244366.529.9429.97WW
Monday25496629.9729.90WNWNNW
Tuesday26466929.9029.86WWbS
Wednesday2753.56729.8029.69SWSW
Thursday28566629.4829.46SWSW
Friday29567029.4629.53SWSW
Saturday30527229.5929.68WW
FOR JULY, 1827.
Thermometer.Barometer.Wind.
LowestHighestMorn.Eve.Morn.Eve.
Sunday1556929.6029.63ESW
Monday24966.529.7029.60SSW
Tuesday3496929.6329.78WbSWbS
Wednesday4487329.9929.99WWbS
Thursday5586730.0630.20NENE
Friday6427030.2930.27EWNW
Saturday7557530.2730.26WNWWNW
Sunday8537430.2630.21WbNWbN
Monday95473.530.1930.08WW
Tuesday10547230.0229.87WWbN
Wednesday1155.56729.9029.98NWW
Thursday12456830.0230.04WENE
Friday13447330.0630.04EE
Saturday1446.571.530.0430.00ESEE
Sunday15457129.9829.91ENE
Monday164771.529.9129.90EE
Tuesday1746.57729.9029.88SEWbS
Wednesday18577229.8329.87WSWW
Thursday19516829.8729.71WSW
Friday20576929.5929.62WW
Saturday21506929.7729.80WW
Sunday22456429.8229.80ESESE
Monday23577329.8329.88EbSW
Tuesday24587529.9029.89WWbS
Wednesday25607229.8229.82SWWNW
Thursday264669.529.9229.78WSSW
Friday27547429.9030.00WW
Saturday28587930.0030.02WW
Sunday29547830.0429.92ESESE
Monday30657529.6229.80SSEW
Tuesday315272.530.0330.10WW
FOR AUGUST, 1827.
Thermometer.Barometer.Wind.
LowestHighestMorn.Eve.Morn.Eve.
Wednesday1517230.0429.95W
Thursday24677.529.8229.67W
Friday3567429.6029.50SWW
Saturday4587129.4829.63SWW
Sunday5536629.9130.06WNE
Monday65167.530.1330.18NEENE
Tuesday7427030.1830.10EE
Wednesday8406830.0429.98EE
Thursday94170.529.9329.80EbNSE
Friday10577029.6029.48SWW
Saturday11476629.4829.44WW
Sunday12506229.5529.67WSWWNW
Monday13466729.7629.73WWbS
Tuesday14517029.5329.43SWSW
Wednesday15606829.2229.25SEWbS
Thursday16516729.3029.36SNE
Friday17566829.6029.76NENE
Saturday18546029.8729.87NENE
Sunday19486529.8929.90NENE
Monday2042.559.529.9029.90NENW
Tuesday215667.529.9029.95NENE
Wednesday22515930.0330.10NNW
Thursday23486830.2030.20NWNW
Friday24526330.1430.08WNWWbN
Saturday25496030.0030.04WNWW
Sunday26445830.0830.08NWN
Monday27426730.1230.16NNW
Tuesday28476430.1630.16WNW
Wednesday29506330.2430.24NNENW
Thursday30476330.1830.07WW
Friday31526330.1230.20NNE

CONTENTS. [◊] Oct.–Dec. 1827.

TO OUR READERS AND CORRESPONDENTS.

The pages of this Journal are impartially open to all communications upon the subjects of Science, Scientific Literature, and the Arts: it is requested they may be forwarded to the Editor one month previous to the publication of each number.

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We have been favoured with communications from Mr. Swainson, Dr. Littledale, Mr. Rose, and E. Z., which we are obliged to postpone.

A letter from a “Member of the Zoological Society,” reached us too late for the purpose it was intended to answer. We fear we shall not agree with him in opinion, but perhaps his second communication may clear up the difference.

We presume that “A Mechanic” will find the information he requires in Mr. Farey’s account of the Steam Engine.

“An old Subscriber” is much in error—the proceedings he alludes to are copiously given in contemporary monthly publications; if therefore we followed his advice, our information would be stale. The motives he alludes to are out of the question.

We cannot give “A Vapourer” any authentic information respecting the Steam Carriage, nor do we hear that the Gas Engine has advanced.

ROYAL INSTITUTION OF GREAT BRITAIN, Albemarle Street, December 3, 1827.

A COURSE OF SIX ELEMENTARY LECTURES ON CHEMISTRY, adapted to a Juvenile Audience, will be delivered during the Christmas Recess, by MICHAEL FARADAY, F.R.S., Corr. Mem. Roy. Acad. Sciences, Paris; Director of the Laboratory, &c. &c.

The Lectures will commence at Three o’Clock.

Lecture I. Saturday, December 29. Substances generally—Solids, Fluids, Gases—Chemical affinity.

Lecture II. Tuesday, January 1, 1828. Atmospheric Air and its Gases.

Lecture III. Thursday, January 3. Water and its Elements.

Lecture IV. Saturday, January 5. Nitric Acid or Aquafortis—Ammonia or Volatile Alkali—Muriatic Acid or Spirit of Salt—Chlorine, &c.

Lecture V. Tuesday, January 8. Sulphur, Phosphorus, Carbon, and their Acids.

Lecture VI. Thursday, January 10. Metals and their Oxides—Earths, Fixed Alkalies and Salts, &c.

Non-Subscribers to the Institution are admitted to the above Course on payment of One Guinea each; Children, 10s. 6d.

The Weekly Evening Meetings of the Members of the Royal Institution will commence for the ensuing Season, on Friday the 25th of January, 1828, at half past Eight o’Clock, and will be continued on each succeeding Friday Evening, at the same hour, till further notice.

The Lectures will commence for the Season on Saturday the 2d of February, at Three o’Clock, by WM. THOS. BRANDE, Esq., F.R.S. Lond. and Edin., Prof. of Chemistry in the Royal Institution.

The Library of the Royal Institution is open for the use of the Members and Subscribers every day on which the House of the Institution is open; in Winter from Ten till Four, and from Seven till Ten in the Evening; and in Summer from Ten till Five, and from Seven till Ten in the Evening.

Mr. BRANDE and Mr. FARADAY will commence the Spring Course of their Chemical Lectures and Demonstrations, in the Laboratory of the Royal Institution, on Tuesday, the 12th of February, at Nine in the morning precisely. A Prospectus may be obtained at the Institution, or of the respective Lecturers.

In the Press, and nearly ready for publication,

A COLLECTION OF CHEMICAL TABLES, for the use of Practical Chemists and Students, in Illustration of the Theory of Definite Proportionals; in which are shewn the Equivalent Numbers of the Elementary Substances, with the Weights and Volumes in which they combine; together with the Composition of their most important Compounds, and the Authorities for their Analysis.

By WILLIAM THOMAS BRANDE.

THE

QUARTERLY JOURNAL

OF

SCIENCE, LITERATURE, AND ART.

OCT.–DEC. 1827.

On the Means generally used with the Intention of curing a Stoop.[37] [◊]

WHEN the chest and the head fall forward, the most common method of trying to correct the stoop is to put on some instrument by which the shoulders and the head are held back. To operate upon the shoulders, the common back-collar is applied, and to hold back the head, a riband is brought over the forehead and fastened to the collar.

While these instruments are kept on, the figure looks straight, though stiff and constrained; but the moment they are taken off, both the head and the shoulders fall more forward, than before their application. Many examples of the bad effect of artificially supporting the head might be offered. The following, although observed in the figure of a horse, is very demonstrative. When the rein (called the bearing-rein), by which the head of a carriage-horse is reared up, with the intention of giving him a showy figure, is loosened, the head immediately falls forward, and the neck, instead of preserving the fine arch that is so much admired, droops between the shoulders. Looking to this effect, we should at first be inclined to condemn the practice followed by horse-dealers, of reining up the head of a young horse in the stable, by means of the apparatus called a dumb-jockey. But on examining into this mode of fixing the head, it will be found to operate on a different principle from the bearing-rein. Instead of a [p238] simple bit, such as the horse in harness can lean his head upon, without suffering pain, a bit, calculated to tease and fret, is put into the young horse’s mouth. To relieve himself from the irritation produced by this, and which is increased by the constant pull of the elastic piece of iron to which the rein is fastened, he curls up his neck, and thus brings all the muscles of the back of the neck into strong action, instead of allowing their power to be superseded by the artificial support afforded by the bearing-rein to the horse in harness[38].

Many different contrivances, but all acting nearly on the same principle as the bearing-rein, have been proposed as means for obliging a girl to keep her head erect.

There is one mode which, to a person ignorant of anatomy, seems to be particularly well adapted for this purpose; but it is, in fact, more objectionable than the plan of tying the head back with a riband. A piece of lead, of some pounds weight, [p239] is slung over the back in such a way that it must be supported by a riband put around the head.

Although this contrivance prevents the head for a time from falling forwards, its bad effects may be demonstrated. When the weight is on, the muscles of the back of the spine are passive, while those on the fore-part of the neck are necessarily brought into action to prevent the head from being pulled too far back: this is easily proved; for if we put the fingers on the sternal portions of the sterno-cleido muscle, which, with the small muscles on the fore-part of the throat, pull the head forwards, we shall feel them tense and in action. The increased activity of the muscles on the fore part, and the passive condition of those of the back, may be further exemplified by raising the weight when the girl is not aware of our doing so; the head will then be immediately poked forwards.

We have many opportunities of observing the incorrectness of the principle on which all similar plans for the cure of a stoop have been founded. For instance, porters who carry burthens on the back, by the assistance of a band round the forehead, always stoop; while those who carry baskets before them suspended by a band round the back of the neck, are peculiarly erect. But the most remarkable example of the effect of the head being pulled back by a weight hung behind, is the condition of the women who carry salt in the streets of Edinburgh, for they may be recognised as much by their miserable Sardonic grin, which is caused by the constant excitement of the platysma myoides muscle, as by their stoop.

Very annoying and even distressing consequences may ensue from any system of treatment where a constant resistance to the muscles of the fore-part of the neck is kept up. A gentleman had for many years worn one of the collars invented by Mr. Chesher; after some time, the muscles of the back became so weak, as to be incapable of supporting the column, while those on the fore-part of the neck were so disproportionately increased in strength, by the constant resistance opposed to them by the strap passing from the suspending rod under the chin, that whenever the strap was loosened, the chin was forcibly drawn towards the chest. As the muscles of the back part of the neck did not offer any counteracting resistance, the [p240] windpipe was now pressed down, or almost doubled itself. As soon as this took place (and it was almost immediate on the attempt to sit up without the collar,) the patient was seized with such a sense of suffocation, as to be obliged to throw himself on his back. As he was able to breathe with ease as he lay on his back, his advisers were led to believe that it was the weight of the head which pressed down the windpipe. To counteract this pressure, various contrivances had been proposed to support the head. Indeed, the patient himself was so convinced, from what he had heard, that it was the weight of the head which pressed down the windpipe, and so alarmed had he become from the certainty of having a fit of suffocation when the head was left unsupported, that there was much difficulty in persuading him to believe that if the head could be made heavier, the sense of suffocation would be relieved. He was at length induced, although with great dread of the consequence, to allow about fourteen pounds of shot to be placed on the top of his head. He was very much alarmed, but it was highly gratifying to witness his surprise and pleasure in finding that, instead of his head being weighed down, he could support it, and could breathe with ease while in the upright posture. The following is the principle on which this plan was proposed:—the muscles of the back part of the neck had been brought into such a state, that their ordinary stimulus was not sufficient to excite them to the action necessary to counteract the efforts of those on the fore-part of the neck, which had been evidently increased in strength. The placing a weight on a certain spot on the head formed an additional stimulus to the muscles of the back part of the neck; a fact which the reader may prove by an experiment on himself.

By proceeding on this principle, by combining a variety of exercises, and by gradually diminishing the weight carried on the head, this gentleman was soon able to walk and sit in a state of great comfort, without being obliged to use any artificial support.

It is well known, that the neck-collars support almost the whole weight of the head and shoulders by the strap which passes under the chin. It must also have been observed, that the wearer very frequently pushes down the head against the [p241] chin strap. In this way, the muscles on the fore-part necessarily become stronger, while those of the back, being deprived of their natural stimulus to action, in consequence of the rod superseding their office, become diminished in power. Even were there no change in the degree of strength in the muscles on the fore-part, the head would naturally fall, if the support afforded by the chin strap were removed; but as these muscles are increased in power, while those of the back are diminished, the head must not only fall, but even be pulled down.

However, although the collars and the lead weight, as they are generally used, are not only inefficacious; but even hurtful, they may occasionally be useful in keeping the head in a certain position, after it has been brought to it by such exercises as tend to strengthen those muscles of the back which support the shoulders and head. But the opinions commonly entertained, as to the means of counteracting an habitual stoop, are so erroneous, that even the position of a tailor sitting on his shopboard is better than the plans generally recommended. This at first appears ridiculous; but the manner a tailor holds his body when he walks, proves that there is something in his habits which tends to the correction of a stoop; for he is quite a caricature of a strutting erect figure, especially in the way he bends in his loins and carries his head.

The peculiarity of the tailor’s gait proceeds, in a certain degree, from the bent position in which he sits: but this explanation is not at first satisfactory, since it may be observed that other tradesmen, who also stoop while at work, generally have their head inclined forwards, and have also a distinct and habitual bend in the neck; such, especially, is the condition of persons who sit at a table and stoop forwards, as watchmakers, engravers, &c. It is not difficult to explain the cause of the difference, and the inquiry will assist in directing us to the principles which we ought to recollect in our operations upon the spine.

In the sitting position of the tailor, the head hangs so low, and so complete an arch is formed between it and the pelvis, that the muscles of the spine are called into strong action to support the head; the necessary consequence of this is, that these muscles become even unnaturally strong, or at least so strong as to predominate over those by which the spine is [p242] pulled forward. But the bent position is not the only cause of increase in the strength of the muscles, for it depends also on the exercise given by frequently jerking the head backwards. In those who stoop from the middle of the body, as in writing or working at a table, the muscles of the spine are not called into action; for, while the head is in this position, it rests or is supported by the ligament of the neck. The ligament, being thus kept constantly on the stretch, becomes lengthened, instead of being made more contractile, as muscles would be; and hence the stoop is increased. When this is combined with the consequences of the want of muscular action, the deeper ligaments, which bind the upper vertebræ, gradually yield; if the operation of these causes continues for a certain time, the bones and cartilages themselves become altered in shape, and consequently an almost irremediable stoop is produced[39].

This view derives confirmation, from what may be observed in the shape of the tailors in some parts of Germany, who, instead of having the erect figures of London tailors, are quite bent. On inquiring into the cause, we find that, instead of sitting as tailors do in this country, a hole is cut in the table, and a seat is placed within it; so that their position, while working, becomes nearly the same as that of persons who stoop while sitting at a table.

It may, perhaps, be objected, that labourers, and especially the vine-dressers in France, are remarkable for the complete arch which their body forms, although they bend while at work as much as the tailor does. This may also be explained; for in the labourer the bend is produced by the pelvis rolling on the head of the thigh bones, while in a person sitting as a tailor the pelvis continues nearly fixed, and the bend is in the vertebræ on the pelvis.

The erect figure of the Turk perhaps comes from the manner of sitting which is common among Eastern nations; but the heavy turban, and the spice box slung from the back of the neck, may account in a great measure for the fine figures of the Turkish Jews who frequent the streets of London. [p243]

We may even take the shoemaker as an example of the effect of a particular manner of sitting, and of frequently using the muscles of the shoulders. He is also a little in caricature, but he carries himself better than the tailor, and the cause is obvious. The tailor’s figure is very erect, but the right shoulder is generally a little higher or larger than the left, from the constant exercise given to the right arm, while the left rests upon the knee: this inequality of the shoulders is not observed in the shoemaker, because he not only uses both arms equally, but the muscles by which the scapulæ are supported, become so strong by the habit of jerking back his elbows while he works, that his shoulders always appear more braced back than those of any other class of persons: indeed, so characteristic are the figures of tailors and shoemakers, that they may be easily distinguished in a crowd.

These circumstances are mentioned, as they afford familiar examples of the principles on which we ought to proceed, in endeavouring to correct deformities; but it would be ridiculous to propose the position either of the tailor or of the shoemaker, as the best adapted to correct a stoop or falling forward of the shoulders.

The preceding observations apply also to the contrivances usually employed to keep the shoulders back, and particularly to the question of the propriety of using the common back-collar. The effect which this instrument produces in ordinary cases may be easily comprehended by the following diagram.

[p244]

The part of the back formed by the ribs is not a flat, but rather a round surface; and as the shoulder-blades rest on this, they would fall forwards were they not prevented by the collar-bones; but as these bones are united to the breast-bone by a moveable joint, and as the weight of the arms operates principally on the anterior angles of the scapulæ, both the collar-bones and the shoulders would fall forwards, were it not for the action of several strong muscles which pass from the spine to the scapulæ. But these muscles may be destroyed by any contrivance which supersedes their use. For example, let A A be the shoulder-blades, and B B the muscles which support them. If the scapulæ be brought close to the spine by the straps of the collar, and kept constantly so, there can be no use for the muscles B B. They must consequently waste and become nearly useless, while those on the fore-part of the chest, being excited to resist the straps, will become increased in power; and hence, when the collar is taken off, not only will the shoulders fall forward as in a delicate person, but the muscles on the fore-part of the chest will predominate over those by which the scapulæ should be held back, and pull the shoulders forwards.

The spine and the ribs are occasionally bent so as to have some resemblance to the back of a spoon. In such cases, the shoulders not only appear high and round, but the lower angles of the scapulæ project in an extraordinary manner, because the upper and anterior angle is not only unsupported by the ribs, but is dragged forwards by the clavicles which are carried in the same direction with the sternum. When this is to a considerable extent, it constitutes the contracted chest or the chicken breast. This, in a slight degree, is common in London, and especially among young lads; it may be discovered by the coat having the appearance of being more worn opposite the lower angle of the scapula than at any other part. Such a condition of the chest can only be completely remedied by appropriate exercises; but a collar is here necessary for a time, to keep the bones in the improved condition into which they are brought by the exercises.

These arguments will probably appear sufficiently well founded to prove that a girl, under ordinary circumstances, [p245] cannot hold her head or shoulders back, unless the muscles by which they are naturally supported are in a proper condition. Various contrivances have been proposed to strengthen these muscles. Dumb bells, if managed in a particular manner, are good; skipping, when the arms are thrown backwards and over the head, is still better; the exercises, called Spanish exercises, performed with two long poles, are also useful, but to each of these there may be objections, as they all operate more or less on the spine or ribs, which, in case of a bad stoop, are generally affected.

The following anecdote will, perhaps, set the question of the propriety of wearing the back collar in a correct point of view. A surgeon was consulted by a gentleman, who is now one of our first tragedians, as to the best mode of correcting a stoop which he had acquired. The surgeon told him that neither stays nor straps would do him any essential good; and that the only method of succeeding was to recollect to keep his shoulders braced back by a voluntary effort. But the tragedian replied, that this he could not do, as his mind was otherwise occupied. The surgeon then told him that he could give him no further assistance. Shortly after this conversation, the actor ordered his tailor to make a coat of the finest kerseymere, so as to fit him very tightly, when his shoulders were thrown back. Whenever his shoulders fell forward he was reminded by a pinch under the arms, that his coat cost him six guineas, and that it was made of very fragile materials; being thus forced, for the sake of his fine coat, to keep his shoulders back, he soon cured himself of the stoop. The surgeon was much obliged to him for the hint, and afterwards, when consulted whether young ladies should wear shoulder straps, permitted them, on condition that they were made of fine muslin, or valuable silk, for tearing which there should be a forfeit.

An inquiry into the manner a girl should sit may appear trifling to those who have not been in the habit of seeing many cases of distortion of the spine, but it is intimately connected with the present subject, and is really of considerable importance. The question has been disputed; one party insisting that girls should always sit erect, while others are advocates for a lounging position. It is not difficult to show that both are [p246] wrong;—when a delicately formed girl is supposed to be sitting erect, she is generally sitting crooked: to a superficial observer she may appear quite straight; but any one who will sit on a music stool, and endeavour to keep his body in a perpendicular line for ten minutes, will be convinced that it is difficult for even a strong man to sit as long as a delicate girl is expected to do, without allowing the spine to sink to one side or to fall forwards.

The attempt to sit erect beyond a certain time is injurious, for although bending the spine occasionally is useful rather than hurtful, yet when it is done involuntarily, and when the bend is attempted to be concealed by an endeavour to keep the head straight, there is danger of the spine becoming twisted. Indeed, a double curve is generally the consequence; there is first a bend to one side, to give ease to the fatigued muscles; and then, to conceal this, there is a second curve that is necessarily accompanied by a slight twist in the vertical line of the whole column.

The proposal to allow children to sit in a crooked or lounging position seems to have been founded on the idea that all the muscles are more relaxed in this way than even when the child lies at full length on its back. This notion is certainly incorrect, and such a mode of sitting is injurious; for even were the muscles more relaxed by it, the bones and ligaments acquire such a shape as necessarily produces distortion.

It may naturally be asked how a girl should sit, since it would appear, that whether she is in an erect or stooping posture, she is equally in danger of becoming crooked. As sitting, in the manner generally recommended, affords little or no support to one who is weak, the safest answer would be, that a delicate girl should not sit for even more than five or ten minutes without having some support to her back, and when she is fatigued, that she should lie down or recline on a couch. But as it would be very annoying to a girl not to be allowed to sit up except for so short a time, and as a couch is not always at hand, we must endeavour to show how a delicate girl may remain in an upright posture, for a reasonable time without incurring any risk of becoming crooked. This leads to an inquiry into the merits of the chairs which are at present generally used by children. [p247]

Young ladies are often obliged, while at their music lessons, to sit upon those chairs, which have high backs, long legs, and small seats. These chairs are said to have been invented by a very eminent surgeon, and are intended, either to prevent distortion, by some supposed operation on the spine, or as the most effectual means of supporting the body. It is difficult to imagine how a chair of this description can effect the first purpose; and to discover how far it is calculated for the second, the reader should make the experiment on a chair of the same proportion to his figure, as the chair in question is to that of a little girl. He will find that if the seat or surface on which he rests is small in proportion to his body, the chest will, after a time, either fall forward or to one side, unless he exert himself to a degree that is very fatiguing. Indeed, if the seat be at the same time so high, that the feet do not rest fairly on the ground, but dangle under the chair, a forward position of the head is almost necessary to preserve the balance of the figure[40].

The objections to such chairs have been met with the assertion, that girls feel remarkably comfortable in them. This is no argument in favour of their use, for it is not uncommon for a girl who has seven or eight pounds of iron strapped upon her body and next to her skin, to say the machine annoys her so little, that she does not care how long she wears it.

But whether this chair is agreeable or not, it is easy to show that it is not calculated to give much proper support to the body, and that it is almost impossible for a delicate girl to sit long in a natural or easy position upon it.

It may be allowed, that the chair which we consider the most comfortable, that is, the chair which affords the most support to the body, should, if made in proper proportions, be the best for a delicate girl. In such a chair, the seat should be scarcely higher than the knees (thus permitting the whole of the foot to rest on the floor), and of such a size, that on sitting back, the upper part of the calves nearly touch it. This form of seat is very different from that of the chair alluded to, the back of which is also equally objectionable, for, instead of being in [p248] some degree shaped to the natural curves of the spine, it is made nearly straight, and projects so as to push the head forwards. A delicate girl should always sit so as to rest against the back of the chair, and, if the lower part of her spine is weak, a small cushion will afford great relief. As it is quite a mistake to suppose that the shoulders, if raised in any other way than by the action of the muscles, or by the curvature of the spine and ribs, will continue high, there is no real objection to a girl who is delicate being supported by an arm-chair; for, by occasionally resting on the elbows, a considerable weight is taken off from that part of the spine which is the most likely to yield.

These observations refer only to the manner in which delicate girls, whose spines are still straight, should sit: when the spine is actually distorted, it will be necessary to use other means.

[37] For this, and some other communications upon the same subject, we are chiefly indebted to our much-lamented friend and correspondent, the late Mr. Shaw, Surgeon to the Middlesex Hospital.

[38] When the Russians wish to give a horse high action in trotting, they accustom him, while young, to wear heavy shoes on the fore feet. The resistance to be overcome necessarily increases the strength of certain muscles; and hence, when shoes of the common size are put on, the horse lifts his feet higher than one which has not been subjected to this discipline. Some opera dancers practise with lead weights on.

[39] Elderly persons may recollect how often the girls who worked at tambouring were crooked: the present fashionable amusement of embroidering seems to have, in some instances, the same effect.

[40] It must be almost unnecessary to remind the reader, that if the knees are bent in standing or walking, there is a curve in the spine at the same time.

A Critique on the Aplanatic Object-Glasses, for diverging Rays, of Vincent Chevalier, ainé et fils. By C. R. Goring, M.D. [◊]

THE curiosity of many will doubtless be excited, as to what our neighbours, the French, ever foremost in the pursuit of glory, both in arts and arms, have been doing in the affair of achromatic object-glasses for microscopes. With the highest satisfaction I find myself enabled to state, that Messieurs Chevalier, (ainé et fils,) No. 69, Quai de l’Horloge, Paris, have rivalled our own artists, in this branch of the manufacture of optical instruments.

Mr. J. Lister, actuated by a most laudable zeal for the prosecution and advancement of optical science, as it concerns microscopes, caused me to order for him one of Messrs. Chevalier’s instruments, in Mr. W. Tulley’s name; for, as Mr. L. wished that Messrs. C.’s pretensions should be fairly and thoroughly scrutinized, it was but fair that the latter gentlemen should be stimulated to do their utmost, by a consideration of the science of their customer. A critical examination of the object-glasses of this instrument (for making which every facility was afforded me by Mr. L.), forms the subject of the present paper. [p249]

I here, then, enter upon the discussion of the merits and demerits of the objectives of the said instrument[41], these being much more perfected than those of another, of previous make, which I saw in the possession of Mr. Howship, of Great George-street, Hanover-square, to whom I received a letter of recommendation from Mr. Spilsbury, of Ball-Haye. To the signal politeness of these gentlemen, in furthering my views, I am greatly indebted.

Four object-glasses accompany Messrs. Chevaliers’ instruments (at least those marked perfectionnés,) usually rated at the following foci: 14 French lines, 10 ditto, 4 and 4: the two latter combine together at will, and give a focus of two lines.

14.) Focus about 1.42 of an English inch, clear aperture 0.31, original aperture as reduced by a stop, 0.10.

It is perfectly achromatic with its clear aperture, and may be used without a stop on most transparent objects; requires to be cut off to 0.23, to give the necessary distinctness for opaque ones.—(When I speak of the apertures which C.’s lenses will bear, I must be understood, here and elsewhere, only with regard to the middle of the field of view, or rather that part of it where the distinctness is greatest[42], for double object-glasses give the central rays only correct, and confuse the oblique ones very much, for which reason, conjoined with the small apertures they admit of, they were abandoned by Mr. Tulley, for the triple construction, the true and regular form for the microscope.)—There is an excess of spherical aberration in convex lenses; neither are the glasses well ground, or centered, or duly adjusted. The concave of this object-glass is tarnished, and there are traces of seediness in the cement, which is, indeed, to be seen more or less in the whole of them.

10.) Focus about 0.91, clear aperture 0.23, original stop 0.09. [p250]

This object-glass is under corrected in point of colour, and wants to be made longer in the focus to be achromatic. The excess of uncorrected spherical aberration is in the convex lens; the glasses are not well ground, centered, or adjusted; the same appearance of tarnish as in 14; bears its clear aperture for the middle of the field on most transparent objects, but must be cut off to 0.2 for opaque ones.

Both of these object-glasses are ineffective upon test objects, from want of sufficient power and aperture.

4.) Focus about 0.43, clear aperture 0.23, original stop 0.09, perfectly achromatic. The uncorrected spherical aberration is in the concave; centering and grinding very fine, but in very bad adjustment; shows some transparent test-objects pretty well with its clear aperture, and, cut off to about 0.16, performs well on many opaque ones.

2.) Focus about 4.7, clear aperture 0.21, no stop, perfectly achromatic, surplus of spherical aberration in the concave as before; centering and grinding very fine; adjustment tolerable; in other respects very similar to 4. This object-glass being adjusted, does more singly on test-objects than any other, and carries an aperture of 0.16 well on opaque bodies, showing the lines on the diamond-beetle’s scales strong and well cut out.

Combination of 4 and 2—(quadruple.)

I am happy to be able to speak in terms of almost unqualified approbation of this composition. It, of course, surpasses the performance of any single triple-glass, on those test-objects which require extravagant angles of aperture. The field also is good all over; or at least would be, if the glasses were in adjustment, which is the only drawback upon it. The focus of the combination is only 0.26, yet it performs admirably on transparent test-objects with its naked aperture of 0.23, and is very fine on opaque ones with 0.16, and doubtless would carry 0.2, if the adjustment was duly carried into effect.

Messrs. C. have, I think, most assuredly here hit upon one of the very best compositions for the object-glass of a microscope; all the imperfections of double object-glasses, taken singly, are here done away, while their thinness and agglutination into one mass allows of their combining together almost as if they were simple plano-convex lenses, leaving moreover abundance of space for the illumination of opaque bodies. [p251]

I must here state, that Messrs. C.’s object-glasses are all stuck together, I believe, with fused gum-mastic, or, perhaps, with very thick mastic varnish. This practice seems, in theory, to be bad, most especially if the curves united together are not of the same radius; nevertheless, practically speaking, the process of soldering seems to me to do more good, by the obliteration of two surfaces, and by keeping the glasses immovably adjusted, than harm in any other way. I cannot, in fact, discover any very sensible difference in the optical performance of these small achromatics, whether stuck together or not. I fancy that they have a little more light and clearness when cemented, (as they certainly should have,) but cannot be very positive. I hold it as a maxim in practical optics, as in our common law, “de rebus non apparentibus et non existentibus eadem est ratio.”

I may observe, that Mr. Lister has combined that marked 10, with 4, and finds the performance proportional to that of 4 and 2.

It will be remarked that Messrs. C., from an apparent ignorance of the value of aperture; and perhaps impressed with the too common and prevalent idea, that, having once obtained distinctness and achromatism in their object-glasses, every thing else might be accomplished by a condensation of artificial light, have reduced their apertures to such a degree, as to render their instrument as ineffective upon test-objects as a common compound; for when the opening of an aplanatic glass is cut off to the same diameter as a common one, it shows nothing more, though it will certainly exhibit objects far more satisfactorily. Upon the apertures of microscopic lenses their effects entirely depend, as was remarked a long time ago by the great Huygens. An achromatic glass is more valuable than another, merely on account of the larger aperture it will bear, without causing aberration, and consequent indistinctness. Those who are in possession of Messrs. C.’s microscopes should get the stop behind the object-glasses turned out, and procure others to be used ad libitum, according to what the goodness of the object-glasses will permit.

I feel myself called upon, however, to state, that, since the completion of Mr. L.’s microscope, Messrs. C. have enlarged the [p252] apertures of their object-glasses to the requisite angle, and have moreover arrived at the true method of adjusting them, so that they are now free from those objections which applied to Mr. Lister’s, and are in all respects unexceptionably finished.

I know not if any dispute will ever arise hereafter, as to who is to be considered as the original maker of effective aplanatic object-glasses for microscopes[43]. It is of very little consequence in the present instance, for it so happens that Mr. Tulley and Messrs. Chevalier have been so totally unconnected with each other, and have worked upon such totally different principles, that it must be evident, on the most superficial consideration, that both are entitled to the honour; nevertheless I apprehend it can be proved that Mr. Tulley made an effective one before the Chevaliers, having completed his in March 1824. The date affixed by Chevalier to his first instrument is 1825[44].

It requires moreover a stretch of complaisance, not to be expected on this side the Channel, to be enabled to admit that the best double object-glass is (taken singly) effective; or that, in consequence, Chevalier made an effective one until he had enlarged his apertures, and combined two together[45], which combination is not to be met with in his primitive instruments. Mr. Lister, (to whom the public is mainly indebted for the present eclaircissement concerning Chevalier’s instrument,) has, by a peculiar method of his own discovery, measured the [p253] curves, thicknesses, and diameter, &c. of that marked 14, which I here give (unfortunately one of the least effective of the set,) however, in all probability, the rest are constructed on the same principle; the annexed drawing by Mr. L. will sufficiently explain itself. Nothing can surpass the beautiful simplicity of Chevalier’s, or rather Euler’s, curves, which, it will be observed, are all alike[46]. The production of deep achromatics must ever be a task of some difficulty, even to those who thoroughly understand their humours and punctilios; and unscientific artists will, I think, be much more likely to succeed on the French plan, than the English one. Two double object-glasses, by themselves, are very poor things; but, when combined, perform admirably, and will, I believe, (if the three curves are of equal radii,) be far more easily executed than one of the triple Tulleian construction. The dense flint-glass of Guenard, or Frauenhofer, however, will be an indispensable requisite, from the nature of the curvatures. A triple Tulleian object-glass, and a thin double one of Chevalier, (a composition first conceived and adopted by Mr. Lister,) form an excellent combination, and give a very vivid light, without softness, dulness, or nebulosity. This, I think, is the extreme number of glasses which ought to be tolerated. Let it never be forgotten, that a really good triple glass will bear an aperture quite sufficient for ninety-nine objects out of a hundred. I myself denounce the practice of combining glasses together, in all those cases where they are capable of doing their work alone. I shall always consider it as a clumsy, bungling, and unworkmanlike method of obtaining a short focus, combined [p254] with a large angle of aperture. If a man aims at perfection, and wishes to distinguish himself in this branch of optics, let it be done by working perfect triple glasses of 0.2 and 0.3 inch focus, with 0.1 and 0.15 of perfect aperture, like those of Mr. W. Tulley and Mr. Dollond, or deeper still, if he is able; and it is with the most cordial satisfaction that I am enabled to inform my readers, that Messrs. Chevalier (duly appreciating the regular triple construction as the true form for the microscope) have applied themselves diligently to the manufacture of this species of objective, from which they have already had excellent results. It is a fundamental principle, that all superfluous refractions and reflections are to be avoided in the construction of optical instruments. As a radical reformer of microscopes, I can tolerate no abuses in them, or show any quarter to their abettors. Messrs. Chevalier have also undertaken the manufacture of achromatic and catadioptric microscopes, after the fashion of those made by Professor Amici, of Modena, which were so much and so justly admired by the cognoscenti of this country.

It only remains for me to observe, that though two double-cemented object-glasses form the most perfect combination from the fewness of their surfaces, and consequent brightness of their image, yet a fusion between the Tulleian and Eulerian constructions seems to be the most convenient for general use; by this, of course, I mean a triple glass with a double one, to apply before it occasionally, à la Lister. Mr. Dollond and Messrs. C. have demonstrated that two object-glasses may be combined with the best effect, which are both good, and work well separately; but Mr. Tulley has constructed a double one, which, useless by itself, when applied over a triple one, (made to act singly,) corrects that excess of spherical aberration in the concave lens, (by its own excess in the convex,) which, when the aperture is large, is the eternal vice of all the best single and compound object-glasses for diverging rays which I ever saw. This is perhaps the ultimatum of improvement, though a quadruple one, on the same plan, might have the advantage in greater light and clearness, from its simplicity, and the paucity of its surfaces.

The quadruple or quintuple object-glasses are those which [p255] are best adapted for the solar microscope, for they give a full-sized field of view to this instrument, good to the edges, which no single object-glass will do, as I have had occasion to remark in my paper on Mr. Tulley’s aplanatics, unless converted into a compound, by means of eye-glasses, &c. This popular and highly amusing instrument will now receive the utmost reformation and improvement of which it is capable, and become truly scientific in its construction: hitherto it has been a mere toy, but one degree removed from a magic lantern.

I shall now allow Messrs. C. to say what they can for themselves, and to detail the various modifications which they have introduced into their instruments, since they executed Mr. Lister’s order, by giving a translation of a letter I have received from them on the subject, and shall conclude by expressing a hope that no national or illiberal feeling has entered into the composition of this critique, and that I have used my oil, vinegar, and pepper in correct proportions.

“Paris, Oct. 15.

“Sir,

“Accept our thanks for your extreme complaisance in offering to publish the results obtained by us in the construction of microscopes. Since the order executed for Mr. Lister, we have improved those instruments last completed, by greatly enlarging the diameter of the illuminating mirror, in order to obtain still greater light. The prism for opaque bodies is diminished about one half, and by a small modification in its mounting is rendered more serviceable: the diminution of the length of the body has enabled us to augment the magnifying powers by different eye-glasses, and the four double object-glasses placed in a better mounting can be used separately or in superposition, according to the pleasure of the observer, either to form quadruple objectives, or even to combine in a mass together. This last arrangement produces a great accession of magnifying power, without injuring the clearness of the image or arresting much light.

“You see, Sir, that we have the pleasure of coinciding perfectly in your opinions about improvements, for we adopt the quadruple object-glass as the best, and we give three changes [p256] of eye-pieces. The double motion given to the body of a microscope is, in our idea, the defect of all those hitherto constructed; for, as the optical part should remain perfectly centred with the mirror and the diaphragms, it is evident that the least derangement of it from this position must destroy the perfection of the image: the stage then only should move[47] without affecting the diaphragms or the mirror, and in this we [p257] have well succeeded in the construction of the microscope of Sig. Amici. But all these arrangements much augment the price, and an observer ever so little practised will always find the object easily enough by means of his hands.

“The prices of our achromatic microscopes are as follows:—

“Achromatic microscope, like Mr. Lister’s—300 francs.

“The same, with the latest improvements, three eye-pieces, and camera lucida for drawing the magnified objects—400 francs.

“Amician Microscope, one horizontal achromatic, the stage giving all the motions to the object, with a micrometer screw, five eye-pieces, two camera lucidas, hand magnifier, frog trough, accessary apparatus, &c. One catadioptric microscope, mounted on the same stand, and adapting itself to the same apparatus; the two instruments inclosed in a mahogany case—1000 francs.

“We trust that the very moderate prices of these instruments, together with the care which we bestow on their construction, will procure us orders for them. Their superiority has been duly recognized by the jury of the Exhibition of the Products of Industry, which has been pleased to decree to us a silver medal.

“The Amician achromatic microscope is composed of a tube seven inches long, at the extremity of which is placed a prism, which reflects at a right angle the rays which come from the object-glass, composed (as in our microscopes executed since 1824) of four double object-glasses, which may be used separately, or two, three, or four at a time. The stand is a square bar, which has a rackwork, carrying a moveable stage, which, by means of adjusting screws ingeniously disposed, permits an object to traverse the field of view in every direction. This disposition gives the power of determining the real dimensions of objects submitted to observation by means of the micrometer screw, which is placed at the side, while the camera lucida affords the means of drawing their outline, and consequently of measuring the magnifying power.

“The rays proceeding from the object which have passed the object-glass, and have been rendered horizontal by the prism, are received by different eye-pieces disposed after the manner of [p258] Ramsden. Their power can be varied. Each instrument carries six, five of which can be attached at pleasure either to the catadioptric or the achromatic. The deepest belonging to the reflector is a single lens of half a French line focus, and the most powerful of the achromatic is a line and a half.

“Such, we think, are the details which you required: we wish that they may prove agreeable to you.

“We beg you to accept the assurance of the high consideration with which we are, Sir,

“Your very devoted Servants,

“VINCENT CHEVALIER, ainé et fils.”

“69, Quai de l’Horloge.”

[41] The objects employed by me in looking into the defects and excellencies of these glasses, were an artificial star, and a piece of enamelled dial-plate, the phenomena presented by which, when put out of focus, incontestably warrant the judgment I have pronounced upon them, as any, true optician will admit.

[42] When an object-glass is out of adjustment, its maximum of distinctness is not in the centre of the field of view, but somewhere else, according to circumstances.

[43] The question must naturally resolve itself into this point, for achromatics for microscopes, (as they are called,) were made by Dollond, Martin, and Pollard, many years ago; the only objection to them was, that they were not effective, consequently, nominal only, and useless. I defy any man to produce an effective object-glass, which can satisfactorily be proved to have been made before 1824.

[44] See the first instruction published by Messrs. C. along with their microscopes: “Microscope Achromatique selon Euler,” &c. I apprehend there is a misdate in Messrs. C.’s letter at the end of this paper, where they state they have made the achromatics since 1824, with four objectives, which implies that they also made them before that period, but in another way.

[45] Mr. C. Tulley recommended the combination of two achromatics together from nearly the beginning of his son W.’s labours upon them, who rejected the idea, together with myself, as giving rise to too great a complication, always supposing that triple glasses must be used. I myself combined two triple achromatics together, for experiment sake, in a very early stage of our proceedings, but liked not the result, though effects were certainly produced by the composition, which could not be obtained from the best individual triple one.

[46] The theory on which these object-glasses are constructed is contained in a paper of Euler’s, published at St. Petersburgh, in 1774. Messrs. Chevalier have caused it to be inserted entire in the “Bulletin de la Société d’Encouragement de Paris,” No. CCLIV., for Aug. 1825.

[47] This is the theoretical view of the case, the practical one is different, as frequently happens. Opaque objects are not affected at all by the eccentricity of the axis of the body: nor can I recollect that I ever felt any particular inconvenience from the motion of the optical part, even with transparent subjects, unless it was thrown very much indeed out of the axis of the illuminating mirror. On the other hand, it is notorious that living aquatic insects and animalcules are the most popular and entertaining objects which microscopes can show. These are, for the most part, abundantly restless; and if the stage on which they are placed has any motion, their natural unquietness is so much exasperated, that it becomes almost impossible to get a good observation of them at all. I once set to work at making some drawings of a variety of new and original objects of this class (which, I trust, will one day be published) with a microscope having all the requisite motions applied to its stage, and am confident that I had thrice the labour fairly appropriate to the execution of my task from this oversight. The very tremor produced by the transition of a carriage in the street, is frequently sufficient to unsettle live objects when disposed to be still and quiet, and put them in a fidget for a quarter of an hour. It is very unfortunate that the mountings of optical instruments are made in general by mere mechanics, who seldom or never observe with them, and consequently know not the exigencies which occur in practice.

It is still more unfortunate, that in the science of fitting up microscopes, an ounce of a man’s own wit is worth about a ton of his neighbour’s. Was it not that I dislike to verify this adage myself, I should recommend the following motion to be applied to the body:—let the socket of the arm which carries it have a smooth rotatory motion on the head of the bar in the usual way, conjoined with another horizontal one produced by rackwork attached to the said socket. Let the pinion which belongs to the latter movement be made very strong, so that a lever about three inches long may project from its centre: this is to be held in the hand, the thumb and index finger operating on the rackwork, while the two little fingers give a rotatory motion by working the lever end. This rapid double motion is here completely under the command of one hand, while the other is at liberty to adjust the focus. I know of nothing better for general purposes, or in particular for following the motions of live insects, &c.; but when only inanimate ones are to be the subject of microscopical study, I prefer the motion of the stage, for the reasons stated by Mons. C.

On the Existence of Chlorine in the Native Black Oxide of Manganese. By John M’Mullen, Esq. [◊]

IN the paper relating to this subject, which the editors of the Quarterly Journal of Science obligingly inserted in the forty-fourth number of that work, I described some experiments which I had made, to show that chlorine is uniformly evolved from the Native Black Oxide of Manganese by the action of sulphuric acid, under certain circumstances, which I endeavoured to detail with strict accuracy, so as to prevent any mistake or failure in the event of the experiment being repeated.

Upon this paper Mr. Richard Phillips has made some observations in the Philosophical Magazine and Annals of Philosophy for April last, to which I am desirous of briefly adverting. He says, “Mr. M’Mullen having observed, when sulphuric acid is added to peroxide of manganese, that chlorine is evolved, he conceived it might be derived from an admixture of muriate of manganese, iron, or copper; but having washed some of the peroxide of manganese with water, he did not find that any chloride of silver was precipitable from it; he, therefore, concluded that the peroxide in question contained no muriatic salt.” If Mr. Phillips will take the trouble to refer to my paper, he will find that this is by no means the statement which it contains. I observed that, in order to separate any soluble [p259] muriates which the oxide used might, in the first instance, have contained, “I washed it every day, for three weeks successively, using sometimes hot and sometimes cold water: at the end of that time, I tested the water, which was then decanted from the washed manganese, by the nitrate of silver, but without finding the slightest appearance of precipitated chloride. I then poured upon the manganese four times its weight of dilute sulphuric acid; allowed the mixture to stand for about four weeks, occasionally agitating it, and at the end of that time, found, when the dilute acid, now of a deep crimson colour, was removed from the subsident manganese, and the latter agitated, that the most decisive evidence of the presence of chlorine was exhibited in the vapour evolved from it.” I stated further, that I had “carefully preserved this particular mixture, and that after a lapse of more than twelve months, the residuary manganese, when the supernatant acid was removed, continued to evolve chlorine.”

In this experiment my object was effectually to purify the manganese used from any soluble muriate which might by possibility have been mixed with it: I did not, however, test the water first used in washing it, but merely that which was last removed from it.

Mr. Phillips proceeds to observe that he had prepared some observations, and at considerable length, to prove that the author of the above paper has been completely misled by “forced analogies” and “erroneous experiments;” but that it afterwards occurred to him, that it would be better to show, in a few words, the real source of the chlorine in question, the evolution of which from peroxide of manganese he had noticed some time previous to the publication of my papers. That with this view he had procured various specimens of the peroxide of manganese, (one of them in the crystallized state,) which were reduced to powder, and on the addition of sulphuric acid, chlorine was evolved from each. That he then washed separate portions of them with distilled water, and on the addition of nitrate of silver to the washings, chloride of silver was immediately precipitated: sulphuric acid being poured upon the washed peroxide, no chlorine whatever was evolved. That he further added sulphuric acid to an unwashed portion, and to one which had [p260] been washed, and referred both to a bystander, who immediately detected the odour of chlorine in the former, but not in the latter. He then proceeds to show that the specimens of manganese which he had made the subject of this experiment contained a portion of lime, and he infers that the black oxide of manganese consequently contains muriate of lime.

Mr. Phillips asserts that I have been misled by erroneous experiments. My reply is, that the experiment to which he refers, and which I have recapitulated, was carefully made, and is truly and faithfully detailed. In what, then, is it erroneous? It is not incompatible with that which he has produced as a refutation of it, inasmuch as he did not wait the result for which the perusal of my statement should have prepared him, and which he clearly should not have anticipated. He states that chlorine was not evolved from washed manganese at the instant when sulphuric acid was affused upon it. This is not a contradiction of my statement: I affirmed that, after washed manganese had been exposed to the action of sulphuric acid for a very considerable period, I distinctly observed the evolution of chlorine, and that for twelve months afterwards, under the circumstances detailed, this continued to be the case:—all this I deliberately re-assert. I have frequently met with specimens of manganese which, upon the first affusion of sulphuric acid, gave off chlorine; but in general, as far as my experience goes, this is not the case: were it of uniform occurrence, and that the mixture of sulphuric acid and oxide of manganese rendered chlorine evident to the smell, the fact could not have remained unnoticed till now.

The observations of Mr. Phillips, to which I now refer, did not come into my hands till about three weeks ago. It fortunately happened that I had still preserved the specimen of washed manganese upon which sulphuric acid had been affused, under the circumstances already recapitulated, and it occurred to me that this would afford occasion, as decisive as I could desire, to put the accuracy of my original experiment, and the conclusions drawn from it, to further proof. I am bound to premise that this specimen of manganese, after having been in the first washed and subjected to the action of sulphuric acid, as already mentioned, has ever since remained in [p261] the vessel in which the experiment was at first made, covered with dilute sulphuric acid,—a period of more than eighteen months; and it will scarcely be doubted that, in the course of that long interval, any muriate of lime which it might have originally contained must have been thoroughly decomposed. Upon removing the supernatant acid, the residuary manganese gave sensible evidence of the presence of chlorine; paper stained with the solution of indigo in sulphuric acid was readily bleached by it, &c. I now proceeded to wash the manganese in pure water, and continued to do so until the acid was no longer perceptible to the taste. I then washed it three times successively with distilled water, and after decanting off the fluid of the last washing as closely as possible, added pure sulphuric acid in considerable quantity, and stirred the mixture thoroughly, after it had cooled, with a glass rod. At this time no vapour of chlorine was evident either to the smell or to the usual tests. The mixture was then set aside, and allowed to stand undisturbed for ten days: at the end of that time, when the acid was poured off, and the subsident manganese agitated, the vapour of chlorine was as distinctly manifest as when it was first subjected to experiment more than a year and a half ago.

Dublin, June 11, 1827.

Modern Improvements of Horticulture. [◊]

THAT gardening has always been one of the most natural, as well as the most useful occupations of mankind, is obvious: that it has advanced—been retarded—or flourished, according as general taste or wants, or peculiar political, moral, or local circumstances, were favourable or adverse, is also sufficiently evident from all historical testimony;—but in no age has it advanced with such rapid strides towards perfection as it has done within the last fifty years. To bring the modern improvements in array before the reader,—to estimate their advantages in a public and private point of view,—to look forward from our present elevated station to the probable results of continued, and extended application,—may be an amusing, if not an [p262] useful inquiry: it may tend to remove barriers which are only imaginary, and by freeing the thinking powers of practitioners from the trammels of custom, lead them forward into that expanse of operative freedom, where much remains for the exercise of the inquiring mind, and experimental hand, in exploring the yet untrodden field of practicability, and calling forth the still latent powers and susceptibilities of pregnant nature.

When we turn to the history of the first ages, we hear of a garden as soon as we hear of man; and though, from the paucity of description, we can only form ideas of such a place from the effusions of the poet, rather than from the detail of the historian, yet, in judging from what still appears of aboriginal scenery, we may conclude with Milton that a garden was a place,

“A happy rural seat of various views;

Groves whose rich trees wept odorous gums and balm;

Others whose fruit, burnished with golden rind,

Hung amiable, and of delicious taste:

Betwixt them lawns—or the flow’ry lap

Of some irriguous valley spread her store.”—Par. Lost.

If such a place, it required care to rear the tender—to check the luxuriant—correct the irregular—to support the burdened—extirpate the noisome weed—and repulse the browsing animal. Such was the only occupation of the first gardeners: for in those highly-favoured spots, those natural paradises, (some of which still remain in India,) where the groves which formed the habitations also supplied the simple food of the inhabitants; where the cocoa-nut[48], with its various liquors, abounded; [p263] where the date, the mango, tamarind, and lime dropped in profusion into the hand; where the melon tribe upon, and the nutritious yam beneath the surface of the bountiful soil, were all spontaneously supplied without care, and without toil:—in such circumstances, neither sagacity to contrive, nor ability to perform, were necessary, further than collecting and preserving those spontaneous gifts of nature.

But population increased; and when mankind became translocated to regions less favourable to vegetation, and where the spontaneous productions of the earth were insufficient for their subsistence, then the business of the planter and cultivator became a necessary occupation; and hence gardening would begin to assume a systematic form.

As improvements, and the times in which they took place, have descended together in continuous and collateral streams, the narration may be divided into three periods, viz.:—From the earliest ages to the beginning of the sixteenth century;—from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the end of the seventeenth;—and from that period to the present time.

We have already hinted at what were probably natural, or aboriginal gardens: the account is so far feasible from the fact, that such places and productions may be met with on the peninsula of India, at the present day: true it is, they cultivate rice, and some few inferior plants, where they have opportunity, and use them along with their wild fruits; but when they cannot procure these cultivated necessaries, (which sometimes happens,) they must rely on the natural productions. It is necessary to add, that some of the castes, from religious principle, abhor the use of almost any kind of animal food; and, therefore, vegetables are their sole support.

From Egyptian and Jewish history, we learn that gardens [p264] were an appendage of the palaces of their princes, and other great men, for personal solace and gratification; but how far the art was systematized, either in knowledge or practice, history is silent. Throughout the Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, and Macedonian empires, we learn but little more than that ornamental gardening was carried to an extravagant height in their artificial formation; insomuch that one of the Babylonian princes built what were called “hanging gardens,” that is, a vast and lofty pyramidal structure on arches, arcades with terraces surmounted by other arcades, and carried up in gradations to a great height. The terraces being planted with the choicest trees, presented to the distant spectator a verdant hill of foliage in the midst of a large city, and lifted the sovereign proprietor far above the noise and intrusive notice of his vassals below; at the same time, yielding him all the sweets, seclusion, and quiet of the country, even in the purlieu of his palace! The idea of such an ornamented and elevated structure for a mighty sovereign was certainly sublime, and far surpassing all that has been yet done (though it has been suggested by Mr. Loudon) in the western world; and though only a monument of wealth and personal pride, prompted by conjugal regard, and entirely artificial, was certainly proper for the place where it stood, worthy of the prince who erected, and the extensive empire to which it belonged.

Throughout a long-following period, and up to the time of the Romans, we learn nothing particular respecting gardens, only, that among the Jews, they had gardens for herbs, vineyards, and even gardens for cucumbers: but as frequent allusions are made to them, it is probable that gardening had then become a distinct calling, as we find it was among the Romans, as soon as their extensive conquests were secured.

As the arts and arms of the Romans went together, no doubt a very wide circulation of all that was known of gardening in Italy, was transferred thence. Their writers on rural affairs preferred agri to horticulture; but their sound knowledge of the former shews no inconsiderable share of acquaintance with the principles of the latter; and as their practice, as well as the seeds of their products, would be introduced wherever the climate permitted, it is more than probable they [p265] laid the foundation of British gardening. The rules and examples left by them, were probably continued, with occasional accessions to the stock both of practice and production, throughout the Heptarchy, the domination of the Saxons, Danes, and Normans: but these troublous times were not favourable to the prosecution of the arts of peace; and it is not likely much advancement in the art took place until the Norman power was fully established; and even then their castellated mansions precluded any extensive adaptation of garden, from the necessity of forming the glacis, for the greater security of the baronial hall: and though it is probable that, at this time, not a dwelling, from the regal palace to the cottage, but had a garden of some size or other, yet the best practice was confined to the monasteries, and other religious corporations of those days, all over Christendom. Their education and leisure, their foreign intercourse, their interest in the tithes, and their love of superior vegetables and condiments, on the many days they were restricted from indulging in the consumption of animal food, all contributed to incline the monks to prosecute gardening on the most approved plans. Thus, Italy, Spain, and Germany became famous for their superior culinary vegetables, as France was for improved fruits; indeed, when war depopulated or devastated a country, and when the gardens of the château became a sacrifice to offensive or defensive operations, and when the potageries of the hamlets were trodden under foot and destroyed by a licentious soldiery, the gardens of the religious houses were often spared, and, consequently, many roots and fruits found there an asylum, which was denied them in less privileged places.

In looking over the lists of plants cultivated in those days, we find the names of a great majority of the common sorts now in use, as well culinary, as for the table or the press, with a great addition of physical plants, it being then a prevalent supposition that remedies for all the ailments of the human frame were existent in the vegetable kingdom, if they could be detected; the cultivation and gathering of simples, therefore, was a business which employed many heads and many hands: even the Corinthian pillars of the noble profession of physic were not entirely free from that malaria, which was generated in the fumes of the herbalist’s shop! [p266]

Ornamental gardening had hardly showed its graceful head; the little that had been done of this in England, was only in imitation of the Italian school, though without their accompaniments of splendid architecture, classical sculpture, and costly fountains. Such a style, in the near neighbourhood of a palace or mansion, is imposing and suitable, but the outskirts of such gardens, which should have been gradually blended with and into the free and beautiful forms of nature, were bounded and deformed by tortuous labyrinths, by complicated folds of nicely-clipped hedges, involving each other for no purpose than affording seclusion from the “licentious eye,” or a “maze to the intruding foot.”

It may be observed as somewhat unaccountable, the excellent taste of their landscape painters was never transferred from the canvass to their style of ornamental gardening. But so it was: the people who had all kinds of assistance from artists of the first order, and from classical and picturesque association within their own territory, long remained blind to what was so natural and so manifestly within their reach!

In useful and profitable gardening, the fine climate of Italy gave great facility for successful cultivation of a profusion of the finest fruits, and being an advanced post for the reception of all valuable plants from both Asia and Africa, it much sooner than other European countries possessed culinary vegetables in great variety, and of salad-herbs a numerous list.

From the commencement of the sixteenth century the improvements in gardening began to take the form of a system. The increasing splendour of the English court, during the reigns of the virgin queen and her father, and the princely establishments of some of her courtiers, called the art of gardening into notice and repute, and gave an impulse to the yet dormant powers of horticultural practicability. Continental artists were generally employed in laying out the greater works. The sum of their professional ability was chiefly geometrical, an exact knowledge of straight lines, squares, and curves; they could line out a polygonal basin to a hair’s breadth, and construct a many-tiered jet d’eau in the midst. Such, however, were the principal features admitted into, and which constituted the style of those days, and continued through that and the succeeding [p267] century. In the latter (the seventeenth), and during the domestic broils which then convulsed the kingdoms, gardening appears to have been, as to style, almost stationary. In the mean time, however, the Reformation had been silently working salutary effects, not only in the deliverance of men from a servile religious thraldom, but also from the dogmas of precedential custom, and by imbuing them with a spirit of independence with respect to others, gave, what was better, a self-dependence in exertion, whether of mind or action; and, after a few years of revolutionary excess, and abuse of this inestimable acquisition of mental freedom, at last, in 1688, settled down into that rational state of composure, which, with few interruptions, has happily remained to the present day.

Then it was that gardening, in all its branches, was patronised and encouraged. Tournefort in France, and Ray in England, enlightened the public by their description, enumeration, and classification of plants. Evelyn called attention to the usefulness and national value of forest trees; several authors developed the mysteries of kitchen-garden and orchard management; collections of exotic plants were made, and glass-cases built for their reception; floriculture received a share of the gardener’s attention; and in short, there seemed to be, about this time, a general movement by united exertion to gain what had been previously neglected, and complete what had been only feebly attempted.

The accession of William and Mary to the British throne very naturally introduced Dutch gardening and architecture. The old Italian and French styles received very little, if any, amendment. The avenue, the canal, the rectangular clumps and borders, the shelves and slopes, the terrace, with its stairs, were all maintained and extended, the whole surrounded by exactly-clipped hedges, and bedotted with fanciful and unnaturally cut trees. This expensive and ridiculous fashion had its admirers for a time, but at last fell into disrepute, not by a bull or anathema, but chiefly by the keen sarcasm of a Pope!

Kitchen-gardens were improved by additional brick-walls for the more delicate kinds of fruit, as vines, figs, peaches, nectarins, apricots, &c. Hot-beds were in general use, and, many hot-houses were erected for different kinds of the above [p268] as well as for the pine-apple. In those days our fruit-lists contained twenty sorts, of which there were many varieties. Of culinary vegetables there were, of roots eighteen, of shoots four, of leaves fourteen, of flowers three, of seeds three, of pods two, and of herbs for all purposes twenty-five.

From that period, the commencement of the eighteenth century, every succeeding year brought forth new objects of the gardener’s care, and improved operations for his imitation. The acquirements of natural science, radiating from such a character as Sir Hans Sloane, whose theories were imbibed and confirmed by the practical abilities of Philip Miller, were, at that time, like the orb of day bursting from behind a cloud! Scientific light and practical life were shed on all around, and the foundation was then laid, by their united means, on which has been raised almost all the varied structure of modern horticultural improvement. It would be impossible, as needless, to give the names of the authors, who, from this period, showed themselves in print on the subject of gardening, for, were the respective merits of their literary labours noticed, and the successive discoveries and advances chronicled, the amount would be voluminous indeed. But the following celebrated names cannot, in justice to their memories, be omitted. The great Linnæus was deservedly at the head of the botanical branch of gardening; Miller, with his satellites, Gordon, Lee, and Aiton were at that of practical botany, as well as of all the other parts of operative gardening; and, as a leading orchardist, Kennedy, and many others on miscellaneous subjects, produced respectable directories and kalendars.

The improvement of ornamental gardening kept pace with that of the more useful. Soon as the old style of rigid formality had been exposed, it was exploded; more refined principles of taste prevailed; its outlines became better defined; it was found that there are certain fixed principles in nature, on which the elements of true taste are naturally (not capriciously) founded; that delight and gratification to the eye, or mind, can only arise from the harmony and fitness of the combinations of art or design; that the sensations of beauty and sublimity can only be conveyed by congruous associations of parts to the whole; and that the incidents found in [p269] conjunction in nature, should be the objects of imitation of the gardener’s, as they had long been that of the painter’s art, with this exception, that in the immediate vicinity of the mansion as much of the old style should be retained as will harmonize with the necessary artificial façade of the architecture; but soon as departed from these creations of art, let then appear the varied flow of nature’s devious garb.

The art of painting had, in the best schools, proceeded on such principles, and the formation of real scenery was improved from what was so prominent in the fictitious. Some painters, even Claude Lorraine himself, have occasionally erred, from what may be called exuberance of design, in producing extreme effect, by introducing lights which never can be seen by day or night, at dawn or twilight; by trees which never existed, and by forms[49] which had only an imaginary existence. Landscape gardeners, too, in the transition from the tame to the more natural style, have run into error, by imitating admirable incidents frequently seen in nature’s works, forgetting that their value springs entirely from their having happened by chance, but, as works of art, lose all their interest, and become insignificant.

We are now arrived on the confines of our own times, of which we will take a general view, and which will sufficiently show the accumulated assemblage of horticultural objects, productions, and knowledge; and which will also give, what was proposed, a comparative survey of the extent of our improvements.

And first, as to the highest department, Botany. Before the sexual system of Linnæus was fairly established, (though it spread far and wide by the literary labours of Hudson, Lee, Curtis, and several other able contemporary writers, both in England and on the continent,) defects were found in it, and not only as to the terms of distinction, but also to its bringing together, in the classification, plants which appeared, from their [p270] exterior habit and qualities, to have no natural affinity to each other. This Linnæus was aware of himself, and left some fragments of a natural arrangement, but which he did not live to complete. This, or the idea of it, however, was taken up by Jussieu, a French botanist, and completed as far, perhaps, as it can be; and though, in our present botanical publications, both systems are continued, yet it is likely that Jussieu’s simplified system will, in time, supersede the other, though the curious fact on which that of Linnæus was founded will never be forgotten, because of its practical use in the amelioration of fruits. Botanical publications, under the various names of Hortuses, Floras, Monographs, and of every country and district under the skies, and since the promulgation of Jussieu’s system, monographs, under the titles of Geraniaceæ, Cistineæ, &c., flow in periodical floods from the press, crowd the bookseller’s shelves, and thence find their way to every elegant drawing-room in the kingdom.

This additional call on the business of the press, as well as upon the talent of the artist, arises from the fashionable and refined bias of the public taste for this rational and delightful study. To extend botanical collections, and the desire to possess every vegetable beauty, pervaded the whole community: hence expeditions to distant lands by collectors; hence the extension and encouragement of nursery business; hence have sprung up chartered societies and associations for the encouragement of botany and gardening all over the realm; so that vegetable beauties and curiosities are now to be seen in British collections, from every region of the known world.

Neither has the occult subject of botanical physiology been neglected; many curious facts connected with the organisation, structure, functions, and qualities of plants, have been ascertained: but still there remains much for the employment of the naturalist’s mind on this difficult subject.

Landscape gardening is not so much “the rage” as it was twenty or thirty years ago: national circumstances, perhaps, may be the cause; but its principles are much better understood. The errors of Kent and Brown, and their followers, have been corrected by the works and writings of Repton, and the critiques of Knight and Price, whose theories have been [p271] carried into practice by Loudon and others; and nothing will prevent the universal adoption of their principles, but the difficulty of giving the foreground from home walks the extreme degree of ruggedness so much admired, and even indispensable to the painter. Fern, (unless we can introduce some uncommon foreign variety,) burdock, kexes, cannot be admitted into dressed ground; nor have we any plants in cultivation which would well answer the purpose; true, we have the rhubarb, one or two sorts of thistles, eryngiums, palma Christi, and gourds with their ample leaves: but these would only appear intruders, and misplaced: but much may be done by a judicious disposition of our common shrubs, so as to conceal the traces of the spade and line, and give all our combinations of land, wood, and water that flowing character, which is so true to nature, and so pleasing to the refined eye of taste.

Floriculture, which has been imported from France and Holland, is also intensely followed about London, as well as in our manufacturing provinces. Authors have creditably appeared in this line too; and our annual blows of flowers, both home-cultivated and imported, are at once rich and costly. Tulips, hyacinths, narcissuses, ranunculuses, and anemones, are the principal bed flowers: but roses, stocks, dahlias, chrysanthemums, and even poppies, are out of number. Flowering shrubs, both within and without doors, are eminently rich and various, and astonish as much by the splendour of their colours as by their elegant forms and number.

Orcharding has declined during the last fifty years: first, because of the gradual deterioration of the trees, and precariousness of the crops; next, from the improved way of agricultural labourers’ manner of living. This change renders the use of small cider and perry less necessary in a farm-house, causing an increased consumption of malt liquor; and this again, occasioning a greater demand for barley, at once pleases both the farmer and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Thus the cultivation of orchard fruit (except cherries[50]) has greatly fallen off; and the decayed state of the old, and difficulty of [p272] raising new orchards, has given a check to such exertion, except in places at a distance from the metropolis, where orchards have suffered less from decay, and where the habits of the cider drinkers are more inveterate. Mr. Knight, the President of the Horticultural Society, has written copiously on this subject, and very properly considers the cultivation of orchard fruit as a national object; and by his example has done as much, nay, much more, than any other gentleman in the kingdom, to restore our orchards to what they used to be, and what they may be,—and it is hoped his excellent instructions will not be thrown away.

Kitchen-gardening, the most important and useful branch of the subject, next demands attention; and here we are gratified with a fine display of the efficacy of perseverance, the success of experience, and the triumphs of skill. In every month of the year, in spite of the winter’s frost or summer’s sun, our tables are supplied with wholesome and agreeable vegetables:—of roots we have fourteen sorts; of stems, shoots, and leaf-stalks, seven; of leaves, eight; of flowers, four: of culinary fruits we have sixteen; of seeds and pods, six; of condimental herbs we have twenty-nine; and of herbs and seeds for confections there are seven, besides various fruit: of roots, leaves, flowers, and fruit, for salads, there are in cultivation twenty-two kinds; and various sorts of plants for medicine and distillation.

Of table-fruit there are above twenty different species, and of these numberless varieties, extending to several hundreds, or even thousands, of various excellency and value.

A few tropical and foreign fruits, not included in the above, have been cultivated in tolerable perfection in Europe within these few years, viz. the Chinese loquat and litchee, the custard apple, mangosteen, and mango, &c.; and there is no doubt, if these fruits could be worked on some hardier kindred stock, and a suitable place formed for them in a stove, they might be cultivated with the same success as the anana.

In the forcing department of gardening, wonders have been accomplished. By this application of art, we appropriate to ourselves an almost perfect imitation of any of the warmer [p273] climates: heat, that powerful agent in the development of vegetation, we can have in any degree, by stoves, by fermenting substances, and from the steam of boiling water: light, a no less necessary agent in the maturation of fruits, we combine with the former, by glazed houses and frames.

The various expedients for obtaining the necessary degree of heat, are, first, the most simple method of a stove, with its flue passing through or round the floor of the house, and this for warming the air within; but in this case, as the roots of the plants do not sufficiently, it is supposed, receive the proper degree of heat, various fermenting substances, as recent stable-yard dung, tanners’ bark, oak and other leaves of trees, &c. are formed into beds, on which the compost of earth is placed, as in hot-bed frames, or in which the pots containing the plants are placed, or plunged, as in a hot-house. To obtain the same effect, borders within houses are formed for the roots, having an excavated heat-chamber beneath, supplied by simple stove flues, or from the fermenting substances above named, or from steam admitted for the purpose. This mode of supplying an equal degree of heat to the roots, as well as to the leaves and branches of a plant, is plausible, and cannot be far wrong, because it has been attended with success: but there is, perhaps, more attributed to it than it deserves, because the region or stratum of the soil, which is naturally occupied by roots, differs, in respect of temperature, much less over the whole surface of our globe, than is commonly imagined. The heat of the air in different latitudes ranges from several degrees below zero to 110 degrees of Fahrenheit’s scale; but the temperature of the earth eighteen inches below the surface, it is probable, does not vary more than ten or fifteen. In England spring water varies only two degrees, viz. from 42 degrees in summer to 40 degrees in winter; and the effects of our hardest frosts very rarely penetrate deeper than nine inches; but it is necessary to observe, that, in such cases, as well as in hotbeds, we force as well as defend; and probably, by such mode of applying heat and moisture, nutritious gases may be communicated, which may be no small advantage. Besides, the atmosphere of the house can (as is done) be impregnated with the same qualities and degrees of heat and humidity [p274] (a most necessary accompaniment[51],) which may be generated below.

Light is a most potent agent in the maturation of vegetables: united with a moderate degree of cold, it is much more effectual in progressive vegetation, than the necessary degree of heat with darkness. Exposure to light is indispensable to plants: and, therefore, our glass cases are formed to admit as much as possible. Within these few years, the endeavour to gain an accession of light by reducing the dimensions of the wooden scantling of hot houses suggested the idea of metallic frames; and for the concentration of the sun’s rays, horizontal as well as vertical curvilinear roofs have been constructed. Lightness to the eye, durability, imperceptible expansion, and glazed with panes, cut like segments of circles, to facilitate the passing off of condensed water, with complete command of ventilation, are an assemblage of properties, always as desirable as necessary; and as they may be cast in the most elegant forms, and protected by paint, they add greatly to the ornament of the garden. Beautiful as these buildings are, some little disappointment has taken place respecting them: it has been experienced, that the intensity of the sun’s light, or heat, has been found detrimental to the tender inmates, and that shading is as necessary in bright, as light is in cloudy weather. Certain it is, that in the winter season, when light and heat are most desirable, no fear need be entertained from this circumstance; and it ought to be considered, that in our summer, we have at least, daily, four hours more sun than intertropical plants have at home: of course, they have less time for their evening’s repose, (which all plants more or less require); besides, it should be thought of, that all plants are not equally formed to sustain such a blaze of light; “some affect the sun and some the shade;” such as the pine-apple[52], and orange, which require “a warm [p275] shade;” and perhaps all plants which present a large reflecting surface of foliage to the sun, are content with a smaller share of his direct rays. These observations attended to, sun-shades may be applied for occasional use, and with the plants at a proper distance from the glass, will certainly secure them from all the inconvenience of such buildings, while none of the advantages are lost.

The kitchen-garden range of buildings includes pine-stoves, vineries, houses for peaches, and nectarines, figs, and cherries, hot-walls, pits for succession pines, melons, cucumbers; besides store pits for roots, tender vegetables, salading, &c., as well as frames for many purposes of cultivation. Mushrooms are usually raised in sheds behind the houses. The hot-houses are also used for growing early culinary vegetables, and small fruits in pots.

[To be continued.]

[48] The cocoa palm is rather a gigantic herb than a tree: the stem rises to a great height, of a strongly tough fibrous substance, but never so indurated as timber, though it is used in the construction of houses. It has no branches; but is crowned with from five to seven ample compound leaves, forming an umbrella-like head. The spatha issues from the centre, and soon falls pendent between and below the footstalks of the leaves, where it flowers and ripens the fruit. The nut is enveloped in a thick brown fibrous husk, which opens to shed it when fully ripe. The nut, when opened, yields two liquids, which are nutritious, and accounted delicacies: the first is the milk which runs out; the next is the cream which is procured by being scooped off the kernel with a spoon: this is of thick consistence, and much resembles the cream of milk. After these remains the perfectly-formed layer of kernel attached to the shell, and which is used along with the liquids as an article of food. But another most pleasant beverage, called toddy, is obtained from this palm, and which constitutes the chief value of the plant. The fruit is sacrificed to procure this; soon as the frond becomes pendent, the extremity is cut off, and a narrow-necked vessel is slung thereto to receive the streaming sap. This, both before and after being fermented, is an agreeable and refreshing drink. It also yields an ardent spirit by distillation, but of which the natives deny themselves the use.

[49] In Martin’s painting of the Paphian Bower, though a fine composition, the roots of the tree, on the left of the foreground, are too much out of the ground. The accidental exposure of roots on the bank of a stream, or high-road, and their buttress-like departure from the trunk, are legitimate objects for the pencil; but their ramifications pourtrayed on the surface of the ground, is as ridiculous as unnatural.

[50] It is said that many of the Caroon cherries brought to Covent-garden market, are bought up for the purpose of colouring wine on the Continent.

[51] The admission of humidity into forcing-houses is attended by the most salutary consequences: it counteracts the bad effects of fire-heat, and is inimical to many insects. For this purpose, a steam-supplying apparatus is added to the best-constructed hot-houses, productive of the greatest advantages.

[52] It has long been observed by gardeners, that the pine-apple always does best in forcing-pits, merely from the circumstance of there being more shade.

Chemical Manipulation, being Instructions to Students in Chemistry, on the Methods of performing Experiments of Demonstration, or of Research, with accuracy and success By Michael Faraday, F.R.S., &c. [◊]

WE will not positively assert that no one except Mr. Faraday could have written this book, but we are of opinion that there are very few chemists adequate to such a task, which has manifestly required a considerable share of practical skill, much deep and theoretical knowledge, and no small degree of patience and perseverance, more especially shown in the clearness of the details, and the perspicuous manner in which he has managed to describe prolix and difficult processes. The work moreover fills up a chasm in chemical literature, by embodying almost all that is important relating to chemical manipulation scattered through the writings of others; while the author’s extensive experience has enabled him to correct their faults, and to present the student and operator with many new and important facts and processes, by which the researches of the laboratory are most essentially facilitated.

Such is our general opinion of the treatise before us, and we are persuaded that those who are capable of appreciating its merits will agree in our decision; but it is not so easy to [p276] substantiate our judgment by quotations, in consequence of the general didactic character of the book, and the mutual dependence and connexion of its different parts. We shall attempt, however, to give the general reader an outline of its contents, and point out such parts to the chemist as we conceive particularly useful and worthy attention.

The importance of readiness and dexterity in the performance of experiments has been duly estimated for more than a century. The writings of Black, Cavendish, Priestley, and especially Scheele, as opposed to those of their predecessors, show that they had acquired considerable facility in attaining, by simple and economical means, those ends which had before consumed much time and much expense in their accomplishment: but it is only of late years that the refinements of manipulation have been carried towards perfection; and the researches carried on in the laboratory of the Royal Institution have been not a little conducive to this improvement: to no one, however, is this part of the science more indebted than to Dr. Wollaston, whose skill in what may be called microscopic chemistry is consummate, and who has a host of humble but industrious imitators. So essential, indeed, is the attainment of correct methods of manipulation to the progress of chemical science, that many entire trains of research are exclusively dependent upon it for success. It is true that it must always be subordinate to genius and invention; yet the person who could only devise, without knowing how to perform, would comparatively be able to lend little aid to the extension and usefulness of knowledge: and were it not an invidious task, we might be able to show that some of the greatest discoveries and improvements of the science have originated in dexterity of experiment, rather than in profundity of design. By tact, therefore, in manipulation, a considerable advantage is gained, independent of that resulting from an acquaintance with the principles of the science; and this is so considerable, that, of two persons of equal talent and information in other respects, he who is the best manipulator will soon be in advance of the other; the one will draw just inferences with accuracy and rapidity, while the other will be lost in doubt, and often led into error. Mr. Faraday has pointed out several other cases of prominent advantage, arising from skilful manipulation, especially when very small quantities of matter are to be operated upon, and where accurate conclusions are of more than ordinary importance, as in testing for arsenic and other poisons on judicial occasions. When the substance under examination is rare, [p277] as often happens, the facility of working with small quantities is also of much importance, as otherwise the opportunity of gaining information may be lost, or only retained at great expense. “There existed,” says our author, “in the British Museum a small fragment of a black stone, the source and history of which was unknown: it was unique, no other specimen being in the Museum, or known to be in existence; yet as it presented some peculiar characters, Mr. Hatchett was induced to examine it, and, working with a portion of the stone weighing not more than two hundred grains, he was enabled to discover in it a new metal, which he distinguished, by its various characters, from all those previously known, and which he named Columbium. Ekeberg afterwards discovered a metal, which he named Tantalium, conceiving it to have been observed and distinguished for the first time by himself; but Dr. Wollaston, who examined it, and compared it with columbium, was able to identify it with that metal, although he had not more than five grains of the stone from the British Museum upon which to make his experiments.”

In short, there can be but one opinion respecting the first-rate importance of expertness in manipulation, and neatness, dexterity, and efficacy of experimenting. These are the subjects to which the present volume is directed, and which will, therefore, form a valuable accompaniment to the more general and systematic works. They are discussed under the following general heads:—

The description of a laboratory is followed by two long and well-written sections on the arts of weighing and measuring, in which the account of the methods of determining specific gravities, and of the general management of a delicate balance, are well deserving the student’s attentive perusal: indeed, there are no operations which are more frequently performed in a slovenly and careless manner, than those in which scales and weights are concerned; and we should advise the tyro to sit down with his balance and this book before him, and practise the manipulations which it explains.

The fourth section, on the sources and management of heat, is devoted to the construction and management of different kinds of furnaces, lamps, blowpipes, thermometers, and pyrometers, and abounds in useful hints, and in the details of [p278] practical information; and the same remark applies to the succeeding sections on comminution and solution—indeed, we were surprised at finding so much to be taught in regard to these very simple operations. The seventh, eighth, and ninth sections treat of distillation and sublimation, precipitation, and filtration. Here, and indeed throughout the work, the wood-cuts are particularly distinct and well executed. In the section on crystallization, the uses of that process are enumerated; and to this succeeds an account of evaporation. All these operations are extremely well investigated and described, both as to their principles and as to the most proper means of effecting them; a number of curious circumstances are pointed out, by which their results are influenced, and by which certainty and success may be insured.

The uses of coloured tests are explained and illustrated in the twelfth section. Of coloured liquids the author chiefly recommends the infusion of red cabbage; and as it is not only a very good test for private experiments but of excellent service to the public lecturer in rendering certain changes of composition visible to an audience, it may be worth while extracting the directions for preparing it.

“583. The only substance of the kind, perhaps, worth keeping in solution, is an acid infusion of red cabbage. For its preparation, one or more red cabbages should be cut into strips, and boiling water poured upon the pieces; a little dilute sulphuric acid is to be added, and the whole well stirred: it is then to be covered and kept hot as long as possible, or, if convenient, should be heated nearly to boiling, for an hour or two, in a copper or earthen vessel. The quantity of water to be added at first should be sufficient to cover the cabbage, and the sulphuric acid should be in the proportion of about half an ounce of strong oil of vitriol by measure to each good-sized plant. This being done, the fluid should be separated and drained off, and as much more hot water poured on as will cover the solid residue, adding a very little sulphuric acid. The whole is to be closed up, and suffered to stand until cold, and then the liquid poured off and added to the former infusion. The cabbage may now be thrown away. The infusion is to be evaporated to one half or one third its first bulk, poured into a jar, allowed to settle, and the clear red fluid decanted and preserved in bottles. The residue may have water added to it, the solid part be allowed to subside, the clear liquor drawn off, evaporated and added to the former, or it may be dismissed altogether. This solution will keep for a year. When [p279] required for use, the acid of a small portion of it should be neutralized by caustic potash, or soda, (not by ammonia,) when it will assume an intensely deep blue colour, and will, in most cases, require dilution with twelve or fourteen parts of water. The red liquor of pickle cabbage will, occasionally, answer the uses of the solution, and is, when required for service, to be neutralized in a similar manner.”

For test-papers, litmus and turmeric are the most essential, and several precautions in preparing and using them are here pointed out, which, though apparently trivial, are, in fact, extremely important in insuring correct conclusions. We transcribe a part of the account of the applications of these coloured papers, as a specimen of the clear minuteness with which the details of the work are given, and as a sample of the author’s general method and style, where subjects of much greater intricacy are to be explained.

“591. In using these test papers with a fluid suspected to contain free acid or alkali, or knowing that one of these substances is predominant, to ascertain which is so, all that is necessary is to moisten them with the liquid, and observe the change: if the fluid be acid, the blue colour of the litmus will immediately become red; if alkaline, the yellow colour of the turmeric will be changed to a brown. The moistening may be effected by dipping the paper into the liquid; but a better method is to touch the edge of the slip with a rod dipped in the fluid. In the latter case there is no risk of contamination to the fluid from the paper, and only a very minute quantity of the liquid is used at once.

“592. These trials must be made by day-light; artificial light not permitting that just estimation of the changes by which the presence of a small excess of acid or alkali is to be determined. As the proportion of free acid or alkali diminishes, the intensity of the new tint produced upon the paper is also diminished; and when in very small quantity, it requires considerable attention before a decision can be arrived at. The test paper should occasionally be touched with pure water in the immediate neighbourhood of the part where the solution has been applied, for any change in appearance that may have occurred, not due to mere moistening, is then readily perceived.

“593. Although acid is generally tested for by litmus paper, and alkali by turmeric paper, yet the former is sometimes used advantageously for the latter purpose, being first slightly reddened, either by exposure to the air, or by momentary contact with muriatic acid fumes. When the [p280] paper thus modified is used to detect a free alkali, instead of turmeric paper, that substance is indicated by the restoration of the original blue colour. Litmus paper is best slightly reddened for this use, by putting a drop or two of muriatic acid into a large jar, allowing it to stand a few minutes, and then bringing the paper towards the mouth of the jar, or carefully placing it within: so soon as the blue tint has become slightly reddened, the paper should be removed for use. If too much acid be imparted to the paper, the delicacy of its indications is injured, because of the greater quantity of alkali required to neutralize the acid, and restore the blue colour. For the same reason a paper free from alkali or carbonate of lime has been recommended for the preparation of these tests: for these impurities, combining with a minute portion of acid, neutralize it, and thus prevent that delicacy of indication which the test paper ought and may be made to possess.”

The mode of determining the value of alcaline substances, or “alcalimetry,” is described at length in this section. Our readers, however, will here recollect that there is an error respecting the specific gravity of the acid, which Mr. Faraday has corrected at page 221 of the present volume of this Journal. The thirteenth section is allotted to crucible operations, and the fourteenth to furnace tube operations. They are full of minute and admirable instructions, evidently deduced from long experience, and detailed with the same precision and clearness which we have already eulogised. The fifteenth section, which occupies nearly a hundred pages, relates to “pneumatic manipulation, or management of gases.” Every paragraph of the instructions here given will be found to contain something of importance to the student; it is, indeed, a valuable essay upon a difficult and nice department of chemical research.

Under the head “Tube Chemistry,” in the sixteenth section, a variety of means are pointed out, of working with and employing glass-tubes, as substitutes for more expensive and formal apparatus. Indeed, the young chemist cannot do better than practise the art of bending, drawing out, and sealing tubes, as here directed, (and in the nineteenth section,) by which he will soon gain the requisite dexterity in forming them into test tubes, retorts, and so on, and be enabled to furnish his laboratory with a quantity of very useful vessels and apparatus, at a very moderate expense.

The application of electricity to chemical purposes forms the subject of the seventeenth section, in which the [p281] management of electrical machines and apparatus is described, and the circumstances necessary to facilitate investigation and insure success are pointed out. To this succeed the management and composition of lutes, and a chapter on bending blowing, and cutting glass.

Cleanliness, order, and regularity are of the utmost importance in the laboratory; and though the appearance of the chemist himself is often such that he appears “to doat upon dirt,” the strictest nicety must generally be observed in the state of his utensils and apparatus. These matters must, indeed, generally engage his personal attention; and it is not sufficient that glasses and other vessels be merely washed and wiped in the usual way, but they are generally required to be free from the minutest portions of adhering matter. A section is accordingly appropriated to the subject of cleanliness and cleansing, in which, and in that which follows it, entitled “General Rules for young Experimenters,” much information is conveyed that will prove useful to those who are commencing the practice of experimental inquiries in chemistry, and also to such as, having made some progress, have indulged themselves in slovenly habits. Macquer’s observations on this subject, as quoted by our author, are so much to the purpose, and so well deserving the serious attention of the young chemist, that we shall stand excused for inserting them in this place. He says, “A persuasion must exist that arrangement, order, and cleanliness, are essentially necessary in a chemical laboratory. Every vessel and utensil ought to be well cleansed as often it is used, and put again into its place; labels ought to be attached to all the substances, mixtures, and products of operations which are preserved in bottles or otherwise; these should be examined and cleansed from time to time, and the labels renewed when required. These cares, although they seem to be trifling, are, notwithstanding, the most fatiguing and tedious, but the most important, and often the least observed. When a person is keenly engaged, experiments succeed each other quickly; some seem nearly to decide the matter, and others suggest new ideas; he cannot but proceed to them immediately, and he is led from one to another; he thinks he shall easily know again the products of his first experiments, and therefore he does not take time to put them in order; he prosecutes with eagerness the experiments which he has last thought of, and in the mean time the vessels employed, the glasses and bottles filled, so accumulate that he cannot any longer distinguish them; or at least he is [p282] uncertain concerning many of his former products. This evil is increased, if a new series of operations succeed, and occupy all the laboratory; or if he be obliged to quit the place for some time, every thing then goes into confusion. Hence it frequently happens that he loses the fruits of much labour, and that he must throw away almost all the products of his experiments.

“The only method of avoiding these inconveniences is to employ the cares and attentions, above mentioned. It is indeed unpleasant and very difficult continually to stop in the midst of the most interesting researches, and to employ much valuable time in cleaning and arranging vessels and attaching labels. These employments are capable of cooling and retarding the progress of genius, and are tedious and disgusting; but they are nevertheless necessary. Those persons whose fortunes enable them to have an assistant operator, on whose accuracy and intelligence they can depend, avoid many of these disagreeable circumstances; but they ought nevertheless to attend to the execution of these things. We cannot depend too much on ourselves in these matters, however minute, on account of their consequences. This becomes even indispensable when the experiments are to be kept secret, at least for a time, which is very common and often necessary in chemistry.

“When new researches and inquiries are made, the mixtures, results, and products of all the operations ought to be kept a long time well ticketed and noted. It frequently happens that at the end of some time these things present very singular phenomena, which would never have been suspected. There are many beautiful discoveries in chemistry which were made in this manner, and certainly a much greater number which have been lost, because the products have been thrown away too hastily, or because they could not be recognised after the changes which happened to them.”

The uses of equivalents, and the method of employing Dr. Wollaston’s scale, form the subject of the twenty-second section of Mr. Faraday’s book; and of the concluding sections, the twenty-third contains a quantity of miscellaneous remarks, and the twenty-fourth is appropriated to “a course of inductive and instructive practices;” that is, to a selection of minute instructions respecting the use of instruments, and the performance of operations.

Such is an outline of the contents of this volume, of which we have felt ourselves obliged to speak in terms unequivocally [p283] favourable; in fact, it contains, strictly speaking, nothing to criticise. It is minute, laborious, and very unpretending, and contains a body of instructions for the performance of experiments, and of descriptions of the modes of managing and applying apparatus, which is not to be had elsewhere, being manifestly derived from diligent research, extensive experience, and correct judgment. It is not a book for amateurs; for they will presently learn from it that there is no royal road to the science of which it treats; but the real student, who will seriously follow its laborious details, will discover in them an acceptable and sure guide through the crooked and intricate, as well as the straight paths of chemistry. Those, however, and those only, who are well versed in the business of the laboratory, both as experimentalists and teachers, can duly appreciate the weighty service which Mr. Faraday has here performed.

Statistical Notices suggested by the actual State of the British Empire, as exhibited in the last Population Census. Communicated by Mr. Merritt. [◊] [Read before the Literary and Philosophical Society of Liverpool.]

THE population returns of the decennial lustrum, or period of ten years, which ended in 1821, were delayed for a considerable time, on account of the difficulties which have always occurred in taking the population of Ireland. They have now, however, been some time completed, and from the data they afford, a few reflections naturally present themselves, which though sufficiently obvious, yet, from the extreme interest of the subject, may be thought deserving of being brought together, and exhibited in a connected form. They point out some peculiarities in the situation of this country, which distinguish it from almost every other nation that has yet existed in ancient or modern times.

From the notices which have been published respecting the different districts, it may be inferred, that the portion which may be termed the Urban population, has augmented in a much greater degree than the Rural. The general ratio of increase has, however, been very great, and, in the opinion of Mr. Malthus, still continues at the same rate. That eminent [p284] economist has lately given it as his opinion, before the Emigration Committee, that the present inhabitants of the British Islands do not amount to less than twenty-two millions and a half. This estimate is perhaps a little exaggerated; but as it may be assumed sufficiently near the truth for all the objects of general speculation, I shall proceed to point out a few of those leading peculiarities, to which I have just alluded. In the first place we may assert, I apprehend, on sufficient grounds, that Great Britain is the most populous nation which has existed since the Christian era. No other instance has occurred in which an extent of continuous surface of 93,000 square miles has sustained a population of twenty-two millions. Italy, which is not of much greater extent, has sometimes been rated at nearly the same amount, but this estimate has been formed in the absence of all actual enumeration and is now ascertained to be a considerable exaggeration. No other part of the world can enter into the competition, unless it be certain districts of China and Japan, but which, as our knowledge of them in this respect is quite uncertain, I shall leave wholly out of the question. How far some nations of the ancient world may have approached or gone beyond us in the race of population, is perhaps equally lost in uncertainty. There is reason to believe, as I have endeavoured to demonstrate on another occasion, that some districts of the old world exceeded, in this respect, any country of modern ages. Amongst them, perhaps, may be reckoned Egypt, Mesopotamia, the lesser Asia, and some parts of Persia: but certainly, neither in ancient nor modern times do we find any instance of a single, compact, distinct empire, exactly defined, identically governed, and peopled by twenty-two millions of souls on the same extent of soil; this is undoubtedly a peculiarity the most striking which can exist among nations.

In the second place, we may, I think, affirm with tolerable certainty, that no nation ever contained so many large cities. On this point Great Britain exhibits a splendid superiority. We have two cities of the first class, London and Dublin; the one with a population of more than a million, the other with little less than three hundred thousand. Of cities of the second class, or those which reach one hundred thousand inhabitants, [p285] or above that number, we have seven, viz., four in England, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Bristol; two in Scotland, Edinburgh and Glasgow; and one in Ireland, the city of Cork. These seven average considerably more than one hundred thousand each. We have fourteen towns of the third class, or those containing from thirty to fifty thousand or upwards of inhabitants, viz., ten in England: Portsmouth, Plymouth, Norwich, Leeds, Sheffield, Nottingham, Bath, Newcastle, Coventry, and Hull. Two in Scotland, Paisley and Dundee, and two in Ireland, Belfast and Limerick. Of towns of the fourth class, in which are usually reckoned those of from fifteen to thirty thousand inhabitants, we have at least thirty, and probably more. A slight glance at the principal nations of Europe, with this view, will show at once their immense inferiority.

To begin with France, the most populous of the great sovereignties. That empire possesses only one city of the first class, viz. Paris, which is inferior to London by one third. She has five of the second class, viz., Lyons, Bourdeaux, Marseilles, Lisle and Rouen; but, according to the latest information which I have been able to obtain, they will not reach, by a very considerable proportion, the average number of the seven English cities of the same class. France has also eight towns of the third class, viz., Amiens, Caen, Nantes, Brest, Toulouse, Toulon, Mentz, and Versailles. I am not quite sure, as no census has lately been taken, whether two or three of the following towns ought not to be included in this class, though I am inclined, on the whole, to a contrary opinion, viz., Melun, Montpelier, Nanci, Dijon, Tours, Rennes, and Troyes; they will not, however, I am persuaded, come near the average of the British third-rate towns. The same remark will hold as to the number and size of the inferior towns.

With respect to the rest in rank of the great monarchies, the Austrian Empire, a very few words will suffice, as it cannot pretend to come into any competition with us, on the point in question. Austria possesses only one city of the first class, and three of the second, viz., Vienna, Prague, Milan, Venice. The towns of the third rank are proportionably few. With Spain, Russia, and Prussia, it would be idle to enter into any comparison. [p286]

It must be confessed, however, that the present kingdom of the Netherlands, as established by the congress of Vienna contains, in proportion to its extent and population, more large towns than any single state which now exists, or perhaps has ever existed. With an extent of territory and number of inhabitants scarcely exceeding, one-fourth of the British dominions, that kingdom has one city the first class, Amsterdam; two of the second rank, Rotterdam and Brussels; and probably as many of the third class as Great Britain herself. But the Kingdom of the Netherlands is in itself too insignificant to enter into any competition with such a state as Great Britain for any objects of general comparison. The various states comprehended under the common geographical appellation of Italy, if that superb country was united under one head, is the only one of the European nations which, under the view we are now considering, could sustain any parallel with Great Britain. But this union, so desirable in many points of view, would probably diminish its pretensions as a nation of large cities. Many of these have reached their present grandeur and extent by having been long the seat of a court or a government, and would perhaps decline considerably if reduced to the rank of mean provincial capitals. But even under any circumstances of territorial union, Italy could not be held to comprize more than one city of the first class, viz., Naples, and six of the second, viz., Turin, Milan, Venice, Genoa, Florence, and Rome; whereas, as we have just seen, Britain has two of the first and seven of the second, and these superior in size and number of inhabitants.

The third peculiarity which I have to remark in the actual situation of the British dominions is, that no nation ever had so great an urban population, or so large a proportion of its inhabitants residing in towns. This peculiarity is intimately connected with that which I have just described; but it is nevertheless a very different characteristic. Great Britain is not only distinguished for the number and size of her large cities, but for having so great a number of them on so small a territory. By the census of 1811, it was found that nearly half our population resided in towns, and at present, I apprehend, the proportion will be found still greater. In this [p287] respect no nation has ever approached us. The French economists were of opinion that not more than one-fourth of the people of France lived in towns; and the later statists, who have alluded to the subject, contend that a still greater proportion of the population is rural. This will not appear exaggerated when it is recollected that all the lower classes of that country subsist principally on vegetable food, and that, consequently, the greater part of the soil being under tillage, a great number of hands is required for its cultivation. In Great Britain, on the other hand, the inhabitants of all classes consume a great quantity of animal food, and, of course, a great part of our lands, being in a pastoral state, require a small proportion of occupants. In the kingdom of the Netherlands, it is supposed about one-third of the inhabitants live in towns: in Italy about one-fifth: in Austria, Spain, and Russia, except the province of Siberia, where the abundance of manufactures congregates the people in masses, not more than one-fifth. In Russia, Sweden, and Norway, where, amongst the lower classes, nearly every family is its own manufacturer, not more than one-eighth or one-ninth.

The fourth and last of these peculiar characteristics which I shall remark, is, that no great nation ever employed so large a proportion of its people in trade and manufactures. In speaking thus, I leave out of the question the Italian and Flemish republics of the middle ages, and the Hanse Towns, free cities, and United Provinces of later times. I speak only of great and extensive countries. It will appear, I doubt not, by the present census, that at least half our whole population is employed in trade, commerce, or manufactures. This is a feature altogether singular; a circumstance to which no parallel can be found in the ancient or modern world.

From these premises, a few observations, in the way of corollaries, will naturally suggest themselves.

In the first place, such a state of things is indicative of great wealth and power. A country thus situated is, beyond any other, powerful for attack and strong for defence. A profusion of great cities can only be produced by extensive trade, and can only be maintained by a highly cultivated soil. The wealth acquired by the industry of the towns, reacts on the [p288] industry of the agriculturist, and it is in this that the real advantages of commerce primarily consist. In this way an extensive population is gradually generated, for no maxim or political economy is now more generally admitted, than that population is sure to follow close and to press hard against the means of subsistence. An affluence of inhabitants on a comparatively small territory, is, itself the primary ingredient of power, and this first requisite of strength is, in the case of Great Britain, essentially corroborated by our insular situation. Surrounded by dangerous coasts and tempestuous seas, we can only be approached at certain points and certain times; whilst, on the other hand, as this state of things supposes and supports a powerful navy, we are able in a great degree to choose our point of attack.

From a population such as we have described, of which only a very limited part is employed in creating the means of actual subsistence, a very considerable portion may always be abstracted for purposes of attack or defence. It is usually calculated, that one-fifth part of the inhabitants of every country is capable of bearing arms. On this calculation, Great Britain contains four millions of fighting men, of whom it is believed one million might be formed into an army without any very serious interruption to the essential operations of agriculture and commerce. This supposition may seem a little extravagant, but it must be recollected that, at one period during the late war, the number of men under arms was actually calculated at seven hundred and fifty thousand.

In the second place, such a state of things is favourable to public liberty. The congregation of men in great masses is found to give great force to the influence of public opinion; by the spirit of discussion which it generates; by the anxiety for intelligence which it diffuses; by the collisions of opinion which it engenders, and by the facility of union which it affords. Nations purely or principally agricultural are generally under a despotic government, especially large states, for the maxim of divide et impera is applicable as well to internal as to external politics. Ancient Persia and Assyria, and modern Russia and Poland, are instances in point. The fierce and demoralizing tyranny of the feudal system, which, after [p289] the destruction of the Roman monarchy, left scarcely any other division of the people than those of tyrant and vassal, could only be effectually broken by the rise of great towns. These communities were alone competent to resist the aristocratical and subordinate despotisms into which all the nations of Europe were subdivided, and which, as is well known, overawed the throne, whilst they enslaved the people. In confirmation of this, it may be remarked, that the free republics of antiquity, as well as those of the middle ages, derived the spirit which nurtured them almost entirely from the capital city; and though, in the former case, there was scarcely any commerce to excite the activity of the people, yet the mere congregation of a numerous body of men sustained the power of public opinion.

But the most important question remains behind. Is a civil community thus constituted favourable to individual virtue and happiness? This is assuredly the point which it most behoves us to ascertain, since no truism is more obvious than that power and opulence, and refinement and splendour, and even liberty itself, are only so far valuable as they tend to make men wiser, and better, and happier. Is it true, then, that Great Britain has anteceded other nations in these fundamental points, as much as in those we have just described? This question cannot be answered without some hesitation: for we may say, with Addison’s facetious Knight, “that a great deal may be urged on both sides.” On the one hand it is certain that our situation is eminently favourable to intellectual improvement. The increasing spread of instruction, and the rapid advancement of knowledge which are necessarily concurrent with our career of prosperity, must ultimately advance us in the scale of moral and rational agents. If knowledge be power, it is also happiness; for communities as well as individuals would all be happy if they knew how to be so. It is also certain that the incessant struggles of competition and the strenuous efforts for distinction which are always at work in an over-peopled and highly refined country are favourable to the active virtues. They operate amongst the higher classes to provide many objects of laudable ambition; and amongst the lower, afford perpetual facilities for bettering their condition, [p290] and furnish an incessant supply of occupation, the want of which is sure to open the door to the incursion of all the worst propensities and basest vices. They bring into action all the resources of human ingenuity; all the aids of fortitude and enterprise; all the trials of patience and perseverance; all the equanimity demanded by the constant mutations and rotations of fortune. It is not to be denied, moreover, that the first-rate virtues of beneficence, charity, and hospitality, take root and flourish with peculiar vigour in a commercial community. The fluctuations of condition to which almost every man knows himself liable, and the constant proximity of distress and opulence, offer perpetual excitements to the benevolent affections.

These, it must be confessed, are important ingredients in the composition of human happiness; but considerations not less momentous present themselves on the opposite side, for every thing in human affairs is on a system of compensations. It is not to be denied that a state of society, in which one-half of the population is congregated in towns, and nearly a moiety of this half crowded together in enormous factories, is highly unpropitious to virtue, to health, and to happiness. In these huge receptacles of human labour, it would be absurd to expect that the women should be distinguished for their modesty and propriety, or the men for their prudence, temperance, and regularity. It is an unhappy law of human nature, that the force of example is most prevalent on the side of vice. A few depraved characters scattered amongst a multitude are commonly found sufficient to corrupt the whole mass: hence we may always expect to find, in the seat of a great manufactory, all the worst ingredients of civilized society; all the base depravities of a luxurious and opulent community, combined with much of the grossness and rudeness of the savage state: in a word, all the corruptions of high civilization without any of its polish. Nor is this mode of life, generally speaking, more favourable to health and comfort than to good morals. The constitution of the young is impaired, and their growth retarded by excessive labour and close confinement. Those of maturer age are glad to seek relief from the depressing effects of a wearisome and monotonous labour, unwholesome air, and constant [p291] restraint, in intemperate indulgence; and all the long train of vices and miseries to which the poor are liable, follows of course. Nor are their prospects for the future often such as to encourage hope or stimulate exertion. The habitual improvidence of the poor is aggravated in their case by the dangerous fluctuation of their trade. Sometimes they are eagerly courted with high wages, and lavish promises; at others, no employment is to be had, and not enough can be earned, even by the most unnatural exertions, to sustain their families. Nothing can be imagined more fatal to order, regularity, and comfort, than these vicissitudes. Hence it commonly happens, that, in the decline of life, these poor creatures are driven to the sad resource of parish relief. It is moreover not one of the least evils of the manufacturing system, that it has a tendency, in prosperous times, to generate an excessive population, which, on any great reverse, is suddenly thrown on the community as a superfluous burden. The changes of a fashion, the caprice of public taste, or the sudden interruption of a foreign market, will reduce thousands to helpless and unexpected poverty.

It must, however, be admitted, that the picture of rural life has also its unfavourable aspect. Those who retire into the country are apt to find themselves somewhat disappointed in their expectations of rustic simplicity and pastoral innocence. In situations where every breath of air, and every feature of nature express nothing but peace and love, they are a little surprised to see the selfish and malignant passions at work in all their baneful activity; to find, as in the purlieus of a court, the symptoms of “envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness.” Still we shall find that instances of utter depravity and abandoned profligacy are of much rarer occurrence than in great towns. In a village, every individual is known, and the very consciousness of being conspicuous, creates a sense of shame which is highly salutary. It has often been observed, that men in a body will commit, and even justify, atrocities which no individual amongst them would be capable of attempting, if not screened by the shelter of a crowd. We find, accordingly, in the annals of Wesley and Whitfield, that the great scenes of their operations are in collieries, factories, [p292] mines, canals, and all the other appendages of a great commercial and manufacturing nation. It was there, according to Whitfield, that the “Arch Enemy” raised his triumphant standard; it was there, that the harvest of lost souls was ripe and abundant. But the most decisive proof of the comparative purity of the rural population above that of the manufacturing districts, is the fact that the single town of Manchester will furnish ten times more criminal prosecutions than two Welch counties which contain an equal number of inhabitants.

On the whole, I think we cannot escape the conclusion, that, though a certain degree of commercial and manufacturing property is necessary to stimulate the agriculture of a nation, and to call forth its utmost powers of production, yet that it is not desirable that this country should proceed much further in that dangerous career, or increase still further the disproportion between its urban and rural population. The late increase in our numbers is so rapid and alarming, that I am afraid some positive checks (to use Mr. Malthus’s language) of very terrible potency must soon be brought into action. The forcible lines of Goldsmith, though that great poet knew little enough of political economy, are applicable to the wise and benovolent statesmen of all times—

’Tis theirs to judge, how wide the limits stand

Between a splendid and a happy land.

On the Modern Ornaments of Architecture, &c. [◊]

IN no age since the Augustan era of Rome, perhaps, has decoration of the interior of dwellings been carried to greater excess than at present; nor, since the days of the florid style of Gothic architecture, has the exterior received more embellishment. Architectural ornaments have generally been copied from the antique, those especially which belong to the orders. Indeed there is a kind of classical standard, which governs the architect in the execution of public edifices, from which he cannot with propriety depart. National, and regal emblems, wherever suitable, should always be introduced in public buildings, and in those of a private or mixed character [p293] all legitimate ornaments may be displayed. Of this class the acanthus, vignette, the branches of the olive, and leaves of the palm, the crown of laurel, the chaplet of myrtle, and the wreath of roses, are all proper when judiciously introduced; and the rose and honeysuckle flowers, and the folicles, trefoils, cinquefoils, &c., which so often occur on sculpture and plaster work, are also proper, because they are imitations of nature.

But in our present style of decorative execution, from the most elaborate finishing of a regal palace, down to the pattern of a milk-maid’s gown, there is such latitude taken in the display of licentious fancy, that imagination itself is baffled to find anything in the infinite variety of nature’s works, to which their designs can be compared, or to which they bear the most distant resemblance!

It is really unaccountable, that the whole tribe of our artists, the ornamental statuary, scagliolist, paper-stainer, weaver, chintz and cotton printer, &c. should all be “straining their low thought to form unreal” forms and figures; and striking out the most intricate and complicated, to the utter neglect (except in very few instances) of those numberless simple though transcendently beautiful configurations, which everywhere appear in the works of nature.

This is surely a dereliction of all propriety, an exuberance of grovelling taste which no consideration can excuse, nor reason justify. In this age of refinement, good taste should be the guide in all things where invention is necessary, and design requisite; whatever is grotesque or fantastic, should be banished from our labours of art, and the elegant forms of vegetable or animal nature alone take their place.

If it be asked, how it happens that such obliquity of fancy (for it cannot be called taste) should so generally prevail, the answer is, were these pattern-mongers to copy from nature every body could judge of their ability as imitators, and, if unfaithful, would decry the artist; whereas, whilst bringing forth his nondescript and nondescribable forms of imaginary figures, he escapes the lash of the critic, which otherwise he would be subjected to. [p294]

It may be granted, that it is as ridiculous to form stone or plaster flowers, as those geometrical frets and fanciful nothings which are usually pourtrayed in architectural decoration: but it may be answered that if any ornament be necessary, that of a nondescript character is not more appropriate, as such, than natural forms would be; and these latter having a name, and many of them an emblematical character, may be often applied with a propriety which cannot belong to the other.

The old fashioned tapestry, notwithstanding its sombre appearance, was in its plan much more rational than the multifigurations of our modern paper hangings. The first represented some historical event or legendary tale, yielding some mental information, or it taught perhaps a moral lesson—the eye was amused while tracing the ideas of the ingenious sempstress; but in our ephemeral and gaudy ten-thousand-times repeated paper nothings, there is no design to interest, nor combination to amuse the eye longer than a transient glance. Even the Chinese, who, in all their decorative finishings shew rigidity itself, have escaped from tame mannerism in paper hangings, by imitating, from the edge of the carpet to the ceiling, all the gradations of turf, herbs, shrubs, and trees, upon a sky ground, enriched with figures or rather portraits of flowers and fruit, as well as beasts, birds and insects. This though it cannot deceive the spectator for one moment in mistaking a fictitious for a real scene, yet is certainly far superior to European paper-upholstery, as it at least may introduce a knowledge of natural history, which the latter has no pretension to, indeed seems studiously to discard, as beneath imitation.

All this vitiated taste, or fashion rather, is to be regretted; especially as it appears that those

Fancied forms which on the ceilings sprawl,

And shapeless frets which decorate the wall,

are just as expensive, and difficult of execution, as the most elegant imitation of vegetable or animal configuration would be; and surely when such variety of forms are presented to the artist, they deserve to be copied as transcendently superior to the capricious fancies of the most celebrated decorator, or of [p295] the most splendid fashionable designs; either in the works of the sculptor, scagliolist, &c. or the more insignificant designers of figured paper or drapery. Indeed there can be no good reason why ox-heads and garlands (now the days of sacrifices are past) should not be banished from the frieze and entablature, to admit the far more appropriate figures of foliage, fruit, and flowers, aquatic as well as terrestrial, which every garden yields;—and for interior enrichments of cornices, mouldings, &c., the curious and elegant forms of the testacea, would afford beautiful copies for imitation.

In fine, if there be any merit or propriety in the adaptation of whatever is elegant in form, beautiful in outline, harmonious in tint and proportion, and congruous in combination, such may readily be found in the animal and vegetable kingdoms. Faithful representations of such objects, not only open a fine field for the exercise of individual ability, at this time, but also a source from which might be drawn a large share of public patronage, and consequent commensurate reward. Indeed it is now pretty evident that in many things, especially in the minor works of art, we have been too long and too rigidly impressed with a veneration for the works of antiquity, or what is equally benumbing, a passive following of tyrant fashion; and that many a bright genius has been “nipped in the bud,” and remained “twinkling in the socket” of Grecian and Roman rules, who, if venturous enough to have burst the shackles of professional thraldom, would have improved and elevated his art, as well as himself, by designs and works which would have advanced his profession and adorned his country.

But it is not yet too late; a knowledge and study of the genuine elements of taste, whether of art or nature, and a mind embued with rational perceptions of all that is beautiful and picturesque, and grand or sublime in either, will rise superior to all precedential fetters, as well as all modern mannerism, and will equally regard the excellencies of the ancients, as it will avoid the errors of some modern artists, who, in leaving the beaten track, have deviated far and widely from the point to which good sense and good taste would have led. [p296]

A list of plants, &c. which exemplify all that is elegant in form, beautiful in outline and graceful in position, should have accompanied the above imperfect remarks, but this must be deferred to another opportunity.

J. M.

De l’Influence des Agens Physiques sur la Vie. Par W. F. Edwards, D. M., &c. [◊] [Continued from the last Number.]

IN our last number we presented our readers with a general abstract of the first part of this valuable work. The second part refers to animals of the cold blood order, including fish and reptiles. The larvæ of the latter underwent some comparative experiments detailed in the first chapter, because they partake of the nature both of fish and reptiles, as to their respiratory function; the imperfection of their intermediate state and developement of organization not interfering with the objects in view, and the double mode of aërification being exercised unequally. The skin of these young animals furnishes them with the means of producing the requisite changes in the blood by absorption, as in the adult, while it lives in water; and the cutaneous respiration goes on through this medium at a temperature which the subsequent more perfect animal is unable to endure. The object entertained is the influence of physical agents upon the changes which these animals pass through in their form and structure.

An important condition of their advancement to maturity seems to be, that the nutriment suspended in the water should be in very small and limited proportions. Temperature also influences their constitutional changes.

Sometimes the larvæ pass through the winter in their primitive state; a fact not generally known. Some tadpoles were confined within wooden boxes submersed in the river Seine, in which holes were perforated to allow the stream to pass through, without the possibility of the animals rising to the surface of the water, and thus to inhale air. Others were placed in a large vessel of Seine water renewed at intervals, with power to rise above the surface. Ten in twelve of the first box underwent no transformation, the others having gone partially through their change. But [p297] those of the large vessel, and not submersed in the river, passed through their changes of form without the least appearance of the phenomenon being retarded. The running waters of the Seine probably contained nutritious matter, which the water periodically renewed was more deficient in.

Under circumstances of moderate nourishment and temperature, the tadpoles under water did not complete their changes but in a very partial and protracted manner, while the greater portion made no change. The great difference in the circumstances of the experiments seems to have been the access to the air of those which went through their transformations as usual. Exclusion from light made no difference in the results, and these were solely influenced by occasional renewal of air from pulmonary respiration.

These animals possessing a double respiration, cutaneous and pulmonic, that is, absorbing air from the water around them and inhaling it from the atmosphere on its surface, renders these facts highly curious. Fish possess only the means of aquatic respiration, and the influence of temperature was tried upon them submersed in water deprived of its air by previous boiling, the heat being varied from 0° to 40°. The fish died quicker under these circumstances than the frog species in the same situation; but their lives were prolonged more in the descent of the thermometer than during its elevation, as also occurred with the experiments on frogs and salamanders; and, in both cases, the younger the animal, the less it could resist the higher temperatures. At 40° the young animals only survived about two minutes, and the adults many more.

Fish were also submersed in closed vessels of aërated water, and, by varying the temperature and the quantities of water, the duration of their lives was augmented in proportion to the increased volume of the liquid, the temperature remaining the same; but when these experiments were conducted in open vessels, the contact with the atmosphere altered the phenomena. At 20°, a small fish expired in four hours; and when the temperature was lowered to 10° or 12°, the same sort of animal lived several days; and when the water was kept clean by being changed every twenty-four hours, the fish lived indefinitely.

It is known that fish rise periodically to the surface of the waters to respire; and Dr. Edwards discovered that they did so when they have reduced the properties of the air [p298] dissolved in the water to a lower standard than is requisite for the proper aërification of their blood; thus renewing their supply of oxygen.

The functions of this class of animals have always been obscure; and their phenomena are different from those of others. Different species of fish die at various periods when deprived of water, some in a few minutes, others in a few hours; and it appears that their dissolution arises not so much from incapability of atmospheric respiration (for the experiments of Sylvester prove that they can respire pure air), as from the different state of the air.

Some experiments on lizards, snakes, and turtles conclude the researches among cold-blooded animals. The skins of these, like those of the frogs and salamanders, received vivifying influence from the air, mainly acting, in conjunction with pulmonary respiration, to promote their existence. Snakes and turtle, their pulmonary respiration being insulated, from their skins being guarded from atmospheric influence, were found alive; but the lizards died in a few hours, when the vivifying contact of the air was removed from their bodies, and they breathed only by their mouths. Animals naturally defended by scales transpire much less than such as have their skins free. Thus frogs, toads, and salamanders yielded more by perspiration than lizards, snakes, and turtle, in a given time; and the porosity of the skin of course regulates the facility of transpiration in all cases.

With these experiments and remarks, Dr. Edwards concludes the second part of his researches. The third part includes animals of warm blood, in which will be found some curious and interesting remarks on the heat of young animals compared with that of adults.

Dr. Edwards refutes the common notion of young animals being necessarily hotter than adults. The heat of young puppies was very near that of the parent, or one or two degrees less, but this variation was not constant. Some new-born kittens and rabbits were also subjected to similar trials, and the results led to a conclusion that the temperature of young animals is less than that of adults.

According to these experiments, the power of resisting the cooling influence of the air acquires force as the animal grows up; and those examples related, in which artificial covering was adopted, show that nudity is not the only cause of the reduction of heat, which is, in fact, more referrible [p299] to their infantile constitution. At first the sucking animal shows little variation from the parent temperature; then this becomes more and more reduced, and about the fifteenth day it is a degree or two below the mother.

Birds, which are warmer than mammiferæ, were next made the objects of experimental inquiry, and the young recently hatched exhibited a lower temperature than the grown birds. After removal from the shelter of their nests into a mild atmosphere of 17°, in one hour they cooled down from 36° to 19°, thus losing 17° in an hour. At an elevation of 22° the same results were obtained, and they cooled down to within one degree of the surrounding air. The plumage of birds has little if any influence upon their temperature. The production of heat lies within, and not on the surface of the animal; and if it be strongly developed, the removal of natural coverings does not influence the heat produced; and if it be weak, their addition will not prevent cooling. Birds recently escaped from the shell cooled to within two degrees of the air, whereas the unplumed adult birds scarcely lost one degree.

The distinctive character of warm-blooded animals to preserve an uniformity of heat has no reference to bulk. The eagle maintains the same temperature as the wren or the tom-tit, taking them at the same age, and placing them under the same circumstances; but if cooling measures be adopted, the lesser body parts with its heat faster than the larger, though ultimately they arrive at the same point. The dimensions of animals are infinitely varied; but the giant reaches no higher standard than the dwarf, nor sinks to a lower temperature.

In estimating the temperature of young animals, it must be taken into account that they are born at different periods of organic developement. Some come earlier into the world than others, and some are more perfectly formed than others at their birth, and more capable of helping themselves. This variation produces a different standard of heat after birth, and especially creates a variety of temperature among birds when tested at the same epochs of their existence. The season in which animals are produced also modifies their temperature.

The influence of age in modifying temperature is common both to mammiferæ and birds. Young and healthy sucking pigs cooled faster than their parent, their generating means of heat being more feeble. Animals of warm blood possess [p300] the power of supplying heat at its maximum when first born; they then part with it by degrees, and, as they advance in age, their heat becomes gradually augmented again till it reaches the adult standard.

Dr. Edwards next proceeds to discuss the phenomena of animal temperature more exclusively regarding adults, and especially among those singular creatures of the mammiferæ which form an exception to the general law of nature respecting the uniformity of temperature as to warm-blooded animals. These beings are what are termed hybernants, such as the dormouse, the hedgehog, the bat, the marmot, &c., natives of Europe; which remain dormant during winter without any external signs of life and motion. The change which these undergo reduces them from the state of warm-blooded animals to that of cold. Unlike the rest of their class, the autumnal season lowers their temperature by degrees, till in winter it reaches so low as to be scarcely higher than the surrounding air. Their powers fail gradually, and their losses of heat are not repaired, till at length their respirations become slow and feeble, and the heart languidly urges the blood through the arteries. In this state there is an imperfect aërification of the blood, and a partial state of asphyxia, producing continued repose of the nervous and muscular system. But the temperature of these animals sinks no lower than the air, and remains sufficient to maintain a passive existence, till the returning spring raises their heat again, and they become lively and active till autumn; but even in spring these animals are characterised by producing less heat than others of their class.

If we seek to know the cause of this curious variety, we can only refer it to peculiarity of constitution, which is instituted by nature as adapted to animals placed in situations of rigorous cold, and where they cannot procure sustenance but in spring and summer.

Our author imitated the process of hybernation by artificial cold, and produced the same effects; and when he restored animation by gradual warmth, he found the animals as lively as before.

John Hunter and others have written on the natural history of hybernants, and Dr. Edwards regards only their temperature. The experiments on hybernants by artificial cold prove this fact, that hybernation is attributable to other causes than to the reduction and deprivation of nutriment; for the animals submitted to the ordeal of cold were well [p301] fed, and in the lively season of advanced spring. The deprivation of food seems to be a local consequence provided for by the phenomenon of hybernation, and not its exciting cause. Nor does there appear to be any change of organization in these cases, but a state of constitution exists which we are unable to account for further.

We have, in the next place, a series of experiments showing the influence of the seasons upon animal temperature with the warm-blooded; by which it seems that they produce a variety of results: and it is demonstrated that animals of warm blood in general undergo some constitutional changes with the periodical returns of the seasons. When, for example, the highest degree of temperature is attained, animals no longer produce heat; so that their temperature continues below that of the air in the hot season. And, in the cold season, if the cold be not too rigorous, the animal’s age offers a proportionate resistance to the cooling effects of the air as the approach to maturity is attained. An elevated and a depressed temperature thus produce contrary effects upon the internal powers of generating animal heat, a high temperature arresting them, and a low one promoting them. Thus we cannot fail to observe the beautiful adaptation of means to final causes.

Upon the subject of asphyxia in warm-blooded animals, Dr. Edwards found a great dependence between animal heat and the faculty of living without contact with the air, a state in which the blood is not aërated by respiration, and which is sustained by hybernants while in the dormant condition. Having submersed animals in water of various temperatures successively, so as to bring them under the influence of variable temperature, he found the descending scale of temperature the most hurtful. The ascending heat was that which prolonged life most. Between 20° and 10° the results were similar to those between 20° and 40°.

Animals, then, of warm blood in a state of asphyxia hold their existence on two principal conditions relative to heat; one regarding the different measures by which some develope their heat, and the other the degree of external temperature. The first is proper to animals naturally, the second fortuitous.

Upon the respiration of both young and adult animals the author arrives at a conclusion opposite to that of common opinion, which is founded on the notion of the heat in young animals being higher than that of the matured. Finding, [p302] however, as already noticed, that the parent exceeds the temperature of its offspring after birth, it is naturally concluded that its consumption of air is also greatest. This was experimentally confirmed, and is in unison with other facts. In the first part of this work the vertebratæ of cold blood were also found to consume least air in proportion to their diminution of temperature. Temperature seems to act uniformly with all the vertebratæ, and their consumption of air is in proportion. The mammiferæ have a lower temperature than birds, and they consume less air than the latter. Fish and reptiles consume less air than the warm-blooded, and possess a lower temperature.

The influence of the seasons upon respiration is considered in the sixth chapter. Many changes occur in the atmosphere during the revolutions of the seasons, varieties in the temperature, and the pressure and density of the air. Dr. Edwards shows that the faculty of producing heat with warm-blooded animals is greater in winter than in summer, the constitution of animals being adapted to their individual climates; and in reference to the relation of this faculty to the consumption of air, it is presumable, all other circumstances being alike, that the consumption ought to be increased with the faculty of developing heat, and the experiments justify the presumption.

Upon the subject of transpiration, it is shown that the air not only exercises a vivifying effect upon the constitution, but one little less important in removing a vaporous substance from the surface of the body, and which is separated from the fluids before its conversion into vapour, and known by the name of perspiration or sweat, which transpires from the skin. The variations in the temperature of the air possess great influence over this function. Experiments on this subject were detailed most fully in our last Number, relative to cold-blooded animals; and therefore these need not now be repeated in respect to the warm-blooded, for the results are exactly similar, as to transpiration in equal and successive periods, the comparative influence of dry and moist states of the air, and the effects of air in motion and in repose. Inspection of the table annexed to the work displays the similarity of the effects produced by the same physical agents upon cold and warm blooded animals, and this accordance serves to afford mutual support to the different investigations.

We are now arrived at the fourth and last part of this [p303] work. Much, however, of this part appertains to what has been already detailed upon other animals. But the modifications of heat in the human being, from the period of birth to maturity, will be found highly interesting. They accord precisely with the results obtained among the lower animals and mammiferæ; and present analogical proofs of the general application of principles laid down in the preceding portions of our notices.

While, however, we trace analogy throughout the animal kingdom, it must be remembered that there are infinite sources of variation arising from the extensive variety of species modifying those principles, which are governed by a general harmony of effect. Of all animals, man exhibits this variety the most, possessing, as he does, attributes above all the groups of his class, from his intellectual properties, speech, &c., rendering his race unique and superior to all others. Our curiosity cannot, therefore, be allowed to rest satisfied with the general application of principles, until we have observed their modifications in the human being as well as in brutes. It is highly interesting to inquire into the conditions of human phenomena, and examine the forces which man opposes in his intelligent character to the physical agents around him. He is equally liable to their influence, exists by their contact, and yields, like other members of the animal kingdom, to their destructive tendency. The essential distinctions appertaining to his economy are thus the more necessary to be understood. His organization affords him no shelter from the operations of physical laws beyond that of brutes; but the superiority of his nature may be supposed to modify their influence from causes referrible to his sensibility. These have formed the subject of Dr. Edwards’s inquiry.

Man’s state and condition, at his birth, place him in very different circumstances from those at which he subsequently arrives. Here, therefore, we see an extensive field of inquiry; and it is suggested whether, in the infantile state, man generates less heat than in more matured existence. Dr. Edwards has shown that the young of mammiferæ generally, being born at the period when their eyes are open, produce less heat than adults. It is, therefore, presumable that the generating powers of heat differ in the two states of existence which man goes through, the infantile and mature.

But the power of producing heat differs among adult animals, and it is desirable to know the limits of this faculty, [p304] Moreover, this power differs in different parts of the body; so that, when experiments are made, we should always apply the thermometer to the same part of the body. Among twenty adult persons, Dr. Edwards found the average temperature 36°.12: in infants from a few hours to two days old, 34°.75 was the average. Thus we perceive that the temperature of human infants is inferior to that of adults. In infants born previous to the usual period, two or three hours after birth their heat was at 32° of Reaumur’s scale. So far we perceive a similarity in man to the mammiferæ in general.

We have next a chapter on the effects of cold upon mortality at different ages. It is highly interesting to observe the care of animals towards their offspring, in protecting them against the effects of cold instinctively at a period before their own powers of generating heat enable them to resist its baneful tendency.

Dr. Edwards endeavours to investigate the subject of cold, so as to discover its limit of action. He examined the young of mammiferæ and birds, the former born with closed eyes, and the latter unfledged. He exposed them separately and apart to the air, so as to be independent of each other’s warmth, and they exhibited a temperature below their natural standard at the period of birth, even when a degree of artificial heat was applied beyond that of adult birds. The final result of these experiments was, that the application of heat may be conducive to their developement, but is not indispensable to their preservation. The author discovered, that the diminution of temperature is not equally injurious at all ages. The younger the animal, the less is the injury sustained by cold, because the faculty of producing heat is less powerful with the young than with the matured animal, the power increasing as the animal grows, and also with the increase of cold.

Still, however, this subject is open to inquiry, for the great variety of species, and other circumstances belonging to the animal creation, so modify the phenomena as to create an almost endless field of investigation. When warm-blooded animals are exposed by their parents to the atmospheric influence at an early age, they are better provided against the perils of cold, being born with an abundant source of heat. But, if the cold exceeds their powers of generating heat, the mortality is so much readier. Hence arises the danger of animals being born in the winter season. [p305] Two circumstances are distinguishable, the refrigeration of the body, and the temperature it is capable of sustaining. The cooling is so much less injurious with the young. If two young animals of the same species be cooled down equally, the youngest suffers the least. But, in order to lower to the same number of degrees the temperature of bodies of different ages, the external heat should be lowered in proportion to the advancement of the animal towards maturity, in order to compensate for the difference which the modification of age produces.

While it is true that the younger animals suffer least from cold, it is, at the same time, to be considered that they cool down more rapidly. On this principle depends the mortality of our domestic fowls and other animals, the management of which requires so much observation and experience in order to rear them. In regions where the temperature is liable to great alterations in the course of the year, man and other vertebrated animals of warm blood are liable to suffer in their health; for, though cold should produce the resistance derived from the necessary constitutional developement of heat, this increase of caloric, having its limits, often exposes the constitution to the effects of too great reduction of temperature, as is exemplified in the frozen regions of the North Pole, in Siberia, and in Russia.

The young of mammiferæ, in general, were found by Dr. Edwards to differ very materially in the duration of their lives, in a state of asphyxia, often being limited to from five to eleven minutes, according to their developement at birth, the most advanced in organization living the longest period. The author proved these facts by placing animals in a state of asphyxia under water; and it is remarkable that, in all his experiments, the voluntary motions were always first destroyed, the involuntary outliving them. With dogs, cats, and rabbits, sensibility existed only three or four minutes. A puppy showed automatic signs of life nearly half an hour. The best divers appear to be able to remain under water from three to four minutes.

When animals are entirely deprived of aërial contact, it may be inquired, what are the principal functions exercised? When the air circulates through the lungs, it imparts to the blood a peculiar quality, by which its colour becomes changed. Deprived of this influence from the air, the blood acquires a dark colour, and the nervous function is [p306] simultaneously affected. Among reptiles, Dr. Edwards found that life could be maintained by this dark blood; but it is questionable whether the circulation of venous or dark blood can promote life in animals of the warm-blooded kind. Temperature certainly modifies their capability of existence. Under 20°, they live longest; at 0°, their existence is shortest. The vitality of the nervous system seems to be thus directly influenced by temperature.

Of all the phenomena of animal life, those relative to the blood’s state in asphyxia are, perhaps, the most interesting and curious, from loss of consciousness, sensation, and voluntary motion attending its disoxygenated state. If, however, animals differ so materially under the influence of a deprivation of air, as to the duration of such existence, we may imagine a corresponding difference relative to their respirations modified by species, age, &c. Air, the pabulum vitæ, is not equally consumed by all, but in different proportions; at least, such is the presumption from the experiments upon animals of warm blood. The relative proportions of this difference are sought to be ascertained. Warm-blooded animals of equal size and age, at their liveliest period of age, were the objects of comparative inquiry. We must refer the reader to the table at the end of the work for the results. A marked difference is observable between the quantity of air consumed by the cold-blooded animals and that required for the support of the warm-blooded; and each has an organization appropriated to the individual distinctions. Thus the structure of the reptile and fish entails the lesser consumption of air, compared with that of the mammiferæ and birds. Fish consume least air, reptiles stand next, then the mammiferæ, and, lastly, birds consume most. The two last, however, very nearly approach each other; so do also the two first; and the distinction between the organization and the consumption of air is most strongly marked between the fish and reptiles on the one hand, and the mammiferæ and birds on the other, which, indeed, has caused their separation into two distinct groups, by the appellation of cold and warm blooded animals,—a distinction which clearly separates the whole of the vertebrated animals into two groups, bearing different physiological characters in their relations to animal heat and respiration.

The mere temperature of the blood in each group is insufficient for our knowledge of their distinctive characters. We [p307] further find them characterised by a consumption of air in union with their heat, so as to unite these two functions, and thus render them dependent upon the same organs. Dr. Edwards has further shown, that from birth to maturity the production of heat goes on increasing with the consumption of air. And thus age (as well as the seasons) has been shown to be a modifier of animal heat; for, as the hot season advances, the consumption of air becomes diminished, and when the cold sets in, it increases; and this decrease and increase are accompanied by corresponding developements of heat.

In cases of fainting, of hysteric and asthmatic fits, the principle here laid down, as to the balance between the air consumed and heat, is instinctively acted upon by the most ignorant persons, who open all the doors and windows to admit cold air, and dash cold water in the patient’s face. The addition or continuance of heat increases the affection. The application of cold produces instant relief. The state of asphyxia is relieved, the senses return, the pulse beats at the wrist, and the respiration goes on naturally. The cooling renders the air, unfit before, fitted for the purposes of life.

The effects of temperature upon the respiratory movements are indicated also in those constitutional changes which diminish the production of heat and the consumption of air. Organic affection of the heart or lungs may produce this change, which entails the necessity of a change of climate, or an alteration of temperature artificially, to restore the balance between the air and the animal heat.

A very elaborate and complete argument, and series of experiments, are devoted to the subject of transpiration, and the effect upon it of the influence derived from repose of the body and sleep, by the air’s motion or stillness, and by the pressure of the atmosphere.

We have, however, pursued the interesting points touched upon so far as to render it impossible to enter at present upon this portion of the work. The importance of the subject demands a fuller investigation and report than we have now room for; and we must, therefore, defer it to another opportunity. [p308]

Experiments on THOUGHT. By a Correspondent. [◊]

THERE is a very common prejudice respecting the rapidity of thought, which is imagined by many to be almost unlimited: and the opinion is very worthily illustrated by a reference to the oriental tale of a man’s being bewitched into the belief that he had passed through a period of seven years duration, and full of the most striking vicissitudes; all in the time that he employed in dipping his head in a pail of water. Now there is no doubt that we often dream of a period of many years while we are only sleeping an hour; that is, we dream of an impression of a long continued existence, or perhaps of some detached fact scattered through such a period: but if any person will write down all that he can possibly recollect, of the separate imaginations that have passed through his mind in the dream, he will find that he will be able to read them over with ease in less than five minutes.

It is probable that there may be considerable diversity in the rapidity of thought in different persons, as there is in that of muscular motions: but there is no reason to think the diversity greater. A healthy young man can run a mile in five minutes: a good pedestrian in four; but no man ever ran a mile in three minutes; and perhaps no horse in two. There is reason to think the rapidity of thought does not differ more materially than this in different individuals.

The rapidity of thought seems, however, more intimately connected with that of muscular motion than by analogy only: for they appear in some cases to be absolutely identical.

I have often been able to count ten in a second, in audible English words; not distinctly, indeed, but so as to assure myself that I do hear the ten words in their proper order; and to repeat the sounds for several consecutive seconds. If I say the words to myself only, that is, if I think them over, I cannot repeat them ten times in less than about nine seconds: I can never, for example, keep pace with my pulse, though it sometimes beats as slowly as seventy in a minute: nor can I, by any effort, think over the numbers from one to twenty in two seconds.

If I say to myself the first lines of Milton or Virgil, or [p309] Homer, or any other lines that may be still more familiar to me, I cannot get through them much, if at all, more rapidly than I can pronounce them, even when I fix my undivided attention on them.

The rapidity of sensation is also intimately connected with that of memory and of muscular action. To cast the eye over a sentence, attending to every letter, is an operation which is capable of equal rapidity with the saying it over mentally: but it cannot be made much more rapid. It required four seconds to look over a sentence which occupied six in rapid reading.

The operations, which succeed each other with this limited rapidity, are not incompatible with a partial attention to other subjects: just as in running or walking, we may have our feelings very strongly interested by the sight of surrounding objects without interrupting the train of voluntary motions, which seems thus to be so linked together in a continued chain, as to become almost involuntary. And we may certainly be saying a thing over as rapidly as possible to ourselves, and may at the same time be seeing, and hearing, and even reasoning, so as to keep up what amounts very nearly, though not completely, to a continuity of attention to several distinct trains of ideas: in the same manner as the nerves of involuntary action are notoriously employed in several distinct trains of concatenated muscular motions and vascular actions, and as the ear of a musician is able to follow and retain a dozen different melodies in harmony with each other at the same time.

Dr. Darwin mentions an experiment which has a similar tendency to show the close connexion between thought and sensation. He says, that if we think intensely of a deep colour, for instance red, with the eyes closed, we shall see a tinge when we open them of the opposite colour, or green; just as if we had actually looked at a red colour instead of thinking of it. But I confess that I have never been able to satisfy myself completely of the success of the experiment.

These very hasty observations appear to me to be in great measure original; and the results of such experiments are certainly more calculated to illustrate the nature and powers of the human mind, than the fanciful hypothesis of the fashionable [p310] craniologists, with all their measurements of the heads of murderers, are likely to become.

ZMINIS.

London, 20 Oct. 1827.

POSTSCRIPT.—I find that some similar remarks have been made by the late Sir William Watson, in his Treatise on Time. He estimated, from some experiments made in company with his friend Herschel, the greatest possible velocity of sensation, such as to admit of about three hundred distinct impressions on the eye or the ear in a second. “It is true,” he observes, “that whoever attends to what passes in his imagination on particular occasions, will be struck at the apparent rapidity with which ideas appear to flow at times, and will be apt to suspect them far to exceed sensation in that respect. But it is probable that we are ourselves deceived in such cases.” P. 38. But there are no direct experiments to prove this opinion. On the other hand, a sound may be continuous, and yet consist of only about twenty vibrations, or still fewer, in a second.

HIEROGLYPHICAL Fragments, illustrative of Inscriptions preserved in the BRITISH MUSEUM, with some remarks on Mr. CHAMPOLLION’s opinions. In a Letter to the Cavaliere SAN QUINTINO. By a Correspondent. [◊]

My dear Sir,

You will be glad to hear that I have made some little progress in study of the Enchorial inscriptions which I had lately the pleasure of showing you: my steps have, as usual, been guided by no system whatever: they have been wholly empirical, and though very slow, I trust they are so much the more sure: and I hope they will at least serve as an excuse for my reminding you of the expectations you kindly allowed me to entertain, that you would send me copies of any thing of the kind that you might find among the objects entrusted to your care at Turin. What I have lately done has only been to ascertain the dates of many of the tablets sent by Mr. Salt [p311] from Sacchara, all of them about the time of the last Cleopatra: to identify the Enchorial name of Ptolemy DIONYSUS, and to make out a passage relating to a donation of MUCH GOLD AND SILVER AND GEMS TO THE SANCTUARY OF THE GREAT GOD AT MEMPHIS. The different forms of the characters employed by the writers, in the same words, constitute also a valuable addition to be means of deciphering any new inscriptions of a similar nature, and I have already incorporated many of them with my little Enchorial Dictionary.

The 48th and 49th plates of the Hieroglyphics, already published, contain two tablets, apparently funerary, but without any dates of the reigns: the ages of the persons seem to be expressed in the hieroglyphical lines. In the 49th we find the name Berenice twice in the Enchorial letters, and once in hieroglyphics; followed here by Arsinoe, possibly as her mother.

This tablet, coarse as it is, abundantly shows that Horapollo and Champollion are both correct, independently, as it seems, of each other, in considering the rings, or cartouches, as chiefly confined to the names of royal personages; and that I inferred the contrary somewhat too hastily, from observing that the imitations of those rings were attached in the Enchorial inscription of Rosetta, to several names not royal, and from having found such rings in other hieroglyphical inscriptions, without the usual epithets of kings. I had, indeed, remarked, that a “mysterious” name was sometimes observable in the manuscripts without a ring, and I had pointed out the same group as a name in Lord Mountnorris’s manuscript, which Mr. Champollion considers as the true name: but I am perfectly ready to admit that Mr. Champollion has materially improved on this hint, as he has on many others.

The same line of hieroglyphics, however, contributes to add to my reluctance in admitting Mr. Champollion’s reading of P.T.H; a group which I considered as very probably representing these letters long before the date of his publications; though I had only fully identified the two first characters; it seems to me to agree better with PETEH than with PHTAH; and I am inclined to think it was the beginning of the names Petosiris, Peteharpocrates, and other similiar words, [p312] as it is here annexed to the names of two or three other deities. But I am by no means confident on the subject; and beg only to be allowed a few years more to collect further evidence, without being accused of resisting conviction.

I must also claim a similar indulgence for my opinion respecting the bird and the disc; which is so constantly found between two names, that I could not avoid supposing it to mean simply son; I confess that the arguments which Mr. Champollion has drawn from the application of this character to some of the Roman names, as well as those which Mr. Salt has deduced from the inscriptions which he has published, are at least sufficient to silence me; I had, indeed, long before observed that the first name of one pair of rings scarcely ever found as the second of another, though I fancied the Minervean obelisk might afford an exception. On the other hand, I cannot explain, upon Mr. Champollion’s theory, the order of the names in the tablet of Abydus, which might be supposed to have been purposely intended to perpetuate this discussion.

It is admitted that this tablet contains the names of a chronological series of kings, each characterized by one ring, containing what I have always considered as the true names of the persons in question. It is easy to grant to him that they are the praenomens only; as is common in all modern chronology. But how comes it that there is one exception to this, and that the reigning monarch is characterized by his second name only, where he first occurs, and where we should expect to find his father? This is precisely what would have been required if the document had been forged to support my opinion; though I should certainly have been very ungrateful for an argument, which is more calculated to increase the difficulty than to remove it.

An objection of a similar nature may be deduced from the tablet found between the legs of the sphinx, and copied by Mr. Salt, H. 80. The “Mesphres son of Thuthmosis” of the Article Egypt is represented naturally enough as doing homage to his deified father, under the form of an Androsphinx; had he been doing homage to himself, the names would scarcely have been so divided. They also occur repeatedly afterwards in the inscription, but never together. [p313]

The tablet represented in Plate 51, is remarkable for the confirmation which its date affords of the accuracy of our chronology of the Ptolemies. It has no pure hieroglyphics. It begins immediately with “The year 19, otherwise 4, of Cleopatra [Neotera], and Ptolemy surnamed Caesar: that is, the year 34 B. C.; and the same date is repeated in a form somewhat more distinct, four times, in the 10th, 11th, 12th, and 15th lines. In the last it is followed by the Queen gave to the Priests and High Priests . . then Ptolemy [Auletes?] . . Queen Cleopatra and King Ptolemy surnamed Caesar.

It has before been observed, that the word surnamed, as it occurs in these tablets, and in Mr. Grey’s manuscripts, comprehends the characters which answer to the NEO of Mr. Champollion’s NEOCAESARIS. The beginning of the group occurs elsewhere in the sense of called, and can scarcely be read “ETO,” whether we consider the sacred or the enchorial characters; nor do we find any thing nearer to this in Coptic than ETE, meaning “that is,” while the characters are more like TENE. Such are the uncertainties which continually beset us in the application of the best established alphabetical characters even to words of which we know the sounds: to investigate the unknown by them is at present almost hopeless.

There are two tablets, from the caverns at Sacchara, about to appear in Plates 70 to 74 of the Hieroglyphics, which Mr. Salt sent over with particular interest, as being likely to contain some useful materials for the comparison of the different kinds of characters with each other. In this point of view, however, his well-directed zeal has failed of its object: for the sacred characters relate almost entirely to the gods and priests of the temple, while the enchorial inscriptions below them contain dates and records of the successive donations made to those temples. And this seems to be equally true of the generality of double inscriptions, which are scarcely ever identical in this sense, although they may greatly tend to illustrate each other.

The first in order of these tablets (H 70, 71, 74 A) was marked number 50 by Mr. Salt; it has seven stars at the edge of the wings overshadowing the figures. It is first dated very distinctly In the year 6 of Cleopatra; which ought to have [p314] been 6 otherwise 2; but the second date was perhaps omitted after an interval of more than 20 years, which must have elapsed at the time of putting up the tablet, as the subsequent dates demonstrate. The queen seems to be styled Isis, but the name of the “younger goddess,” which is found on her medals, does not appear in these inscriptions. In the 4th line the word Memphis occurs, though less distinctly than elsewhere. It seems to be formed of characters meaning Temple, and Good, and might naturally be read PHE-NUF; which agrees sufficiently well with the NOPH of Jeremiah, translated Memphis by the Septuagint, as well as with the Coptic PANUF, said to have been Momemphis. It is possible that Phthah may have been meant by the Good god, NUF; but there is here no character at all resembling the Enchorial name of Phthah, which approaches to that of a figure of 4.

We next find a notice of the change of dynasty (Line 5) . . year 7: the Gods Phre and “Horus” and Phthah? gave the victory to AUTOCRATOR CAESARIS the Munificent. The number 7 is indistinct; if correct it must belong to the later of the double dates of Cleopatra’s reign, which terminated the 22nd or 7th, the year of the Battle of Actium, in which the victory was obtained by the Emperor Augustus Caesar. Then follows a date of the year 6, probably of Caesar: and the seven stars of the wings may possibly relate to the erection of the tablet in the subsequent year. We have also a donation of gold and silver gems.

The second tablet (H 72, 73, 74 B) has first the date of the year 19 of King Ptolemy [Auletes] the Defender of the sacred rites (L. 3) . . The year 4 of Cleopatra ‘Neotera? (4) . . many years . . (5) The year 7? the gods ‘Phre and Horus and Phthah? gave the victory to the Emperor Caesar, ‘and Phthah and Horus who loved him gave the dominion all men to? Caesar. (6) . . gold and gems and silver in abundance, gave them to the sanctuary of the great god in the temple of Memphis . . The year 7 of Caesar: ‘Mechir 18? gave to the sanctuary of the great god in . . (8) . . gold and gems and silver . . (9) Memphis.

We have here no subsequent year 19 to which the stars of the margin can refer: and it seems therefore most natural to [p315] suppose that they belong to the earliest date, with which the tablet commences: and perhaps the seven stars of the former may have been marked by mistake for six. The interpretation of the marginal stars will be easily brought to the test of future observations.

Plates 75 and 76 contain portions of a large tablet from Sacchara, very fairly written on chalk, of which the upper part is broken off, leaving only a few traces of a hieroglyphic inscription, which seems to have contained a date at the end, perhaps the 12th of Mechir.

(1) [In the . . year of Queen Cleopatra] and Ptolemy surnamed Caesaris; the divine king . . living for ever. (7) . . The year 9, Athyr or Mechir 9, of the great King Ptolemy the god ‘Brother of Apis ? DIONYSUS ‘the awful ? living for ever . . (19) . . the great King Ptolemy the god ‘Brother of Horus ? DIONYSUS . . . mighty as the sun ? . . . (20) . . . living for ever . . (21) In the year 7 Mechir the 14 . . The Queen Soter and King Ptolemy surnamed Caesaris living for ever . . gave . . (25) . . children, for ever. (28) . . ‘Written and engraved by ? . . .

In the 79th plate there are four enchorial lines very distinctly written, and beginning with a date, which must be either 24 or 28, and most probably the latter, as there are 28 stars in the margin: perhaps the 11th of the month, in the reign of Ptolemy the son of Ptolemy, may he live for ever. The rest is not intelligible.

In this manner, my dear Sir, I have been creeping, while others have been flying, though perhaps a little too near the sun. Possibly my friend Champollion, and your friend Seyffarth, would be able to decipher much more of these inscriptions; and it is probable that their versions might differ in almost every particular. In this case it is unnecessary for me to say which of the two explanations I should be inclined to prefer: for it is impossible to deny to Champollion the merit of great industry, and deep, as well as extensive research. I object only to his precipitation, and his love of system, which, I think, cause him to be led away by his own ingenuity, through a series of conclusions unsupported by sufficient evidence. [p316]

As an instance of a hasty and undemonstrated assertion, I shall mention his explanation of the group of characters which he considers (Système, p. 82) as “forming the third person plural of the future in all the verbs of the last nine lines of the hieroglyphical text of Rosetta, expressing the different dispositions of the decree, and answering to Greek verbs, which are always in the infinitive,” and which he naturally enough reads SNE.

There is nothing absolutely incorrect in this statement, but the reader naturally infers from it that the group in question occurs either exclusively or principally in these nine lines. The fact is, however, that in the first five lines, or rather half lines, the group is found ten times, and in the remaining nine, only eighteen, that is, about half as frequently, in proportion to the actual length of the lines: nor can I find any where a context that favours Mr. Champollion’s interpretation; though I have lately observed that an Enchorial group, resembling ´O, is found almost uniformly to answer to the Greek infinitive: being read perhaps MNR or MARE: but I cannot make these characters agree either with the hieroglyphics in question, or with the sounds SNE, which Mr. Champollion attributes to them.

So little is Mr. Champollion in the habit of distinguishing proofs from assertions in his own case, that it is the less surprising that he should sometimes confound them with respect to others. He says, for example, with respect to the nature of the Hieratic characters, which he explained to the Academy of Belles Lettres in 1821, “je me suis convaincu depuis que M. le Dr. Young avait publié avant moi ce même résultat, et de plus, que nous avions été PREVENUS de quelques années, l’un et l’autre, quant au principe de cette découverte et sa définition, par M. Tychsen de Goettingue.” (p. 20.) Professor Tychsen had asserted this agreement as a probable opinion: it was amply demonstrated in 1816; five years afterwards Mr. Champollion thinks he has a right to consider himself as a new inventor of the doctrine, because he chose to neglect what was done in a neighbouring country, and to undervalue the actual proof, in which he had been anticipated, by classing it with a bare assertion to be found in a German publication. [p317] Precisely in the same spirit he remarks, in the next page, that Barthélemy and Zoëga had pointed out the rings as containing proper names: they had, indeed, said that they might be proper names, or moral sentences, or something else; but the only question was, if it was worth questioning at all, to whom belonged the priority of the demonstration that they actually were proper names: which, before the publication of the Archaeologia for 1814, was no where to be found. This publication was the first great step after the discovery of the pillar of Rosetta: the second was the identification of the different kinds of characters, in 1816, by means of the Déscription de l’Egypte: the third, the application of that identification to the names of Ptolemy and Berenice: the fourth, perhaps, was Mr. Bankes’s discovery in Egypt, of the name of Cleopatra, which he sent to Paris: and on these grounds is certainly founded ALL that is at present known of Egyptian literature, for a very considerable proportion of which we are unquestionably indebted to Mr. Champollion.

The French translator of Mr. Browne’s ingenious articles which appeared in the Edinburgh Review, has certainly gone a good deal out of his way to find matter of accusation against Mr. Champollion. He quotes the text of a memoir published in 1821, and afterwards suppressed, in order to show that Mr. Champollion then continued to believe that the hieroglyphics were signs of things and not of sounds; and that he disagreed with those learned persons who had considered the hieratic writing as alphabetical. The date of this suppressed paper is indeed of some consequence, as determining the period at which Mr. Champollion made his rediscovery of what Dr. Young had published in 1816; that is, the fact of the essential identity of the two systems of writing. But the translator might have found in the beginning of the letter to Mr. Dacier, dated in 1822, the same opinion respecting these systems of writing; that is, the hieratic and demotic, which, he says, are not alphabetic, but “ideographic, like the hieroglyphics themselves,” expressing ideas and not sounds: and he adds, that he (!) has deduced from the demotic inscription of Rosetta a series of characters which have a “syllabico-alphabetic [p318] value,” by which foreign proper names were expressed. (p. 2.)

Nothing can possibly agree better than this with the opinions which Dr. Young had long before published; and which he has since confirmed in his octavo volume; and if Mr. Champollion’s ideas upon this subject have sometimes appeared to fluctuate, it has probably been more from a love of system, and a wish to establish originality, than from any new discoveries that he can have made respecting these two modes of writing in particular.

What precise forms of characters may be supposed to answer to the sense in which Mr. Champollion employs the word demotic, cannot very easily be ascertained. It is remarkable that his “SNE” is a group very commonly found in the manuscripts of the Déscription de l’Egypte, which Mr. Champollion might possibly call demotic; while it cannot be identified in the Enchorial Inscription of Rosetta. This is an instance of the difficulty of finding appropriate terms where we have not exact definitions. The difficulty is not avoided by the use of the word Enchorial, except that it may with perfect safety be applied to such inscriptions as are capable of having any of their words identified with the inscription so called on the pillar itself.

The verification of the chronology of Manetho must naturally be a work of time, even after the complete identification of the names of the kings, which cannot yet be admitted to be satisfactory. There is one discordance that it may be right slightly to point out, as it is presented by Plate 43 of the Hieroglyphics: we there find the 29th year of the Sesenchosis of Manetho; and Manetho allots but 21 years to this king, who was the first of his dynasty, and could not, therefore, like Philadelphus, have continued any era from an earlier period.

It is easy to observe, in comparing Mr. Cailliaud’s copy of the Tablet of Abydus, as published by Mr. Champollion, with those of our countrymen, Mr. Bankes and Mr. Wilkinson, contained in the 47th plate of the Hieroglyphics, or with the manuscript copy of Mr. Burton, how much more hastily the French traveller had executed his task than any one of the three Englishmen. [p319]

Another of Mr. Wilkinson’s very valuable inscriptions, from a temple at Kous, must be allowed to give evidence much more favourable to Mr. Champollion, as far as it regards the signification of the plough, which seems to enter into the composition of Philometor, as applied to Cleopatra and “Ptolemy Alexander,” who are called Philometores Soteres, both here and in Anastasy’s Greek Manuscript. The name of Alexander had never occurred to the author of the article EGYPT, but he had evidently a foresight in what way it would make its appearance when he observed, N. 55, “it will appear hereafter, that a knowledge of the enchorial forms may possibly contribute very materially, at some future time, to assist us in determining it:” and he immediately proceeds to the subject of PHONETIC HIEROGLYPHICS.

The plough seems to be exchanged on the Minervean obelisk for the dentated quadrant and chain, which may hence have been synonymous with the dentated parallelogram or comb: both perhaps having represented instruments which bore the same name, and served the same purposes, though of different forms: they may, for instance, have been rakes or harrows, and may hence have borne some analogy to the plough or hoe. Whether they had names beginning with M, may still be questionable.

Mr. Champollion has endeavoured to explain the absence of the names of our queens from the tablet of Abydus, by saying that it must be considered as a tablet “purely genealogical.” First Letter to the D. de B. p. 89. A reader is naturally disposed to acquiesce in this explanation, since Mr. Champollion, who has carefully examined it, asserts it on his own credit; especially as the assertion appears to be supported by a long and minute discussion. Unhappily, however, it is only necessary to compare his brother’s chronology in P. 107, with his own Plates II. and III. fig. 5, from which it appears that Amenses, who reigned more than 20 years, was the mother of Thuthmosis the second, whose name is in the tablet, while his mother’s is omitted. It is true that, with his usual ingenuity, Mr. Champollion seems afterwards to change his ground in the same page: for he says, that one only of two brothers or sisters was inserted, in order to keep the number of the [p320] generations unaltered: and he might have added that Amenses was the sister of Amenophis, whom she succeeded. If he had stated this clearly, the reader might have judged for himself, whether such a coincidence was or was not sufficient to support the chronology of Manetho; which was, however, by no means in want of such support: in the article EGYPT, for example, Manetho’s chronology of this dynasty is fully adopted: and the same ‘cartouche’ is read Thuthmosis, which Mr. Champollion, after all his parade, still admits to be Thuthmosis: nor is there a difference of half a century in the dates assigned to his reign by various chronologists. It was established in the article Egypt, that the name contained that of Thoth, the Egyptian Hermes, and for this reason it was considered as better established than any other of the names of the Pharaohs. Mr. Champollion had never discovered this for many years afterwards: and yet we have been told by an ENGLISHMAN in the last Quarterly Journal, that to Mr. Champollion the greater part of the discoveries made by the interpretation of hieroglyphics are owing!

Believe me, dear Sir, very sincerely, yours,

* * * *

London, 24 Nov. 1827.

On the Naturalization of Fish. By J. Mac Culloch, M.D., F.R.S., &c. [◊]

Dear Sir,

As I promised you that I would communicate to you, from time to time, any new remarks or facts which might occur on the subject of naturalizing sea-fish in fresh water, I am pleased to have an opportunity of noticing a few circumstances which may serve to keep alive in the public mind a subject, from which I cannot yet help foreboding useful results, in spite of the neglect and opposition which it has experienced from every person, I believe I may safely say, to whom it has been proposed, except Mr. Arnold. I am perfectly safe in saying, that, with this sole exception, every individual to whom the facts have been described, and the experiment proposed, have replied by doubts, or cavils, or objections of some kind; many, by [p321] positive disbelief of the very facts; while the far greater number have been persons, whose entire ignorance of every requisite point of physiology, natural history, and chemistry, must, of course, have rendered their objections sufficiently unworthy of notice, though not sufficient to restrain the confidence with which they have been urged. The satirical writers of the day view this as the character of the age: the more obvious aspect which this disposition presents, is the feeling, as if he who attempted, by suggesting an improvement, to render a service, was meditating an injury, and was an enemy to be opposed at all hazards. I must permit you to settle metaphysical and moral questions so profound as to exceed my own ingenuity.

But I cannot avoid regretting that Mr. Arnold is not the rich and idle proprietor of some of the tens of thousands of acres of fresh water, whether Scotch or English, in which a ‘sea-fish cannot possibly live,’ or ‘would certainly not be eatable’: and, in addition, that, instead of a not very opulent and very busied ‘notary public,’ he was not in possession of some five thousand of these acres, with as much money, and as much leisure. And I feel bound to add to this apology for what he has not yet done, that the expense of such a course of experiments is considerable; at least in this comparison. A superintendent would be necessary; and for the purpose of taking and transporting the fish, still more of drawing nets periodically and frequently, to ascertain the progress of the transplanted fish, there must be expensive assistance, for which, as yet, there can be no returns; while that, in addition to irregularities and rocks in the pond itself, impeding the accurate drawing and examination, must also be the apology for the imperfection of the present additional report as to the success for certain fishes. It is plain that, though ten or a hundred turbots were present in a pond of four or five acres, the fact is not one that can easily be ascertained. Let those who have money, leisure, and water, and nothing else towards the investigation of this object, restrain, at least, their incredulity and opposition; as may also they, very safely, who never saw a fish, except on the stall of a London fishmonger.

With respect now to some facts: it had been said that the water was salt, because this pond was situated at a sea [p322] embankment. I stated before, that it admitted the sea, by leakage, in summer, when there was little comparative supply of fresh water, and was therefore brackish, or saline. I have since ascertained the exact proportion of salt in the water, at those times when the fresh water is least. In the driest and hottest part of one summer, the proportion of salt in it, as compared to the sea without, was as 40 to 150. In another, peculiarly dry, 1827, it was one half; and the water, having then been at the lowest, it cannot ever be computed to exceed this. Moreover, this period of saltness cannot easily, even in such a summer, occupy more than the months of June, July, August, and September; or, more strictly speaking, it is probable, scarcely one half of that time in general, in so rainy a climate; a climate equalling Penzance in the quantity of rain.

In winter, that is, during five or six months, or less, if any objector pleases, it is fresh. That cattle drink it freely, is not an exact chemical proof; but I must admit, that I have not analyzed the water at that period, holding the objection in great contempt. It may be sufficient to say, that it then occupies a space of about sixteen acres, or increases to this magnitude from four and a half acres; so that it cannot, at least, be very salt, while the fish, and the mullet in particular, are found in the remotest ditches, among the meadows. But, in defect of an analysis, which I have not had the means of making, there is a valid reason why the water should be fresh when the size of the pond is much extended. The presence of sea-water in it, is, in all cases, the consequence of a depression of the water within the sea-wall, which allows of leakage or infiltration at the upper part, so as, in high tides, to equalize, as far can be done in the short period of high water, the levels within and without. This, it is plain, must cease whenever the water within is higher than the sea without; and hence it is that there can be no access for the salt water in the winter or rainy months.

Enough of the mere fact: the objections derived from which ought not to demand an answer among physiologists; while to those who argue physiological points in utter ignorance of all that belongs to physiology, it is probable that all answer is fruitless. It was stated before—the question is simply twofold; [p323] respiration and food. If fish can breathe indifferently salt water or fresh, for one week or one month, and if, in their new element, translated from salt to fresh, they thrive or grow, fatten and breed, the trial of three weeks or three months is a sufficient proof that they will neither sicken nor die of fresh water. If they can find food, it is indifferent whether the medium is fresh or salt. It is the misfortune of the age to understand every thing without knowing its principles; just as every man is now a physician. A few, more profound, who chance to know that salmon divide their time between fresh and salt water, possess other reasons, and find other objections; which they must be permitted to explain for themselves. I ought not, while on this particular subject, to omit one fact, which has come to my knowledge since the former papers were written, on the voluntary emigration of a fish, supposed to be peculiarly delicate and peculiarly attached to the sea, into fresh water. This is, that, in Virginia, the herring ascends the rivers, even up into the most minute communicating branches, and as far as it can reach; while a somewhat recent traveller describes them as being so abundant, that it is impossible to cross the fords on horseback during the season of their migration, without destroying them by the horse’s feet. To proceed to the historical condition of this pond.

I have already stated the difficulties arising from want of leisure and wealth in the proprietor, added to non-residence I should say, whence chiefly has arisen the difficulty of tracing the results. Let those try for themselves, who consider that all this might have been ascertained in a twelvemonth, and with the same means. Since the communications I formerly made, the Pilchard has been introduced. It swam away briskly, therefore it would not die of the fresh water; but it has not been retaken. The retaking of individual fish, to ascertain their presence, is a fundamental difficulty, as I before pointed out.

The Brill has also been introduced since my former list. It has been retaken; and, within one year, had grown to double the original size.

The Turbot. Fifty or sixty were introduced, averaging about eight inches in length. Some were retaken in a year, for the purpose of examination merely, like the former and most others; [p324] they also had grown to double the size. There is no prospect of dying in these cases, it is abundantly plain; that they will breed is probable, but there has been no time, nor would the young have been taken. What is to prevent healthy fishes from breeding? The young, indeed, may be eaten; if so, it is for want of room, or want of a proper balance in this mixed population. No one knows any thing, either of the ordinary growth, propagation, or destruction of fishes; and how then can any one decide on what is regular or extraordinary?

The Wrasse has been retaken after a considerable period; therefore it is not dead.

The Basse has propagated; and so has the Brill.

The Red Mullet has been introduced, and is living.

The Whiting was introduced, and taken in good health many weeks after, but not since.

The Grey Loach is thought to have bred considerably.

The Atherine continues to breed.

I formerly mentioned that the flavour of the several fishes was improved: this is now more positively asserted, in addition, of the Basse, the Plaice, and the Red Loach. Others were mentioned in former communications.

Loss of property, or flavour, has been made a speculative objection by the unvarying objectors. General experience has shown, that in all fishes, as far as known, the access to fresh water, or fresh water food, improved the flavour; in many, in oysters, muscles, cockles, shrimps, it is vulgarly notorious; as in mere sea water they are worthless.

There is a popular objection, on this head, made by the country gentlemen, which I must answer; to those who think about what they know, it would have been superfluous. The salmon is good when it comes from the sea, and bad when it is returning. Doubtless, it is; while the reason ought to be plain, even to an angler. It is in full health in the first case: in the latter, it has spawned; and, at that period, every fish is proportionally as bad as the salmon; many are a great deal worse. The fault is not in the water, nor probably in the food; it is in the spawning, and with any food the same effect takes place, in all fishes, everywhere.

I suggested in former communications, that an essential point [p325] to ascertain, in any view of economy, or management, would be the proper balance of species; to discover what kinds would so live together that all the species might find food; might breed, each to its useful limits, so as to be serviceable to ourselves, the keepers or the flocks, and without hazard of the extermination of any kind. I may illustrate what is here meant, by a simple fact, in the ordinary economy of fresh water fishes in confinement. Pike and perch can live together, because the natural defences of the perch prevent the pike from exterminating the race, voracious as the enemy is. If trout and pike were confined in a narrow water, the trout would be destroyed.

Or otherwise, it must be our object to ascertain, in an economical view, how to feed, by means of species that we do not desire to eat, those which we do cultivate for our own uses. This is a difficult question, which can only be overcome by time and experience; by knowledge; by knowledge, when we are in a state of entire ignorance; ignorance of every thing that relates to fishes, as great as if they were the inhabitants of another planet. This was one great source of difficulties with us in this case; and I, myself, must plead guilty, I fear, to a general recommendation of introducing every fish as a mere matter of trial; the result of which has been mischievous. The basse appears to have been the great enemy; to have eaten up the greater number of many species, and given no return. It has proved the pike of this pond. This could not have been foreseen; it is a caution for future speculators. Others will be discovered in the course of trial. It appears also that the common crab has proved destructive, probably by eating the spawn of larger fishes. From some enemy or other, the eels, which at first abounded to an incredible degree, have most materially diminished, and so have the shrimps. The latter, at least, appear to have been destroyed by the basse. Time and trial will teach us what to do in this case; in the infancy of ignorance, man might have supposed that he could keep wolves and sheep in one field, and have constructed a pen for foxes and fowls, rabbits and weasels. We must not accuse nature of our own ignorance.

The question is here a difficult one; but a little more study [p326] of the general habits of fishes, merely as we know them already, and even of their anatomy, will go far to lay the foundation of useful rules on this head, even without a hazardous trial, which may ultimately not become in our power to remedy, as I much fear may prove the case with respect to these unlucky basse. Not to enter on this further than as it may serve for a general illustration of what is here meant, the anatomy of the mullet proves that it lives on worms; on the lumbricus marinus, and others; and so do its habits. So also may the very food of others, as found in the stomach, serve to indicate their natural or ordinary food. Reversely, the anatomy of a cod’s jaws, and its stomach also, prove it to be omnivorous, omnivoracious. Or, further, the anatomical character of the diodon proves that it eats shell-fish; as we are equally able to limit the range of food in the flat-fish which have no air-bladders, and cannot quit the ground.

But in this brief communication, I must not enter further into this subject than is necessary for mere illustration. I may take some further opportunity to point out the probabilities, as to mutual food and protection, in any artificial cultivation of this nature, as they might be derived from studying the little that we do know about the structure and habits of fishes. All that I need add here, is, that I have suggested the introduction of limpets, periwinkles, and cockles; as affording food without furnishing enemies: a matter which had been overlooked. To exterminate the enemies which have been unwarily introduced, will not prove so easy a task; unless, at least, we could find their natural enemies; find the great secret by which alone, in all cases, man can make war on those whom neither his artillery, his physic, nor his politics can reach.

The transportation of fishes has been objected to as difficult. I had occasion to make some remarks on this formerly, and on the vitality of some kinds. The difficulty is not so great as has been imagined. The fact generally is, that fishermen, even down to the very sentimentalists who worship the gentle Izaak, and who are sometimes scarcely possessed of the wit of a fish, treat them as they would a stone; as if they had not lives, and wills, and opinions, and were not part of the same [p327] creation as ourselves; as if that creation, which outnumbers ourselves by millions of millions almost beyond algebra to express, was not, like ourselves, under His care. They are easily killed by violence; they kill themselves by over-exertion, from anatomical peculiarities; as every trout-fisher knows; that is to say, the fact, not the cause. Let them be treated with gentleness when taken, as if they could feel; and they will not die in being removed into a cask of water. The flat fish are all peculiarly tenacious of life, so are all those of firm muscles generally: the vitality of the carp and of the minnow also is notorious; and so it is as to many other kinds. All these can be removed, and carried far, even in straw; but in truth, he who chooses to make his experiments like a philosopher, and who desires to succeed, will not fail.

Yet let me point out what I have suggested to Mr. Arnold, among other things: to him, whose merit as an ardent experimenter, always ready to adopt a reasonable suggestion, and never seeking for an objection, ought to stamp his character as a genuine follower of the true philosophy; the exception, in this particular case, to every one else. This is, to adopt the Chinese method of transporting the spawn of fishes; as affording a far greater facility to the introduction of species. I presume that the general fact must be known to your readers; though I believe that I ought to doubt: because I quoted the same practice from Columella formerly, as in use among the most ancient Romans, among the common farmers.

This substance is perpetually brought up by the trawl net, very injuriously, as it relates to fisheries; and in many cases, the fishermen contrive to guess tolerably well to what fish it belongs. That it may be transported to any distance, the familiar practice of China proves: since it is there a common article of sale in the markets; while there also, I may incidentally remark, the cultivation of fish for sale, their transportation to market, and their replacement in the ponds, if unsold, is as much matter of ordinary farming as the management of a poultry-yard; while the pond is often the most profitable part of the farm. They also, who do not already chance to know it, may be informed, that this species of poultry-yard, or fish-pond, is as easily and regularly [p328] stocked in this manner, and managed, as any other portion of the farm: since it is even destroyed, or suffered to become dry occasionally, and again renewed in the wet season, by the means of purchased spawn, or stock; just as a sheep farmer buys lambs to stock his mountains. If England is too wise to learn of Rome or China, or of France and Germany, or even of the experiments on which I have dwelt so much and so often, it must be a pleasing reflection that it is already so amply informed as to have passed the bounds of all possible improvement and all possible wishes. But that I may terminate this particular suggestion, I will only further point out, that lobsters, and the crab tribe generally, might very easily be transported in this manner, and that, in them, it is easily known when the ovum has been impregnated, by means of a black spot with which it is then marked.

If I ought to apologize already for the length of this communication, I shall conclude it by saying, that whatever may be judged of the general philosophy of this subject, there is not and never has been any thing to prevent the cultivation of fish, in ponds of salt-water at least, or the preservation of them in any water in which they will live for a sufficient length of time, so as to render that a depôt for the purposes of a fish store, calculated for the steady supply of a market, in the manner which I formerly described and proposed. If, after so many years as this proposal has been made, London has not seen either the facility, or the utility, it will discover them at some future day; just as it discovered, ten years after there had been twenty-six steam-boats on the Clyde, that a steam-boat might possibly be of use on the Thames; just as it opposed gas-lights, and just as it has adopted gas-lights. [p329]

Nugæ Chirurgicæ; or, a Biographical Miscellany, illustrative of a Collection of Professional Portraits. By W. Wadd, Esq., F.L.S. &c. 8vo. pp. 276. London, 1824 Longman and Co., and Callow and Wilson. Nugæ Canoræ; or Epitaphian Mementos (in Stone-cutter’s Verse) of the Medici Family of Modern Times. By Unus Quorum. London, 1827. Callow and Wilson. Mems., Maxims, and Memoirs. By W. Wadd, Esq., F.L.S., Surgeon-Extraordinary to the King, &c. 8vo. pp. 303. London, 1827. Callow and Wilson. [◊]

WE have placed these three Works together, because they are so closely allied as to form a whole, and also because Nugæ Canoræ and Nugæ Chirurgicæ bear internal evidence of being written by the same pen; and when we say further, that they are characterized by good feeling and good humour, we are sure we are not far off in our guess about who is ‘UNUS QUORUM.’ These volumes come within the scope of our Journal, as comprising an outline of the history of medical science, sketched in a vein of pleasantry that makes it no less agreeable to the general than to the professional reader, and we have derived both amusement and information from its perusal. Like the ‘Gold Headed Cane,’ it helps us to much curious modern biographical anecdote, with the addition of varied entertainment for the medical antiquary. While, however, we recommend these ‘Mems.,’ and commend the literary loungings of contemporary practitioners, we cannot but regret the neglected volumes of Aikin and Walker, and lament that the lack of feeling for the annals and literature of their profession, should be less active in the medical public of this country, than with our professional brethren on the Continent.

‘Nugæ Chirurgicæ’ is a Catalogue Raisonnée of a scarce collection of Medical Portraits. We believe only 250 copies were printed; from which circumstance, and its recording the congregation of the greatest assemblage of medical men ever met together, it is probable that it may some day become a medical rarity. The author’s original intention appears merely to have been to describe the portrait, with some characteristic trait; but an after-thought seems to have occurred, and in the “Memorabilia,” the “Medici Family” are, as it were, retouched and varnished, so as to become [p330] very agreeable pictures. We shall now present our readers with a few specimens of this gallery, taken at random.

EURICUS CORDUS.

“Cordus, who was accustomed to receive his fees only at the termination of patient’s disease, describes, in a facetious epigram, the practitioner at three different times, in three different characters.

Three faces wears the doctor; when first sought An angel’s—and a god’s the cure half wrought: But when, that cure complete, he seeks his fee, The devil looks then less terrible than he.

“The epigram of Cordus is illustrated by the following conversation, which passed between Bovart and a French marquis, whom he had attended during a long and severe indisposition. As he entered the chamber on a certain occasion, he was thus addressed by his patient: ‘Good day to you, Mr. Bouvart; I feel quite in spirits, and think my fever has left me.’ ‘I am sure of it,’ replied the doctor; ‘the very first expression you used convinces me of it.’ ‘Pray explain yourself.’ ‘Nothing more easy: in the first days of your illness, when your life was in danger, I was your dearest friend; as you began to get better, I was your good Bouvart; and now I am Mr. Bouvart: depend upon it you are quite recovered.’ Bouvart’s observation was grounded on a knowledge of human nature: every day’s experience shows, that ‘accipe dum dolet’ should be the medical man’s motto.

JOHN CASE.

“In one of the profound pieces of astrological bombast written by this singular genius, he gives an account of the creation of Adam: ‘Thus Adam was created in that pleasant place Paradise, about the year before Christ 4002, viz. on April 24, at twelve o’clock, or midnight.’ His name was latinized to Caseus, which was occasionally interpreted Dr. Cheese. Granger says the following anecdote of Case was communicated to him by the Rev. Mr. Gosling, in these terms: ‘Dr. Maundy, formerly of Canterbury, told me, that in his travels abroad, some eminent physician, who had been in England, gave him a token to spend at his return with Dr. Radcliffe and Dr. Case. They fixed on an evening, and were very merry, when Radcliffe thus began a health: ‘Here, brother Case, to all the fools your patients.’ ‘I thank you, good brother,’ replied Case; ‘let me have all the fools, and you are heartily welcome to the rest of the practice.’’

THOMAS DAWSON.

“The following anecdote is related of him: After he became M.D. he attended his neighbour Miss Corbett, of Hackney, who [p331] was indisposed; and found her one day sitting solitary, piously and pensively musing upon the Bible, when, by some strange accident, his eyes were directed to the passage where Nathan says to David, ‘Thou art the Man.’ The doctor profited by the kind hint; and, after a proper time allowed for drawing up articles of capitulation, the lady, on 29th May, 1758, surrendered herself up to all his prescriptions, and the doctor very speedily performed a perfect cure.

PHILIP HECQUET.

“‘C’est une erreur de penser que le sang soit nécessaire à la conservation de la vie; on ne peut trop saigner un malade;’ are the words put into the mouth of our doctor, in the character of Sangrado by the facetious Le Sage. Hecquet, both in theory and practice, carried the anti-phlogistic system to a greater extent than any other man, and defended the ‘boisson’ and the bleeding, saying, ‘J’ai pour garants de mon sentiment, sur le Régime maigre, les médecins les plus fameux, tant anciens que modernes.’ He was a conscientious practitioner of his own eccentric doctrines, and it was perfectly consistent with his character, that ‘loin d’imputer la mort du chanoine à la boisson et aux saignées, il sortit en disant, d’un air froid, qu’on ne lui avait pas tiré assez de sang, ni fait boire assez d’eau chaude.’

“The practice of bleeding was carried to a singular extent in France, and it was the fashion, at one time, to bleed on the opposite side to the part affected; if the pain was on the right side, they bled in the left arm, and vice versâ. Pierre Brissot produced a civil war in the medical world by writing against the custom, and, in the year 1600, was driven into exile, by edict of the University of Paris, for thus opposing the established practice.

SIR CHARLES SCARBOROUGH

“Was a man of great versatility of talents; he wrote a ‘Treatise on Trigonometry,’ and a ‘Compendium of Lilly’s Grammar;’ gave lectures on mathematics at Cambridge, and on anatomy in London. His epitaph records that he was

Inter Medicos Hippocrates,

Inter Mathematicos Euclides.

He read the lecture founded by Dr. Caldwell, at Barber-surgeons’ Hall, for many years; where he was the first who attempted to account for muscular strength and motion on geometrical principles. He was a man of amiable manners and great vivacity of conversation. Seeing the Duchess of Portsmouth eat to excess, he said to her, with his usual frankness, ‘Madam, I will deal with you as a physician should do; you must eat less, use more exercise, take physic, or be sick.’

DR. PITCAIRN

“Was a great enemy to quackery and quacks, of whom he used [p332] to say that there were not such liars in the world, except their patients. A relation of his, one day, asking his opinion of a certain work on fevers, he observed, ‘I do not like fever curers; we may guide a fever—we cannot cure it. What would you think of a pilot who attempted to quell a storm? Either position is equally absurd. We must steer the ship as well as we can in a storm; and in a fever we can only employ patience and judicious measures, to meet the difficulties of the case.’”

Turn we now to the second article in our list,—Nugæ Canoræ; and we are satisfied that our readers will agree with us in the correctness of our guess. It is the production, at any rate, of one who has lived much in the medical world, and no unobservant spectator of the vices and virtues, the feelings and failings of contemporary practitioners, possessing tact to “catch the manners living as they rise.” In short, it is a pleasant jeu d’esprit; and we hail it as an omen, that in these “piping times of peace,” the days of Garth, Goldsmith, and Darwin may be revived, and that the medical fraternity may again employ their leisure hours in amusements for which their education and intercourse with society so well qualify them.

After a humorous preface, in which the removal of the College of Physicians to Pall-mall East is lamented, the work, for very satisfactory reasons, is dedicated to the Presidents of the two Colleges and to the Master of the Company of Apothecaries, for the year 1927—and as a character in one of Foote’s farces wishes he were to be born “fifty years hence,” so should we like to have a peep at the “Clines and Coopers,” the “Halfords and Warrens,” of that day. We wish, with the author, that they may be as distinguished ornaments of their profession as those of our own.

That the old college should still be preserved for medical purposes, it is proposed to turn it into a “Medical Mausoleum,” where the “Medical Fraternity” are to be buried on the same terms as the Parisians are at Père la Chaise—and then follow the supposed Epitaphs of the present race of the “Medici.” Due honour is done to learning and talents; while quackery, in all its ramifications, meets with just castigation. The names of Heberden, Turton, and Baker are noticed with the respect to which their virtues and acquirements entitle them.

Passing from these, we are introduced to an eccentric of the old school. [p333]

“SIR RICHARD JEBB, BART. M.D.

“Here, caught in Death’s web,

Lies the great Doctor JEBB,

Who got gold-dust just like Astley Cooper;

Did you speak about diet,

He would kick up a riot,

And swear like a madman or trooper.

“When he wanted your money,

Like sugar or honey,

Sir Richard looked happy and placid;

Having once touched the cash,

He was testy and rash,

And his honey was turned to an acid.

“Sir Richard was very rough and harsh in manner. He said to a patient, to whom he had been very rude, ‘Sir, it is my way.’ ‘Then,’ replied the patient, pointing to the door, ‘I beg you will make that your way.’ Sir Richard was not very nice in his mode of expression, and would frequently astonish a patient with a volley of oaths. Nothing used to make him swear more than the eternal question, ‘What may I eat?—Pray, Sir Richard, may I eat a muffin?’ ‘Yes, Madam, the best thing you can take.’ ‘O dear! I am glad of that. But, Sir Richard, you told me the other day, that it was the worst thing I could eat!’ ‘What would be proper for me to eat to-day?’ says another lady. ‘Boiled turnips.’ ‘Boiled turnips! you forget, Sir Richard, I told you I could not bear boiled turnips.’ ‘Then, Madam, you must have a d—— d vitiated appetite.’”

We cannot help bringing before our readers the following well-known “characters” of their day, and should have indulged in more ample quotations from these amusing “Epitaphs,” were we not afraid of the imputation of “inappropriateness.”

“On a most venerable and highly venerated Surgeon, lately deceased.

‘Multis ille bonis flebilis occidit,

Nulli flebilior quam mihi.’—HOR.

“Of manners gentle, and in soul sincere,

Removed beyond this sublunary sphere,

Here lies an honest man!

Endued with caution, yet devoid of fear,

In practice dexterous, in judgment clear—

Excel him if you can!”

To this, we think, may be affixed the name of Henry Cline! [p334]

“CHARLES GOWER, M.D.

‘Discours de bons mots!’

“Ye sons of humour, of frolic, and fun,

This stone will inform you that Gower is gone.

Poor Gower! eccentric, facetious, and funny,

Lik’d nothing so well as other men’s money.

Alas! he is gone—’tis hard to say where,

The victim of mirth, imprudence, and care.

Where’er he is gone, his companions he’ll smoke,

For, cost what it will—he will have his joke.

“‘I knew him well, Horatio!’” exclaims our Author—“‘a fellow of infinite jest!’—Chairman of the St. Alban’s Club, where oft ‘he set the table on a roar.’—And who did not know this eccentric oddity? Gower had considerable talents, but they were directed every way but the right. He made medicine a plaything, never being steady in professional pursuits. He wrote several singular books: one he entitled ‘Auxiliaries to Medicine;’ another, ‘The Art of Painting;’ both of which pourtray the character of their author. His unsteadiness led him into difficulties, and he died in obscurity.”

“DALMAHOY.

‘Thrice happy were those golden days of old,

When dear as burgundy p’tisans were sold.’

“Dalmahoy sold infusions and lotions,

Decoctions, and gargles, and pills;

Electuaries, powders, and potions,

Spermaceti, salts, scammony, squills.

Horse-aloes, burnt alum, agaric,

Balm, benzoine, blood-stone, and dill;

Castor, camphor, and acid tartaric,

With specifics for every ill.

But with all his specifics in store

Death on Dalmahoy one day did pop;

And although he had doctors a score,

Made poor Dalmahoy shut up his shop.”

“HENRY REVELL REYNOLDS, M.D.,

‘Os placidum moresque benigni.’

“Here well-dressed Revell Reynolds lies,

As great a beau as ever!

We may perhaps see one as wise,

But sure a smarter never.

“Dr. Reynolds may be considered as the link between the ancient and modern costume of the Faculty: to the last, he wore a well-powdered wig and a silk coat. He was an excellent [p335] specimen of a well-dressed and well-bred gentleman. As a practitioner he ranked in the first class, and he was one of the physicians who attended King George the Third during his afflicting and protracted malady.”

“RICHARD GRINDALL, ESQ.

‘Eamus quo ducet gula.’

“Within this place Dick Grindall lies,

Who was a rare game chicken.

So, so, friend Dick, an old chum cries,

The worms have pretty picking!

No Surgeon better lov’d himself;

He lov’d old rum and brandy

As much as misers do their pelf,

Or children sugar-candy.

And as for eatables—in short,

He lov’d both roast and boil’d;

Fish, flesh, or fowl, of any sort,

If not by cooking spoil’d.

But though full well he lov’d good cheer,

It was a venial fault;

Since Reason’s feast to him was dear,

Season’d with Attic Salt.

“He was an excellent surgeon of his day; that is, fifty years before Abernethy or Cooper was dreamt of. He was also a great oddity, but a perfect gentleman in his appearance and manner; never seen, by any accident, but in a well-powdered wig, silk stockings, and shoe-buckles. He practised in the City, when the city aristocracy resided within its walls, and Haberdashers’ “Hall, in the season, assembled all the wit, wisdom, and wealth of London merchants, in a sort of conclave of saltatory civic magnificos.”

We just remember him, and that, after a long illness, he went round in his carriage to return thanks for “obliging inquiries,” leaving his card, on which was written, “the remains of Dick Grindall.”

The third and last work we have to notice, comes more legitimately before us, and is a novelty in medical literature—a sort of Sketch Book, containing much entertaining anecdote, that makes the information it contains extremely amusing.

The work is divided into three parts, as the alliterated title quaintly informs us—Mems., Maxims, and Memoirs. The first is a chronological record, giving, as it were, a “bird’s eye view” of the most interesting events in the history of medicine, from the time of the conquest up to the [p336] present century. The second consists of comments, or short essays, illustrative of some of the most important facts; and the third of biographical anecdotes.

Under the head of “Medical Books,” we are presented with curious specimens of our earliest writers, with comments; but let the author speak for himself.

“One of the first of our English writers, is John of Gaddesden, whose ‘Rosa Anglica,’ was greatly esteemed, and he is favourably mentioned by Chaucer. John was a man to whom nothing came amiss; he had an anodyne necklace for fits, and an infallible cataplasm for gout; he was a dexterous bone-setter, and a good dentist. He was very assiduous in inventing lotions for ladies’ complexions; and was complaisant enough to cut their corns; and as for those troublesome animalcules, which, in those days, used to infest gentlemen’s heads, he had a most effectual method of destroying them; and in his celebrated book, he favours us with a whimsical cure for small-pox.—‘Immediately after the eruption, cause the whole body of your patient to be wrapped in red scarlet cloth, or in any other red cloth, and command everything about the bed to be made red. This is an excellent cure. It was in this manner I treated the son of the noble King of England, when he had the small-pox; and I cured him, without leaving any marks.’

“Such was our countryman, John of Gaddesden, who deserves notice, moreover, as being the first English surgeon employed at court; and that the King (Edward III.) wrote a letter to the Pope in favour of him.”

Speaking of Ardern’s manuscripts, he observes—

“These manuscripts, though they are more ludicrous than luminous, are extremely well worth the attention of the surgical antiquary, from the numerous illustrations they contain of the mode and manner in which Ardern performed his operations; which, considering that he was an improver of surgery, gives us a glorious notion of what the art was previously to John’s refinements, or those of Roger Franks, whom he mentions with great praise.”

“ANATOMICAL LECTURES.

“When Dr. Hunter began his anatomical lectures, they were given in the evening—but as he lived at the period when Garrick was in his zenith, he soon discovered that he stood no chance with the actor, for whenever Garrick lectured, the anatomical lectures were neglected. In vain did the Doctor preach to the pupils on the immorality of attending theatres, and the impropriety of neglecting him; it was of no avail; Romeo’s apothecary and Dr. Last were the only medical characters to spend the evening with, and for the rest, they thought Macbeth sufficient authority, to ‘throw physic to the dogs.’ [p337]

“For this reason, and for this reason alone, the anatomical lectures were afterwards given in the middle of the day.

“Dr. Hunter may be considered as the father of the anatomical schools of London, and he bequeathed a fame and character to his class, which has been supported with undiminished lustre to the present day. Previously to his time, very little had been done; Cheselden had given a few lectures—so had André, and Nourse; and Dr. Frank Nicholls gave what he considered a systematic course, and published a Syllabus of thirty-nine lectures. Dr. Maclauren and Dr. Marshal were also anatomical teachers. To the late Mr. Cline, however, and to Mr. Abernethy, we are indebted for the anatomical schools at two of our largest hospitals.

“Mr. Cline, it is true, found a place to lecture in, but it was his great talents and his high character, that brought it into notice, and subsequently, with Sir Astley Cooper, made it one of the first schools in Europe.

“To Abernethy is due the sole honour of establishing the Anatomical School at St. Bartholomew’s, now second to none; and it is to the advantages arising from the hospital education of the metropolis, that London has become, within the last half century, the most distinguished seat of medical tuition in the world. Long may it flourish!

‘Quicquid est laudabile, idem est beatum et florens.’—Cicero.”

“APOTHECARY.

“Apothecary, in its derivative sense, does not seem to allude particularly to the sellers of medicines. Αποθηκη is of very indefinite signification, (Horreum,) a market, shop, or repository, which may be used or applied to any other business. Chaucer and Pegge make it Poticarry, while some have derived it from A-pot-he-carries, intimating, that they used to carry the medicines themselves, as well as see them administered. ‘Give me an ounce of civet, good apothecary,’ says Shakspeare.

“The ancient apothecaries were called ΡΙΖΟΤΟΜΟΙ, root-cutters; and root-cutters they may still be considered; at any rate, no one will deny to honest, herborizing Tom Wheeler, the character of a primitive ΡΙΖΟΤΟΜΟΣ.

“That they may still be characterised by this appellation, their ‘herborizing walks,’ and their botanic garden at Chelsea, afford very creditable proofs; nor is there any circumstance in the history of the present worshipful society, that reflects more honour on their zeal in promoting those branches of science, which appertain to their avocation, than the disinterestedness and liberality with which, during the last two centuries, they have maintained their establishment at Chelsea.

“An active and intelligent member of their court has furnished them with a very interesting and ample memoir on the subject, [p338] by which it appears, that this expensive design was commenced at a time when the society was without any disposable funds, when their hall was burnt down in the memorable fire, and when they were obliged to draw upon their own private pecuniary resources, to enable them to enter on an undertaking, ‘whose principal design was honourable reputation, without any prospect of worldly advantage.’

“Previously to the establishment of this garden, there had been nothing of the kind, with the exception of a few private gardens, the most conspicuous of which were those of the celebrated John Gerarde, and the elder Tradescant; the former of these not then being in existence, and the latter in a state of neglect and ruin; and the locality of their position is now only known from the records of the times.

“There was, however, besides these, a small garden in Westminster, belonging to Mrs. Gape, the plants from which furnished the first specimens for the Chelsea Garden. It appears from Evelyn’s journal, that he paid old Mrs. Gape’s medical garden a visit in June 1658; whether he begged, borrowed, or bought any plants, does not appear; that he had a very fine garden at Sayer’s Court, is well known; but that he lent it to that royal barbarian, Peter the Great, when he was studying ship-building at Deptford, is, perhaps, not so generally known, nor, moreover, the return this royal carpenter made to Evelyn’s politeness, or the manner in which he showed his horticultural taste, in being wheeled through his landlord’s ornamental hedges, and over his borders, in a wheel-barrow; a circumstance which is recorded in a letter to the then Secretary of the Royal Society.

“In France, the apothecaries were incorporated so early as 1484; but it was not till the reign of King James the First, when the metropolis abounded in dangerous empirics, who made and compounded many ‘hurtful, false, and pernicious medicines,’ that the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries were incorporated in London. Notwithstanding a charter was given them to correct these abuses, it was found to be nugatory with respect to those who were not members of the society; and, although they made repeated applications to parliament, it is only within these very few years that their powers have been extended, and that they could legally enter the shop of any ‘person or persons using the art and mystery of an apothecary, in any part of England and Wales, for the purpose of searching, surveying, and proving whether the medicines, wares, drugs, or any thing or things whatsoever, in such shop or shops contained, and belonging to the art or mystery of an apothecary, be wholesome, meet, and fit for the cure, health, and ease of His Majesty’s subjects.’” [p339]

“TOBACCO.

‘Tobacco’s a physician,

Good both for sound and sickly;

’Tis a hot perfume,

That expels cold Rheume,

And makes it flow down quickly.’

“So says an old song, in an old play, and so said Dr. Ralph Thorius, and the learned Dr. Everard, who wrote a book, entitled ‘Panacea, or a Universal Medicine, being a Discovery of the wonderful Virtues of Tobacco’ (1659); and in the frontispiece of his book, the Doctor is represented with a pipe in his mouth. Dr. William Butler, styled, by Fuller, the Æsculapius of his age, was also a great admirer of tobacco, and that he might not smoke a dry pipe, he invented a medical drink, called ‘Butler’s Ale;’ afterwards sold at the Butler’s Head, in Mason’s-alley, Basinghall-street.

“Sir Theodore Mayerne gives a curious specimen of his tobacco practice: ‘A person applying to him with a violent defluxion on his teeth, Butler told him, that ‘a hard knot must be split with a hard wedge,’ and directed him to smoke tobacco without intermission, till he had consumed an ounce of the herb. The man was accustomed to smoke; he therefore took twenty-five pipes at a sitting. This first occasioned extreme sickness, and then a flux of saliva, which, with gradual abatement of the pain, ran off to the quantity of two quarts. The disorder was entirely cured, and did not return for seventeen years.’

“Ant. Wood says, that he was much resorted to, ‘and had been more, did he not delight to please himself with fantastical humours.’

“Many singular stories are related of him, perhaps they are travelling stories, as may be conjectured, from the nature of the prescription, when he ordered a lethargic parson to be put into the warm carcase of a newly-killed cow!

“Fuller paints this humorist in striking colours, but observes, ‘that he made his humorsomeness to become him; wherein some of his profession have rather aped than imitated him, who had morositatem æquabilem, and kept the tenor of the same surliness to all persons.’

“The following extracts from Letters from the Bodleian, vol. ii., will give a notion of his humour, and of his mode of treating his patients.

“‘Dr. Gale, of St. Paul’s schoole, assures me that a Frenchman came one time from London to Cambridge, purposely to see him, whom he made stay two houres for him in his gallery, and then he came out in an old blue gowne. The French gentleman makes him two or three very low bowes downe to the ground; Dr. Butler whippes his legge over his head, and away goes into his chamber, and did not speake with him. He kept an old mayd, whose name [p340] was Nell. Dr. Butler would many times goe to the taverne, but drinke by himselfe: about nine or ten at night, old Nell comes to him with a candle and lanthorne, and sayes, “Come home, you drunken beast.” By and by Nell would stumble, then her master calls her “drunken beast;” and so they did “drunken beast” one another all the way till they came home.’

“‘The Dr. lyeing at the Savoy in London, next the water side, where was a balcony look’t into the Thames, a patient came to him that was grievously tormented with an Ague. The Dr. orders a boate to be in readinesse under his windowe, and discoursed with the patient (a gent.) in the balcony, when, on a signal given, two or three lusty fellows came behind the gent., and threw him a matter of twenty feet into the Thames. This surprise absolutely cured him.’

“‘A gent. with a red, ugly, pimpled face, came to him for a cure. Said the Dr. “I must hang you.” So presently he had a device made ready to hang him from a beam in the roome; and when he was e’en almost dead, he cuts the veins that fed these pimples, and lett out the black ugly blood, and cured him.’

“Butler must have been a man of abilities, for the Lord Treasurer Burleigh wrote to the President of the College of Physicians, desiring that Butler might be allowed to practice in London occasionally, and he was consulted, with Sir Theodore Mayerne and others, in the sickness that proved fatal to Prince Henry; and it is reported that Butler, at first sight of him, gave an unfavorable prognostic. The account of this case affords such an excellent notion of the consultations and practise of the doctors of those days, that I am induced to give it as stated in the ‘Desiderata Curiosa.’

“The Manner of the Sickness and Death of Prince Henry, 6th Nov. 1612.

“‘Dr. Atkins, a Physician of London, famous for his practyce, honestie, and learninge, was sent for to assiste the reste in the cure.

“‘He got worse, whereupon bleedinge was again proposed by Dr. Mayerne, and the favorers thereof, alledging that in this case of extremity, they must (if they meant to save his life) proceed in the cure, as though he was some meane person.

“‘This was not agreed to, and next day, the Physicians, Chirurgeons, and Apothecaryes seemed to be dismayed, as men perplexed, yet the most part were of opinion, that the crisis was to been seene before a final dissolution. This day a cock was cloven by the backe, and applyed to the soles of his feete. But in vayne. Shortly after it was announced that all hope was gone. His Majestie then gave leave and absolute power to Dr. Mayerne, to do what he woulde of himselfe, without advise of the rest; but the Doctor did not it seems like this, “for hee, weighing the greatness [p341] of the cure and eminencye of the danger, would not, for all that, adventure to doe any thinge of himself, without the advice of the rest, saying, that it should never be said in after ages, that he had kylled the Kynge’s eldest sonne.”

“‘Bleeding was again proposed by Mayerne, but Doctors Hamond, Butler, and Atkins could not agree about it; instead of which they doubled and tripled the cordials.

“‘Then came to assist the rest, Dr. Palmer and Dr. Giffard, famous physicians for their honestie and learninge. The result of this consultation was Diascordium, which was given in the presence of many honourable gentlemen.

“‘All sorts of cardials were sent. Sir Walter Rawleigh sent one from the Tower.’”

“MRS. MAPP.

“No part of surgery is supposed to be so easy to understand as bone-setting; it is regarded by a considerable part of the people as no matter of science, an affair on a level with farriery, as easily learnt, and like a heritage, to be transmitted from father to son; in short, the pretensions of these people are very like those of the man who set up as an oculist, because he had lost an eye, or the rupture doctor, who cured bursten children, because his grandfather and grandmother were both bursten.

“We are not without plenty of ignorant and impudent pretenders at the present day, but the celebrated Mrs. Mapp, the bone-setter of Epsom, surpasses them all. She was the daughter of a man named Wallis, a bone-setter at Hindon, in Wiltshire, and sister to the celebrated ‘Polly Peachem,’ who married the Duke of Bolton. Upon some family quarrel, Sally Wallis left her professional parent, and wandered up and down the country in a miserable manner, calling herself ‘Crazy Sally,’ and pursuing, in her perambulations, a course that fairly justified the title. Arriving at last at Epsom, she succeeded in humbugging the worthy bumpkins of that place so decidedly, that a subscription was set on foot to keep her among them; but her fame extending to the metropolis, the dupes of London, a numerous class then as well as now, thought it no trouble to go ten miles to see the conjuror, till at length, she was pleased to bless the afflicted of London with her presence, and once a week drove to the Grecian Coffee-house, in a coach and six, with out-riders! and all the appearance of nobility. It was in one of these journeys, passing through Kent-street, in the Borough, that being taken for a certain woman of quality from the Electorate in Germany, a great mob followed, and bestowed on her many bitter reproaches, till Madame, perceiving some mistake, looked out of the window, and accosted them in this gentle manner: ‘D—— n your bloods, don’t you know me? I am Mrs. Mapp, the bone-setter!’ upon which, they instantly changed their revilings into loud huzzas.

“That she was likely enough to express herself in these terms, [p342] seems very natural from her origin and history; but that she should be on visiting terms with decent people, and keep quality company, is as unnatural. Mr. Pott, who wrote with the pen of a master, has noticed this in no very gracious terms:—‘We all remember,’ says he, ‘that even the absurdities and impracticability of her own promises and engagements, were by no means equal to the expectations and credulity of those who ran after her; that is, of all ranks and degrees of people, from the lowest labourer or mechanic, up to those of the most exalted rank and station; several of whom not only did not hesitate to believe implicitly the most extravagant assertions of an ignorant, illiberal, drunken, female savage, but even solicited her company; at least, seemed to enjoy her company.’”

“TAR WATER.

“Bishop Berkeley, who brought this remedy into fashion, was greatly aided by the faith of the clergy, who preached it up in all quarters. Among these, none was more strenuous than Dr. Young, the author of the ‘Night Thoughts.’ ‘They who have experienced the wonderful effects of tar water,’ says he, ‘reveal its excellencies to others. I say reveal, because they are beyond what any can conceive by reason or natural light. But others disbelieve them, though the revelation is attested past all scruple, because to them such strange excellencies are incomprehensible. Now give me leave to say, that this infidelity may possibly be as fatal to morbid bodies, as other infidelity to morbid souls. I say this in honest zeal for your welfare. I am confident, if you persist, you’ll be greatly benefited by it. In old obstinate chronical complaints, it probably will not show its virtue under three months; tho’ secretly, it is doing good all the time.’

“Such was the universality of its power, that it was good for man and beast, and a sure remedy for the plague!”

After this miscellaneous and amusing collection, we arrive at the Memoirs, which is not a dry, biographical record of birth, death, parentage, and education, but a lively sketch of characteristic particulars of eminent medical men. We will select a few of them.

“BUTTER.

“Mr. John Whitehurst (author of an ingenious theory of the earth) was the means of Dr. William Butter’s settling at Derby, where he (Mr. W.) then resided. Mr. Whitehurst had met at Buxton with Lord Hopetown, who had asked him what physicians were at Derby, and upon his telling him, that there could not be a finer opening, as the two physicians there had both declined practice, his Lordship said it would be a good place for Butter; and shortly afterwards, the Doctor made his appearance loaded with recommendations, and among others, with one from Dr. Hope [p343] to Mr. Whitehurst. Mr. W. was very civil to him, but before he had been a fortnight in the town, Butter came and complained, that he had not had a single patient. Mr. W. told him, that he could hardly expect any so soon, that he must be known a little, and so on, which so offended Butter, that ever afterwards he considered Mr. W. as his enemy. He was very rude and coarse in his manner, always averse to consultations, and used to say, that nobody but himself and Sir John Pringle knew any thing of physic. Among his patients at Derby were two brothers, opulent men, who lived together; one of them being dangerously ill, and attended by Butter, the other brother sent a messenger to Birmingham for two physicians, and then told Butter what he had done, and that he intended to have a consultation. Butter immediately went to the apothecary, and got some laudanum, of which he gave large doses to the patient, so that when the Birmingham physicians came, the patient was in a state of lethargy. They asked if he had been taking opium, but Butter denied that any had been given; it was accidentally discovered, however, by means of the apothecary, and from that time Butter, who was before in excellent practice, lost considerably in public estimation.

“A tailor at Derby, whom Butter had offended, once played him a trick. A curer of smoky chimnies came to Derby, and one day, when the tailor knew the Doctor was out of town, he called on the chimney-man, and told him that Butter had desired to have a smoky chimney cured, belonging to his best parlour; and had left positive orders that he should go to his house and set about it immediately. The operator accordingly went, delivered his message to Butter’s servant, pulled out his utensils, and fell to work; and in a short time the marble slab, and other ornaments of the chimney, were down. Butter came in while he was engaged in this business; finding his parlour full of bricks and dirt and mortar, his fury was excessive, and his hatred to the tailor was ever after implacable. The story got wind in the town, and the boys in the street would sometimes talk about chimney-doctors as he passed.

“Butter lived close to a churchyard, and one day, seeing a grave-digger at work, he asked him for whom he was digging the grave—‘For so and so,’ said the grave-digger, naming the tailor who had so highly offended him, which so pleased the Doctor, that he gave the fellow a shilling. This occasioned a fresh laugh at his expense, as the tailor was in good health, and it was merely a piece of pleasantry of the grave-digger’s. Butter and his wife lived in the most frugal manner, and never visited anybody. After he came to London, a lady of fortune, who had been his patient in Derbyshire, and wished to countenance him, invited him often to her table, till at length Butter brought in an account of fees for each visit.” [p344]

“CADOGAN.

“Universal temperance in eating and drinking has been considered as particularly incumbent on a physician, in every period of his practice. It is a virtue he is frequently obliged to inculcate on his patients; and his doctrines will have little effect if they be not regularly exemplified in his own conduct.

“Dr. Cadogan, however, thought it right to try all things, and considered it his duty to speak experimentally on both sides of the question, to qualify himself to say, in the language of Dido,—

‘Non ignara mali miseris succurrere disco.’

“Thus, dining one day at a College dinner, after discoursing most elegantly and forcibly on abstinence, temperance, and particularly against pie-crust and pastry, he is reported to have addressed a brother M.D. in the following terms: ‘Pray, doctor, is that a pigeon pie near you?’ ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘Then I will thank you to send me the hind-quarters of two pigeons, some fat of the beef-steak, a good portion of the pudding-crust, and as much gravy as you can spare!’”

“BLAIR.

“‘We physicians were always politicians,’ was a favourite expression of Warren’s, but nevertheless, there are very few instances of medical men embroiling themselves in political troubles.

“Dr. Patrick Blair, however, who was in the rebellion of 1745, got himself into Newgate, and was condemned to be hanged. In the British Museum are several of his letters to Sir Hans Sloane, written in prison, soliciting his intercession, and in one of them he writes, ‘If you come towards Newgate, I hope you will favour me with a call.’ Dr. Martyn, the professor of Botany at Cambridge, supped with him in Newgate the night previous to his expected execution. Blair had been all along confident that he should be reprieved: Dr. Martyn said, he sat pretty quietly till the clock struck nine, and then he got up and walked about the room; at ten he quickened his pace; and at twelve, no reprieve coming, he cried out—‘By my troth! this is carrying the jest too far!’ The reprieve, however, came soon after, and in due time a pardon. Blair went afterwards, and settled at Boston in Lincolnshire, where he practised till his death.”

“SIR WILLIAM DUNCAN.

“Sir William Duncan once met Dr. Thomas Reeve, when the latter was President of the College, and insisted that his name should not follow Reeve’s, because he was physician to the king. Reeve asserted his dignity as president, and the consequence was, that each wrote his own prescription (the same they had agreed to) and gave it to the apothecary.

“There are many instances of medical etiquette being carried to a great extent, but polite etiquette in a sick room was perhaps [p345] never exceeded by the following exhibition of it, between the Duke of Ormond and a German Baron.

“The Duke of Ormond and a certain German Baron were both considered models of pride and politeness. When the Duke perceived that he was dying, he desired that he might be seated in his elbow chair, and then, turning to the Baron, with great courteousness, he requested that he would excuse any unseemly contortions of feature, as his physicians assured him, that he must soon struggle with the last pangs. ‘My dear Lord Duke,’ replied the Baron, with equal politeness, ‘I beg you will be on no ceremony on my account!’”

“BAILLIE,

“Not Matthew Baillie, but an Irish gentleman who had been rejected by the College, called the next day on Dr. Barrowby, who was one of the censors, and insisted upon his fighting him. Barrowby, who was a little puny man, declined it. ‘I am only the third censor,’ said he, ‘in point of age—you must first call out your own countryman, Sir Hans Sloane, our president, and when you have fought him and the two senior censors, then I shall be ready to meet you.’

“Many medical duels have been prevented by the difficulty of arranging the ‘methodus pugnandi.’ In the instance of Dr. Brocklesby, the number of paces could not be agreed upon; and in the affair between Akenside and Ballow, one had determined never to fight in the morning, and the other that he would never fight in the afternoon. John Wilkes, who did not stand upon ceremony in these little affairs, when asked by Lord Talbot, ‘How many times they were to fire?’ replied, ‘Just as often as your Lordship pleases; I have brought a bag of bullets and a flask of gunpowder.’”

“WOODVILLE.

“Dr. Joseph Adams, who was much with Woodville just before his death, used to relate several traits of his firmness and seeming unconcern with respect to death. Woodville lived in lodgings at a carpenter’s in Ely-place, and Adams, a few days before his death, advised the matron of the Small-pox Hospital to invite him to have a bed made up there, that he might be better attended to: this she did, and Woodville accepted it. He observed to Adams, the next day, that he was a poor man come to die at the hospital, and he remarked, that some of those who called on him flattered him with hopes of his getting better. ‘But I am not so silly,’ he said, ‘as to mind what they say; I know my own case too well, and that I am dying. A younger man with better stamina might think it hard to die; but why should I regret leaving such a diseased, worn-out carcase as mine?’

“The carpenter with whom he lodged had not been always on the best terms with him; Woodville said he should wish to [p346] let the man see that he died in peace with him, and as he never had much occasion to employ him, desired he might be sent for to come and measure him for his coffin. This was done; the carpenter came, and took measure of the Doctor, who begged him not to be more than two days about it; ‘For,’ said he, ‘I shall not live beyond that time;’ and he did actually die just before the end of the next day. He got between one and two thousand pounds by his Medical Botany, and with the money bought a small estate, which he left to his natural daughter, being all the property he possessed.”

We happen to know this fact, and moreover, that the Doctor was playing at chess when the carpenter was introduced to measure him for his wooden surtout. “Mr. ——,” said the Doctor, “you come at the proper season, for my game is nearly finished!”

The work is embellished with three etchings, which remind us that Mr. Wadd not only uses the pen, but the pencil, with facility and taste. His published works afford ample proof of his power of illustrating morbid anatomy, but we happen to know of some unpublished folio proofs of equal merit. To his fair fame as a surgeon, by the works we have just noticed, he may add the reputation of being one of the most vivacious literary illustrators of his art.

On Tic Douloureux. [◊]

SIR,

PRESUMING that popular and domestic medicine may occasionally find a niche in your Journal, I beg to offer a few remarks upon the above complaint, which has lately become, as it would appear at least, singularly prevalent; and as I address myself to general readers, I shall avoid all learned terms of art, and minute descriptions requiring them. The genuine tic douloureux is usually considered as a morbid affection of the nerves of the face, very commonly attacking the circumference of the orbit, and producing frequent and violent paroxysms of excruciating pain; the disease, however, varies considerably in intensity, and sometimes bears the same name when attacking other parts; it frequently occurs under the integuments of the head, and may or may not be attended with external tenderness. Though opiates relieve the pain, they are ineffectual as to its cure. Peruvian bark, in [p347] various forms, has sometimes afforded relief, and preparations containing the metallic tonics, more especially the oxides of iron, have been regarded as giving more permanent and beneficial assistance. Local remedies are of very uncertain utility, and electricity and galvanism have generally done more harm than good. The division of the nerves has been resorted to, but never with permanent, and often not even with temporary benefit. The cause of the disease is unknown, and though sometimes organic derangement would appear to excite it, no plausible source of the mischief can usually be discovered. The patient’s principal solace is that the disorder frequently wears itself out, and as far as my experience goes, the less we rely upon individual remedies, the better—the main thing being strict attention to the general health, and especially to the state of the stomach and bowels. These remarks apply to the genuine Tic Douloureux; but it has of late years been the fashion in physic to give that alarming name to a variety of painful affections, resulting from very various causes, by which much needless uneasiness has been given to the patient, and which has often led to erroneous and even mischievous systems of practical treatment. As cases of this kind are of every day occurrence, a short notice of them can scarcely be inappropriate to a Journal, the chief object of which is to familiarize every branch of science.

Rheumatic affections of the head and face often put on the appearance of Tic; like it, they come on at short intervals, and are limited to a small space; there is, generally, more or less of external tenderness, sometimes confined to spots upon the face and scalp, not larger than a shilling; at others, more diffused. More or less of this is usually attendant upon habits subject to chronic rheumatism, and it not uncommonly is the leading feature of the complaint. The internal use of opiates and sudorifics, especially small doses of Dover’s powder, warm fomentations, and keeping the head, especially at night, wrapped up in flannel, are sovereign remedies.

But the most common cases of painful affections, mistaken for Tic, are those which occur in nervous and irritable persons, and especially amongst men of business, statesmen, lawyers, merchants, over-studious persons, and all whose minds are [p348] occasionally exercised beyond their powers, who are subject to reverses of fortune, or sudden changes in the posture of their affairs, and who are constant objects of public attention, praise, or censure. For a time, the constitution, if a good one, bears up against such wear and tear, but as you advance, one or other symptom of a shattered nervous system appears, and this, more quickly and certainly, where the body has been pampered by too good living, false spirits excited by indulgence in wine, and fatigue relieved by narcotics, instead of sleep. Among the host of disordered affections to which such persons are liable, violent local nervous pains are most common, but they are invariably relieved by such means as contribute to quiet the mind and invigorate the body. Abstinence from business, retirement into the country, regular hours, plain food, moderate exercise, and avoiding excitement, are here certain remedies, and indeed the only ones, but they are unfortunately not always easy of attainment, and sometimes altogether unattainable. I have, however, mentioned these cases, to enjoin an early attention to the overhanging evil, and to criticise its improper treatment. I would, upon the first point, enjoin early attention to the first symptoms, and when they appear let the individual seriously ask himself whether it be worth while to gain a little more money, glory, or honour, or renown, at the expense of all future comfort, and a painful, wearisome, and probably shortened existence; or whether such apparent advantages had not better be at once conceded, and the host of evils, which will almost certainly ensue, warded off by a timely retirement? I could illustrate this subject by reference to many individuals, especially in the legal and medical professions, some of whom are harassing themselves to death by over-exertion, whilst others (I regret to say but few) are preserving a healthy constitution, by sacrificing a certain share of fame and emolument: the exceeding folly, too, of persevering in business, when neither mental nor bodily powers are adequate to the exertion, might here be animadverted on, but I must, for the present, waive such topics, and return to the treatment of those nervous pains called Tic Douloureux, which are of such common occurrence in the cases alluded to. These will certainly give way under [p349] that quiet and retirement which has been above recommended; but it is really provoking to see such means so commonly neglected, and the unfortunate patients tormented by blisters, fomentations, and galvanism, and their already debilitated stomachs further overpowered by gigantic doses of powdered bark, rust of iron, and other (in such cases) equally ineffective and hurtful medicines. I write to warn against them.

I have spoken of Peruvian bark as a remedy in tic douloureux. Where the painful affection so called, let it arise from what cause it may, assumes an intermitting form,—and nothing is more common than to have it coming on at stated periods, generally one violent attack in the twenty-four hours,—in such, as in other similar cases, bark has often been effective; but of late, sulphate of quinine has very properly been substituted for it; and as this extremely curious and valuable medicine is now in every one’s hands, and even finding its way into family medicine chests, a few words respecting its use, or rather abuse, may not be here misplaced. I would first remark, that it is too commonly given in over-doses: it then produces thirst, and a white tongue, and, what is remarkable, it excites in most people that uneasy sensation of fulness about the stomach, which is generally complained of after a large dose of powdered bark, and ascribed to the indigestible nature of the large quantity of inert and insoluble woody fibre in which that substance abounds. For these reasons sulphate of quinine is too often laid aside in cases where, if properly and judiciously administered, it might prove of important service; instead of three or four grains, or even more, repeated every four or six hours, let a grain be given once a day; and if it agree, and occasion require, let this dose be repeated twice or thrice daily, either in the form of pill or solution. I prefer the latter; two drachms of tincture of orange-peel being used as the solvent, and diluted afterwards with half a wine-glass of water. It is not meant here to insinuate, that in obstinate agues, and other disorders, large doses of quinine are always improper, but to enforce the occasional mischief which they produce, and by which the medicine is unjustly brought into distrust and disrepute.

Decayed teeth are fertile sources of pains and twitches [p350] about the facial nerves and muscles, analogous to Tic; and great irritation from inflamed membranes of some cavity in the upper jaw has also occasioned them. I knew a person who suffered six months from such an attack, and for whom a physician prescribed, in the course of that period, some pounds of carbonate of iron. Symptoms then ensued, for which a course of sarsaparilla was ordered, but it was of no avail. Mercurials were then given, with manifest mischief. The extraction of the second grinder effected a permanent cure; its roots were connected with a cavity of fetid discharge, which had no sooner vent, than all the symptoms disappeared.

Without exceeding the limits which I have set myself, I cannot proceed farther in these remarks; but I hope enough has been said to quiet the apprehensions of some invalids who suffer themselves to be exceedingly alarmed at the name given to their complaint, and to be dosed with large quantities of useless medicines, which rather aggravate than relieve it. In many of these cases, the less that is done the better; in all of them, careful reference must be had to the real exciting cause; and, in addition to the other circumstances adverted to, a strict attention to diet must be enforced, and more than ordinary watchfulness exerted over the state of the stomach and bowels: plain roast and boiled, and no grease or piecrust in the former; and for the latter, an occasional blue pill and a tea spoonful of Epsom salt.

MEDICUS.

Remarks on some Quadrupeds supposed by Naturalists to be extinct. By John Ranking, Esq. [◊]

THERE is not any part of the creation more interesting to mankind than the gigantic classes of quadrupeds. In them, we are able to contemplate the power of the Creator of all things, in one of the most magnificent exercises of his will. Such, however, is the limit to this kind of knowledge, that there is probably not any one class, even of the largest quadrupeds, all the species of which are, or possibly ever can be, known to the student of natural history. More than half of [p351] the surface of the earth is still undiscovered by the civilised portion of its inhabitants: regions as extensive as Europe, in Asia, Africa, and America, are, at this time, either wholly unknown or undescribed.

The imperfection of history is such, that the most civilised ancient states of the world have left little behind but what may be called fragments of their annals. If we include the Gothic age, as it is called, from the fifth to the fifteenth century, there are not less, out of the fifty-eight centuries which the earth is said to have existed, than forty of them which may be termed a blank, as far as regards profane and natural knowledge.

The period assigned to the Deluge is seventeen centuries after the creation, or upwards of four thousand years past. There are not any known real historical annals that can contest this event, and the natural state of the earth offers abundant proofs of its reality. Under all these considerations, the fossil remains of elephants and other large quadrupeds, known to have been employed or slain by the Romans and Moguls, may justly be considered as independent of any relation to that catastrophe, and in no wise concerned in the discussion. Established truths are rather disturbed and weakened by arguments which are open to refutation.

The time is not distant when it will be generally acknowledged that all those kinds of quadrupeds, the remains of which have been found at the very places mentioned in history, are still in existence; a fact which, when proved, will be of infinitely greater interest as it regards so grand a portion of nature, than the single supposition that they are all extinct, because we are not acquainted with the exact species which corresponds with many of the fossil kinds frequently discovered: this being the foundation on which such a conclusion is principally built.

Naturalists have endeavoured to prove that such bones are found where they could only have been placed by the Deluge: but the changes in the surface from deposits by rivers, earthquakes, and imperceptible alterations from the accretion of vegetable matter, and from dust, volcanoes, digging of mines, wells, canals, foundations, and other disturbances of the soil, [p352] are such as cannot be observed or registered; and a few lines will prove how difficult and uncertain this part of the question remains to this day.

“In quarrying limestone at Aix, in Provence, A.D. 1788, under eleven strata, separated from each other by a bed of sand and clay, at the depth of forty-five feet, the surface was covered with shells. The stones of this bed being removed, under a stratum of argillaceous sand, stumps of columns and fragments of stones, like the quarry, half wrought, were found; and also coins, handles of hammers, and a board, one inch thick and seven feet long, broken, but all the pieces there, and could be joined; it was like the boards used by quarry-men, and worn in the same manner. The pieces of wood were changed into agate[53].”

“On sinking a well on a hill near Tobolsk, sixty-four fathoms deep in the earth, an oaken beam was found; it was quite black, and not round but shaped[54].”

“At Watlington-park, Oxfordshire, at fifty or sixty feet depth, many whole oaks, hazel-nuts, a stag’s-head and antlers, were found, and on the same spot two Roman urns[55].”

“In Oxfordshire there is a tumulus which has become a perfect mount of stone.”

“Ralph, the brother of Earl Widdrington, showed me many human bones taken from whole skeletons, with British beads, chains, iron rings, and brass bits of bridles, dug up in a quarry at Blankney, Lincolnshire, which was probably plain mould when these old corpses of the Britons were interred: and I Saw many human bones and armour, with Roman coins, fibluæ &c., found in a stone-pit in Hunstanton-park, Norfolk, belonging to Sir Nicholas L’Estrange[56].”

Very numerous instances could be added, in order to prove that the local circumstances, when skeletons of these quadrupeds are found, are not of a nature to disprove the historical origin of fossil bones. From the highest authority we learn, that the “bones of species which are apparently the same with [p353] those that still exist alive, are never found except in the latest alluvial depositions, or in the fissures of caverns and rocks, in places where they may have been overwhelmed by debris, or even buried by man[57].”

Thus it appears that a comparative view of the exact species now living, with that of the fossil remains, is what we must depend on to decide whether the fossil kinds may not be still in existence.

With respect to the very numerous theories of the earth, the last, by Werner, has been confidently quoted in opposition to the writer’s historical proofs[58]. But Werner himself, before his death (in 1817), tacitly acknowledged that it is not a tenable doctrine, and which is clearly indicated by the compilers of REES’s Cyclopedia[59], although it is generally allowed to be the best extant. This hypothesis was formed on a circumscribed view of the strata in Saxony, but it is found to be quite inapplicable, in America for instance[60]. To account for fossil bones of elephants, &c., being found high in the north, the American author who discovered this defect in the geological doctrine, conjectures that those large quadrupeds may have migrated, like the buffalos, during the change of seasons. This notion, however, would not apply to Asia, the native countries of those animals being well supplied with leaves or other food the year round.

With these prefatory remarks some historical proofs are offered, for the probability of the following animals found in a fossil state, not being of extinct species, beginning with the

ELEPHANT.

“On sinking the foundation for a mill, near the side of a small brook in the Bishop of Kilmore’s lands, at Maghery, [p354] eight miles from Belturbet, in the north of Ireland, A.D. 1715, four large teeth were found, with a piece of the under jawbone and part of the skull of a young elephant. The teeth were more solid and petrified than when in a natural state.”

Fig. A is one of the above grinders. B is a fossil grinder in the possession of the Royal Society. C is the grinder of an elephant between 10 and 11 feet high, the entire skull of which was then in Westminster[61].

It is thus apparent that two fossil elephants are of the same species as those now in existence.

It is not improbable that the Maghery animal was conveyed to Ireland as a present, or for exhibition. “Fiacra, son of Eacha Moymedon, was mortally wounded at the battle of Caonry, which was fought A.D. 380, wherein he was victorious against the army of Momonia, (Munster). On his return to Hy-mac-uais, in Meath, he died of his wounds. His funeral [p355] leacht was erected, and on his tomb was inscribed his name in the Ogham character[62].”

We here find that the native sovereign of the northern part of Ireland resided in Meath, the borders of which county are not many miles from the place where the elephant was found. It was at about the year of the battle of Caonry that Maximus, the emperor in Britain, aspired to be master of the Roman empire. Finding the union of the Scots and Picts prevented his peaceable possession of Britain, which was a great obstacle to the execution of his project, he persuaded the Picts to join their forces to his, on the promise of giving them the lands of the Scots. The Scots were thus overpowered, and were forced to fly to Ireland and the adjacent isles. The Scots, being assisted by the Irish, invaded the north, and were driven back to Ireland by Maximus, at the head of his troops. The emperor threatened to invade Ireland, and punish the Irish; but the dread they had of the presence of a Roman army, induced them to grant Maximus his own terms, which, in order to conciliate all parties, were moderate[63]. Now it is by no means impossible that the British emperor, on this conciliating occasion, sent this very elephant to his Irish majesty. Tacitus observes, that Agricola (three centuries before Maximus) received an expelled petty king of Ireland into his protection; that in manners the natives vary little from the Britons; and that the ports and landings of Ireland are better known, through the frequency of commerce and merchants, than those of Britain[64].

THE MASTODON.

This quadruped is now known not to differ from the elephant, except in the form of the grinders, and has probably been called by the name of elephant by the Romans. Remains of the mastodon have been found mixed with those of the elephant, in Europe, Siberia, and America; and for the following [p356] reasons there is every probability of this animal being in existence.

Captain C. S. Cochrane, in his Journal in Colombia, vol. ii., p. 390, relates that numbers of the carnivorous elephants have been seen feeding on the plains at the foot of a ridge of mountains, at Choco, in New Granada. “Part of the foot of a mastodon, with five nails attached, was found in a cave, with a tooth, by a savage west of the Missouri: it was very fresh, and perfectly resembling that of an elephant: it was obtained of a Mexican, who had purchased it of a native[65].”

“The native Americans describe the elephant as still existing in the northern parts of their country (the Missouri).”—Mr. Jefferson’s Notes on Virginia, p. 57.

Many bones of the mastodon were found in the county of Wythe, Virginia, with a mass of half-ground branches, roots, and leaves, enclosed in a kind of sack, supposed to be the stomach, in the midst of them; so as to leave no doubt that they were substances which the animal had devoured, and among them were distinguishable the remains of some plants known in Virginia[66]. Teeth of the mastodon have been found in Little Tartary, (for five centuries possessed by the Moguls,) in Siberia, near the Oural mountains, and one at Harwich, in England[67].

There, have been brought from Ava, found on the left bank of the Irawaddy, in N. lat. 20° to 21°, near the wells of petroleum, in narrow ravines, sand-hills, beds of gravel, ironstone, and calcareous breccia, evidently a diluvial formation,—fossil bones, shells, and wood. Bones of the mastodon, equal in size to those of the Ohio, a grinder 1612 inches in circumference, a humerus, measuring 25 inches round the condyles, with several [p357] grinders and bones of younger individuals, and fragments of tusks: fossil molares of the rhinoceros, resembling two species of a genus named by Cuvier Anthracotherium: bones like an animal of the horse kind: remains of crocodiles, supposed to be the gavial, or long-nosed alligator of the Ganges, (not now known in the rivers of Ava.) The fossil bones were upon or near the surface, more or less exposed, not decomposed or rolled, and are of animals that died there. The bones are petrified, and deeply coloured with iron, the substance siliceous and very hard. The blocks of wood are larger than the trees growing there, but it is not known if they are of the same kind. “An idle notion is entertained by many, that these fossil remains have been generated by a petrifying quality in the water of the Irawaddy[68], but I think they are the result, as elsewhere, of one of the last catastrophes; in fact, the remains of a former world, before man was called into existence.”—Morning Herald, Sept. 14, 1827.

Bones of the mastodon have been found in Europe, mixed with menagerie collections, which cannot possibly be attributed to any other origin than that of sports of the amphitheatre. They are found in western Siberia, which was conquered by Sheibani, Genghis Khan’s grandson, A.D. 1242, and held 300 years, and whose first capital was at Tiumin[69], on the river Tura, near the Ural mountains, where the remains of the mastodon were found. Ava was conquered by the Grand Khan Kublai in 1272, in a battle with the king of eastern Bengal, in which there were a thousand elephants[70]. The places where they have been found in America correspond with history and tradition so faithfully, as to assist the other numerous proofs of Mexico and Peru having been conquered by the Moguls, in the year 1283, and the bones of the mastodon are there found, as well as remains of elephants, precisely like those of Siberia[71]. With regard to the tooth found at Harwich, the [p358] British kings Cuneboline[72] and Arviragus had representations of elephants on their coins. The bones of elephants, rhinoceroses, and crocodiles found in Ava are not, as those found in Europe and Siberia, what are termed extraneous fossils; the same kinds of animals being natives of the spot in Ava. The one like the horse cannot be ascertained; but the kings of Pegu, in former times, had camelopards, and, therefore, probably, zebras in their calichars, or parks; they also had unicorns, ostriches, and rein-deer[73]. Timur Khan, grandson of Kublai, who invaded Siberia with such powerful armies, resided at Tali, in Yunan, N. lat. 25° east of the Irawaddy[74].

The writer is of opinion that all those fossil bones found in Ava are of species still in existence: they may have floated down from more northern parts, the river in question being as long as the Ganges, said to be navigable into China; and has its source in Thibet,—(see RENNELL’s Memoir, p. 217.) According to the hypothesis of the writer, Montezuma’s ancestor was a Mongul grandee from Assam; and mastodontes’ remains have been found in Mexico, and those beasts are, as above related, supposed to be found alive near the Missouri.

This is the first instance the writer has met with of similar bones not being extraneous; and is, therefore, a remarkable fact, which excites the strongest suspicion that their species are still living. Ava is a new world on a small scale, and this collection of bones will, very probably, at no distant date, lead to positive proof of the existence of other quadrupeds, now conjectured by naturalists to be extinct. With respect to the local position, it is in all probability the old bed of the river, as [p359] the beds of those in Asia change in a wonderful manner.—(See Rennell, p. 255.)

A skeleton of an elephant or mastodon, for it is not known which, was found in a tomb in Mexico, which had evidently been built on purpose.—(Clavigero, vol. i., p. 84.) No authority whatever dates the foundation of Mexico earlier than A.D. 1324. The Aztecs advanced from Culiacan, when they took possession of the marshes, and founded Mexico: other Aztecs had preceded them who had arrived by land; but the writer hazarded a theory[75] that Montezuma’s ancestors had, like those of the Natchez and of the Incas, arrived in America by sea with elephants, under Mango Capac; and he has had the satisfaction to find a confirmation of his conjectures in a decade written by Peter Martyr, the Milanese, (employed by Ferdinand V., King of Castile and Arragon, and who died in the year 1526,) addressed to Adrian VI., who had been co-regent of Spain with Cardinal Ximenes. “Montezuma spoke thus to Cortez:—We have heard by our ancestors that we are strangers. A certain great prince, in ships, before the memory of all men living, brought our ancestors unto these coasts; whether voluntarily or driven by tempest it is not manifest; who, leaving his companions, departed into his country, and, at length returning, would have had them to have gone back again. But they had built houses, and joining themselves with the women of the country had begotten children, and had settled. Wherefore our ancestors, having chosen a senate and princes to govern the people, refused to go, and he departed with threatening speeches. Never any appeared unto this time who denied the right of that captain and commander. We think, therefore, that the king who sent you derived his descent from him, and all the kingdoms which we possess are yours[76].” It is impossible to know clearly what the allusions to the return of the great commander may mean, but whatever it be, it does not change the date. As the Mexicans considered Cortez to be a child of the sun, the great prince must have been a descendant from Genghis Khan; and thence the [p360] terrors and submission of Montezuma and the Mexicans, who had always dreaded such a visit.

The Aztecs had sojourned in Culiacan and other places, from the date of the arrival of the ships, till they proceeded to Anahuac. The foundation of Tenochtitlan (or Mexico) having been in 1324, and the first king, Montezuma’s ancestor, elected in 1377; therefore, the empire, when Montezuma died, had lasted only 144 years; and this calculation is from the most authentic documents known, that is, the pictures in Purchas’s collection. In Harris’s Voyages, vol. ii., p. 97, Montezuma is said to have told Cortez, that it was only a century since they had been settled where they were, meaning, probably, that it was not two centuries.

Thus an elephant being found in a tomb in Mexico, and others in tombs in Siberia, is an additional argument to the strong ones already produced, for the Mexicans being the Moguls blown from the shores of Japan, A.D. 1283, which appears irresistible; and also that mammoths and mastodontes are not extinct, being found either living or fossil in all the places in America, which agree with the traditions on that subject, and with the histories of China and Japan[77].

THE TAPIR.

The Tapir was supposed to be peculiar to the New World: two fossil species, one of them gigantic, have been found in [p361] France, Germany; and Italy[78]. The remains of a tapir being found at Florence, with those of other quadrupeds usually exhibited by the Romans, was an unaccountable fact, till it was known, through Sir Stamford Raffles, that the tapir exists in Sumatra. We know that the Romans carried on a commerce with India, which employed one hundred and twenty ships annually, and that they had the power of being supplied with all the animals of those regions, by means of country ships, which traded to the ports of Musiris and Barace, those which the Romans frequented. Moreover, the author of the Periplus, p. 36, describes Sumatra. It appears, therefore, evident that the Romans procured tapirs from that island, if they be not inhabitants of Africa. The British king, father of Caractacus, had a tapir on one of his numerous coins[79]; which may be reckoned among many other proofs that the ancient Britons were not quite so ignorant and barbarous as is generally, but unjustly, imagined. The discovery of this tapir shows how little is yet known even of those countries in which Britain has, for a length of years, had establishments. The tapir is probably what the natives have reported as a river-horse, a much more appropriate name for it than for the African beast. “The descriptions of the hippopotamus,” says Baron Cuvier, “by Herodotus and Aristotle, are supposed to have been borrowed from Hecatæus of Miletus, and must have been taken from two very different animals, one of which is the true hippopotamus, and the other the antelope gnu of Gmelin[80].” Now, as it appears that the Indians described by Herodotus by the name Padæi, is an exact account of the Batta in Sumatra,—(Dr. Leyden thinks them the same word, as the Indo-Chinese pronounce B as P[81],)—it is rendered probable that that island was known to the Greeks, long before the Romans possessed Egypt. On these grounds, I venture a conjecture that Aristotle and Herodotus alluded to the tapir, which is amphibious, but the gnu is not. The tapir is probably the küda-ayer of Sumatra, and the conda-aijeer, or river paard, of the [p362] Javans.—(See MARSDEN’s Sumatra, third edition.) With respect to the gigantic tapir, it is as probable that those regions (apparently less known to moderns, as regards zoology, than to the Greeks and Romans) may contain gigantic tapirs as ouranoutangs, near eight feet high, so lately discovered.

UNICORN.

Many reasons have been given, in another place[82], to prove the probability of the existence of the unicorn, since which the following description of two has been met with.

“On the other part of the temple of Mecca are parks or places enclosed, where are seen two unicorns: they are shown to the people as a miracle; and not without good reason, for their rareness and strange nature. One of them, which is much higher than the other, is not much unlike a colt of thirty months of age: in the forehead groweth one horn, in manner right forth, of the length of three cubits. The other is only one year of age, and like a young colt: the horn of this is of the length of four handfuls. This beast is of that colour of a horse called weasel, and hath a head like a hart, but not a long neck, and a thin mane, hanging on one side. Their legs are thin and slender, like a fawn or hind: the hoofs of the fore feet are divided in two, much like the feet of a goat: the outer part of the hinder feet is very full of hair. This beast seemeth wild or fierce, yet tempereth that fierceness with a certain comeliness. These unicorns were given to the Sultan of Mecca as a most precious and rare gift. They were sent him out of Ethiopia by a king of that country, who was desirous by such a present to gratify the Sultan[83].”

So lately as the year 1799, a Mahomedan African prince is said to have sent two of them to Mecca.—(REES’s Cyclopedia, “Monoceros.”) Bell of Antermony describes one which was killed in Siberia, near the Irtish, in 1713. Tamerlane slew unicorns and rhinoceroses on the frontier of Cashmere, (Sherefeddin, b. 4., ch. xxx.) and there have recently been reports of unicorns in Nepaul, which are rendered more probable to be [p363] the truth, by those references of Mr. Bell and Sherefeddin to countries not very distant.

The British king Cuneboline had also the unicorn on his coins, and the figure of the animal is very similar to the above description[84]. The writer is, therefore, of opinion that these now described are the real oryx mentioned by Aristotle, Pliny, and other ancient authors[85].

HIPPOPOTAMUS.

The remains of this beast have been found in England at the residences of the Romans, viz., near London, Colchester, and York; and not any in Ireland or Scotland. They have also been found in Italy mixed with great numbers of the bones of other beasts known to have been exhibited by the Romans. This animal is not known to inhabit any country but Africa. Two were caught near Damietta, A.D. 1600. They are known to inhabit Abyssinia, Bornou, the Cape of Good Hope, Senegal, and they were met with in great abundance by the two vessels, the Sion, of 200 tons, and St. John, of 50 tons, which sailed above nine hundred miles up the river Gambia, A.D. 1620, employed by Sir Wm. St. John[86]. The inference is, that they inhabit the whole of that vast continent, and that it is most probable the number of species is as great as that of elephants; and that the fossil kinds not having been brought from the same country as the living individuals with which they have been compared, has induced naturalists to suppose them extinct. An elaborately grand Roman [p364] pavement was dug up at Roxby, in Lincolnshire, upon which is represented Orpheus, surrounded by an elephant, lion, boar, dog, wolf, stag, and another, which appears to be the hippopotamus[87].

TURTLE. TORTOISE.

“A beautiful fossil sea-turtle has recently been discovered, and, by the perfect substitution of all the organic parts as well as its locality, may be considered an interesting remain of a former world. It is encrusted in a mass of ferruginous limestone, and weighs 180 lbs. The spot on which it was found is in four fathoms of water, and is formed of an extensive stratum of stones, called the Stone Ridge, about four miles off Harwich harbour; and is considered to be the line of conjunction between the opposite cliffs of Walton and Harwich. It is in the possession of Mr. Deck, of Cambridge[88].”

A fossil turtle was found near Harwich, embedded in a solid block of cement-stone; another large stone, when broken, was found to contain “nearly the whole of a human skeleton[89].”

Fossil sea-tortoises have been found in the environs of Brussels, in the environs of Maestricht, at the village of Melsbroeck and in the mountain of St. Peter, in the state of Glaris and in the vicinity of Aix; they differ in species from any of those at present known[90].

There is not any of the extraneous fossil remains more probably of Roman origin than tortoises. “The beds, the doors, and pillars of the houses of the Greeks and Romans, were decorated with tortoise-shell. In the reign of Augustus, this species of luxury was at, its height in Rome[91]. Bruce says, the Egyptians dealt very largely with the Romans in this elegant article of commerce; Martial relates that beds were inlaid with it; Velleius Paterculus observes, that when Alexandria was taken by Julius Cæsar, the magazines were so full of this article, that he at first proposed to make it the principal ornament of his triumph; as he used ivory afterwards when triumphing for his African victories[92].” [p365]

Cuneboline and his son Arviragus having had the elephant, tapir, and unicorn on their coins; and as the first was brought up at the court of Augustus[93], there is every probability of their having possessed tortoises at Harwich, the port of the capital of the British king.

SPECIES.

With regard to elephants, the number of species appears to be very great, even with the extremely limited knowledge we possess. The writer saw three distinct kinds captured in one keddah at Tippera, when he was there during Mr. Corse’s residence at that place, and who has described them. Some African females have tusks as large as the males, but it is not known to be so in Asia. Le Vaillant mentions a race of elephants which never have tusks. Two Ceylon elephants were found to differ in the shape of the jaws, and another is mentioned by Baron Cuvier, which is dissimilar to any that had been seen[94].

The Camelopard now at Paris differs in many essential anatomical characters from the kind at the Cape of Good Hope[95].

The Romans and Moguls crossed the species and genera of different animals. The crocotta was between a dog and a wolf; the crocuta, between a hyæna and a lioness[96]. The Moguls cross the breed of dogs with leopards, the best of which are those of Hezereh and Tesheen in Cabulistan; and some are so brave that they will attack a lion[97]. Four towns near Babylon were exempted from any other tax than the maintaining of dogs which were supposed to be produced between the tiger and bitch[98]. We thus may perceive how impossible it is to be certain of a fossil species being extinct because we are not acquainted with it. [p366]

Ptolemy Philadelphus, in a procession at Alexandria, had twenty-four thousand Indian dogs, a camelopard, a white bear, and twenty-four chariots drawn by elephants, twelve by lions, seven by oryxes, eight by ostriches, four by wild asses, and five by buffaloes[99]. Bajazet, in the fourteenth century, had twelve thousand dog-keepers. The immensity of wild beasts slaughtered by the Persians, Moguls, and Romans, would be incredible, were it not attested by so many different authorities; and with regard to the Romans, no author mentions a less number than five thousand of every description slain at the opening of the Coliseum. These sports having been in vogue all over the Roman empire for so many centuries, the fossil bones which have been found are but few indeed. In Britain there were at least five amphitheatres; at Sandwich, Dorchester, Silchester, Caerleon, York[100]. In France, at Paris, Cahors[101], Vienne, Arles, Orange, Autun, Treves, Nismes, Poitou[102], and Bordeaux. In Spain, at Seville, Tarragona, Merida, and Saguntum. In Italy a great number. The popularity of monarchs and statesmen depended on their power to indulge the people with these cruel sports. Commodus is said to have been one of the most dexterous marksmen: he always had with him Parthians, to teach him archery, and Moors, to perfect him in throwing the dart. He ran with all horned animals, except bulls, and smote them unerringly as he pursued. Lions, panthers, and other fierce beasts, he ran after in the Peridrome, and darted at them from above with never-failing effect, whether he aimed at the forehead or the heart. With arrows, pointed like a half-moon, he would cut off the heads of the Mauritanian ostriches, while their wings were [p367] expanded to aid their speed, and they continued their course for a time without their heads. He would expose a prize-fighter to the attack of a panther, and strike the beast dead before it could fasten its teeth on the man. A hundred lions have been sent out of the dens, and all killed by him with such certainty, that they lay close together, not a dart failing[103].

Domitian had been equally notorious in these grand sports in the Amphitheatre.

“What scene sequestered, or what rude renown,

Sends no spectator to the imperial town?

The Rhodopean hind now tempts the plains,

And tunes from Hemus his Orphean strains.

The Sarmat, Cæsar, hies, thy works to see;

And gives the steed he swills[104] to share the glee.

They come, who first the rising Nile explore;

And they who hear remotest ocean roar.

The Arab hasted, the Sabean flew;

And the Cilician own’d his native dew.

With tortured tresses, here Sicambrians gay;

There Ethiops, bristling in their diverse way.

’Mid various speech, but one glad voice we find,

That hails thee father of converg’d mankind[105].”

As for the Romans themselves, according to Juvenal, these amusements seem to have been preferred to all others.

“Could you the pleasures of the Cirque forego,

At Fabrateria or at Frusino,

Some villa might be bought, for what will here

Scarce hire a gloomy dungeon by the year[106].”

Had the fossil animals died, or been killed by natural accidents, the skeletons would generally have been found entire, but for the most part they are scattered and broken, and are often mixed with bones of animals resembling the species of the present time[107]. In the vicinity of Orleans in France, a fossil roe, of a living species, was found in limestone, along with the bones of the palæotherium.

Instances have occurred of bones being found, in great numbers; and, many feet deeper, other heaps of bones of elephants and wild beasts; but as many amphitheatres were built [p368] with wood, and as the games were exhibited for about six centuries, those structures would require to be often renewed, and the old bones would thus be covered over with earth. Britain was invaded or visited by about twenty emperors, or those so high in importance as to become emperors of Rome; and York was the head-quarters of the Roman empire during the residence in Britain of Severus and his two sons and co-emperors, Geta and Caracalla[108]. All the collections of fossil bones are found at the head-quarters of the Romans, or near the several amphitheatres in the island. Bones of elephants which have been found in France and Italy in fifteen places, are so faithfully accurate to the road over which Hannibal and Asdrubal with fifty-two elephants marched[109], and Hannibal’s (thirty-seven) all perished before his arrival at Thrasymene, that no theory whatever can stand in competition with such historical conviction[110]. If the bones found on Hannibal’s road be not those of his Getulian elephants, are we to conclude that the remains of the beasts lost two thousand years ago have totally perished; but that other bones of elephants, many thousands of years older, have been preserved upon the same spot, although some of them are found quite near the surface? At Plaine de Grenelle, a fossil elephant was dug up, and at that place there stood a Roman amphitheatre[111]. The great numbers of elephants then used in warfare may be judged of, by Metellus having captured upwards of a hundred in the battle of Palermo, where many besides had been killed[112]; and accordingly fossil bones have been found, there and also at Syracuse, where there was an amphitheatre. In Spain, thirty-nine elephants were slain at Munda, in the battle fought between the two Scipios and Asdrubal. At the bridge of Manzanares, and at Toledo, fossil remains of elephants have been [p369] dug up; and at these very places Hannibal and Asdrubal defeated one hundred thousand Carpetani, many of whom were trodden to death by their forty elephants[113].

If we glance at the sports of the Mongols, what a treasure for an osteologist might be found at Termed in Sogdiana, where the army commanded in person by Genghis Khan were four months occupied in enclosing an immense circle, till all the wild beasts were driven (without one escaping, under pain of death to the soldier who failed in his duty, but who was not allowed to kill the tigers, lions, &c.) into a spacious plain, where they were slaughtered by the Grand Khan and all the Imperial princes and military commanders, till they chose to permit the soldiers to end the destruction[114]. How many fossil species might be discovered there, of which naturalists have no knowledge! The Persians are said to have slaughtered as many as fourteen thousand beasts on a like expedition[115]. So long have these amusements existed, that Hushing, king of Persia, B. C. 865, bred dogs and leopards for hunting[116].

Besides the fossil remains which have been found of numerous quadrupeds, named by the Romans in their sports, they employed the following, bones of which have not been detected:—Indian dogs, white bears, camels (one found), dromedaries, camelopards, wild asses, zebras, quaggas, oryxes (unicorns), Ethiopian sheep, Arabian sheep, the crocotta (bred from a dog and wolf), crocuta (from a hyæna and lioness), little dragons, ostriches. The gnu was known to the Romans; and probably the nyl-ghau and the om-kergay (quite harmless, and the size of a rhinoceros). In this list several of the fossil kinds described as the ancient wild beast with a thick skin (palæotherium), and the beast without weapons, or unarmed (anoplotherium), may be found, and also those of the genus canis, and a carnivorous beast[117].

Such is a short notice of this most extensive subject, to which the writer’s attention has been attracted by the concurrence of [p370] historical relations with the locality of fossil remains. It is offered for the consideration of the reader, not in a spirit of controversy, but with a desire to ascertain an important truth in natural history, whether his speculations be confirmed or refuted. Whichever way a decision is awarded, it will add to the interest attached to zoological pursuits, and the reader will be, by these remarks, enabled to form a judgment whether the laborious and ingenious works which have been published, since the conviction that elephants are not human giants, (a notion seriously maintained so recently as in Clavegero’s History of Mexico, written since that of Robertson) are descriptions of the quadrupeds of a former world, or of the world which is now in existence. It is necessary to remark that these particular researches relate only to animals connected with Roman and Mogul history; and if it should be conceded that it may justly be inferred, that quadrupeds hitherto deemed extinct are still to be found in the undiscovered parts of Africa, Asia, and America, not half of either region being yet scientifically known, it will give an interest to zoology and osteology ten fold more attractive than a blank and unsatisfactory hypothesis of their having all perished before the creation of man, as is often alleged. It is perhaps the most remarkable circumstance in literature, that naturalists so rarely allude to the astonishing number of beasts slain in the Roman games, although the list of them is, generally speaking, so similar to that of the fossil remains. Erroneous notions concerning fossil bones, those of elephants, in particular, being the most plentiful, began in very early ages when they were considered to be human; and James the First (of Britain) sent Lord Herbert of Cherbury to Gloucester, to ascertain if a skeleton, dug up at that place, was really that of a giant. There were found mingled with it horns and bones of oxen and sheep, and the tusks of a boar. Lord Herbert, Dr. Clayton, and the celebrated Harvey, thought the bones were those of one of the Roman elephants; and Bishop Hakewill received a letter from my lord of Gloucester, mentioning that “he was not confident that the grinder was the tooth of a man[118].” This discovery, perhaps, put an end in England to the notion of giants’ bones. [p371]

The next fanciful origin was, that these fossil remains were those of an extinct monster, called Mammoth by the native Siberians, their name for the walrus; but which was transferred and confounded with the bones of whales, elephants, and buffalos, found in that country, and such erroneous opinions will long be entertained in those quarters.

The diluvian origin was imagined by many to be the true one, but later careful examinations proving that the animals died on the spot where they are found broken, and the bones scattered about, that hypothesis could not in such instances be maintained, and recourse was had to the supposition, that Britain was in former ages a tropical country; but the mixed fossil remains, being those both of hot and cold climates, and of beasts peculiar only to Africa, or to Asia, this theory appears to be quite as objectionable as the others. The last, and the most specious, of all the hypothetical proofs of the origin is, that the teeth not often corresponding with those of the living specimens which have been seen, they must be the remains of extinct quadrupeds. There are, perhaps, fifty large regions where elephants abound, and the teeth of very few indeed of the animals of those countries have yet been seen. This last appears to be, defective as it is, the strongest objection that can be urged against the historical origin; and the few remarks in this essay will contribute materially to weaken this remaining hypothesis. The reader who feels any interest in zoology will, by their means, be assisted in his endeavours to untie or cut this gordian knot. After he has decided either that these beasts are in existence, or all extinct.

“In his reflections, then, what scenes shall strike!

Adventures thicken! novelties surprise!

What webs of wonder shall unravel there[119]!”

[53] Count Bournon; Phil. Mag., vol. lvii., p. 458.

[54] Strahlenberg, p. 405.

[55] Dr. Plott’s History of Oxf., p. 161.

[56] Phil. Trans. Abridged, vol. iv., part ii., p. 273.

[57] Cuvier, Theory of the Earth.

[58] In the American Quarterly Review, published at Philadelphia, March, 1827. Art. “Fossil Remains.”

[59] Titles, “Werner,” “Fletz,” “Transition.”

[60] See two dissertations on the Geology of the U. S. of N. America, by W. M’Clure, Esq., in the Transactions of the Amer. Phil. Soc., new series, vol. i., Philadelphia, 1818. This gentleman had entertained a different view in the previous volume; but after eight years’ experience, in Europe and America, he had the philosophical justice, boldly to amend his former opinions.

[61] See Phil. Trans. Abridged, vol. iv., part ii., p. 236 to 245, and Camden’s Brit., Gough’s Ed., 1789, vol. iii., 604.

[62] Essay on the Antiquity of the Irish Language, by Lieut. Col. Vallancey, 8vo., London, 1818, p. 12.

[63] See Gibbon, ch. xxvii., Zosimus, b. iv., Rapin, b. i., Wars and Sports, ch. xiii.

[64] Life of Agricola.

[65] Parkinson, vol. iii., letter 26. Mr. P. relates that Baron Cuvier inclines to doubt the authenticity of this account; but Capt. Cochrane’s testimony now renders it very probable to be correct. It is very worthy of remark, that the wild elephants in America are found, as reported, at Choco, and west of the Missouri; and that Mango Capac and Montezuma’s ancestor, by the traditions, landed at Cape St. Helen’s and Culiacan,—as if some elephants had been let loose, or had escaped and betaken themselves to perhaps the nearest thick forests, and have remained there undisturbed.

[66] Rees’s Cyclopedia, Addenda, “Mastodon.”

[67] See Parkinson, vol. iii., letter 26, p. 367.

[68] Duchat, an author of unquestioned credit, has seen recent wood petrified into flint by the water of a river in Ava. Rees’s Cyc., “Wood.”

[69] Levesque, Hist. de Russie, vol. vii. 244.

[70] Wars and Sports, p. 263.

[71] Conquest of Peru, ch. x. It is somewhat curious that, when Pyrrhus for the first time brought elephants into Italy, the Romans gave them the name of Lucanian bulls; and that the Americans call them big bulls in their traditions. It is probable that both people compared them with the largest beast known to them; as elephants, if indigenous in america before the arrival of Mango Capac and Montezuma’s ancestor, would have been extremely numerous, and have had a proper name.

[72] Shakspeare spells this name Cymbeline; Milton writes Kymbeline, which is probably the true pronunciation: see his History, 8vo. 1695, p. 62.

[73] Wars and Sports, p. 269.

[74] Id. p. 506. The Burmans eat elephants. The writer was at Dacca in 1794, when some Burmese troops invaded the Chittagong frontier. An expedition, under Colonel Erskine, was sent against them; and on the return to Dacca of Colonel Boujonnar’s battalion, the officers told the writer that they found in the stockade the skeleton of an elephant, which the Burmans had devoured.

[75] Conquest of Mexico and Peru, p. 288–301.

[76] Hakluyt, vol. iv., p. 558; and Conquest of Peru and Mexico, ch. vii.

[77] A Roman coin is said to have been discovered recently among the Indians in America, which has justly created surprise; but others have been found long ago. Bishop Hakewill’s book is dated A.D. 1635: he says, “Marianus Siculus, in his history of Spain, reports that certain coined pieces of gold, engraved with the image and inscription of Augustus Cæsar, were found in the American mines; thereby inferring that those countries were then discovered.” p. 310. Batou, the cousin of Kublai, both grandsons of Genghis, had conquered Russia, ravaged Europe to the Adriatic, and died on his march to Constantinople, in 1256. His successor also ravaged as far as Constantinople, (P. de la Croix, p. 387.) Mango (so spelt by Du Halde, ii., 251, and Maundeville, p. 275; Manku by Tooke, Russ. Emp., ii., 13) was brother to Kublai, who is considered by the writer to be the father of the first Inca, and there is nothing more probable than that he and other Moguls on the Japanese expedition may have possessed Roman coins, the plunder of Hungary, Poland, Dalmatia, and the Greek empire, as far as the capital.

[78] Cuvier, Theory of the Earth, p. 257.

[79] Conq. of Peru, &c. plate iv.

[80] Theory of the Earth, p. 67.

[81] Herodotus, Thalia xcix. Rees’s Cyc., “Sumatra.”

[82] Wars and Sports, p. 335.

[83] Travels of Lewis Vertomanus to Egypt, Arabia, &c., A.D. 1503, in Galvano’s collection. Hakluyt, vol, iv., p. 162.

[84] Wars and Sports, p. 354.

[85] See Cuvier’s Theory of the Earth, p. 80. Wars and Sports, p. 335. With regard to the unicorn, Camper has remarked, that “if this animal was ruminant and cloven-footed, it is certain that its frontal bone must have been divided longitudinally into two, and that it could not possibly have had a horn placed upon the suture.” This remark by Camper, when we consider how nature adapts every thing to its purposes, cannot stand as a real objection to the existence of the oryx. The most eminent naturalists have been wrong in some of their conjectures. John Hunter pronounced the mastodon to be a carnivorous beast. Buffon, after frequently considering the bones of the mammoth, conceived them to belong to a beast six times larger than the biggest elephant; and Muller was of opinion that it must have been 105 feet in height, and 133 in length! So little capable is any human being to judge what nature does, or can do!

[86] See Relation of Master Wm. Jobson in Purchas, vol. ii, p. 921.

[87] Conq. of Peru; p. 450.

[88] New London Literary Gazette, Oct. 13, 1827, p. 303.

[89] Common Sense Newspaper, No. 60.

[90] Cuvier’s Theory of the Earth, p. 291.

[91] Shaw’s Zool., III. pt. 1. Rees’s Cyc. “Tortoise.”

[92] Ibid.

[93] Milton’s Hist. 8vo. p. 62.

[94] Cuvier, Ossemens Fossiles, p. 185.

[95] Ed. New Phil. Journal, Sept. 1827, p. 390. Here is a direct instance, that if a fossil Egyptian camelopard had been found, it would, like elephants, &c., have been pronounced to be an extinct species, the modern specimens being from South Africa.

[96] Pliny, b. viii.

[97] Ayeen Akbery, vol. i. p. 242.

[98] Herodotus, Clio, cxci. We may conjecture that tiger has been written for leopard, a frequent error.

[99] Montfaucon, vol. iii. p. 179.

[100] Augustan History, “Severus,” p. 253. “Wherever Caracalla wintered, or but intended to winter, they were constrained to erect amphitheatres and cirques for public games, and those within a while were taken down again.”—Hakewill’s Apology, p. 443. Caracalla was three years at York; and Spartian, in his Life of Severus, relates, that among other omens just before that emperor died, (at York,) three figures of Victory, which stood upon the platform near the throne, were blown down while the games of the circus were celebrating. There was a Roman road from York to Whitby (Dunus Sinus), and Kirkdale is about half way between the port and the capital.

[101] Rees’s Cyc. “Cahors.”

[102] Marquis Maffei, p. 260.

[103] Herodian, “Commodus.”

[104] The Tartar opens a vein of his horse and drinks the blood.

[105] Martial (Elphinston’s, p. 19) on the Sports of Domitian.

[106] Satire iii.

[107] Cuvier. Theory of the Earth, pp. 89 and 263.

[108] The emperors had their families and the whole Roman court with them. The celebrated Julia Domna, and her sister Julia Mesa, were there during those three years. See De Serviez, Roman Empresses, vol. ii. p. 239.

[109] Passage des Alpes par Annibal, d’après la narration de Polybe. Comparée aux récherches faites sur les lieux, par J. A. De Luc. Géneve, 1818.

[110] Wars and Sports, p. 295.

[111] Gibbon, ch. xix. p. 177.

[112] Catrou, vol. ii. p. 591.

[113] Livy, b. xxi. ch. v.; b. xxiv. ch. xlii.

[114] De la Croix. Hist. of Genghis, b. iii. ch. vii.

[115] Sir John Chardin, vol. ii. 33.

[116] Sir William Jones, vol. v. 588. The above may possibly mean a cross breed of the two beasts, which we find is still practised in Cabulistan, as related in the Ayeen Akbery.

[117] See Rees’s Cyc. “Strata.”

[118] Hakewill’s Apology, p. 229.

[119] Young. Night VI.

Description of a cheap and portable Instrument for enabling Young People to acquire a knowledge of the Stars, or determine their situation in the Heavens. By S. Lee, Esq. [◊]

THERE is no science, the study of which tends so much to enlarge the mind as Astronomy. It opens to our view the grandest examples of Almighty power, wisdom, and beneficence—the [p372] contemplation of which fills the soul with reverence and affection for the great Author of nature, and banishes all narrow and superstitious notions respecting him.

The cultivation of this science, therefore, cannot be too strongly recommended to the attention of young people. The eager curiosity and avidity for discovery which so peculiarly distinguish that period of life, when the reasoning faculties begin to develope, is peculiarly fitted for its reception—and, accordingly, amongst the better-educated classes of society, the elements of this science are generally considered as a necessary branch of instruction—though commonly limited to a mere dogmatic explanation of the Copernican system, and the use of the globes.

But this superficial mode of instruction, though sufficient to enable any one to understand the real motions of our planetary system, and explain the apparent motions which must result from them, is hardly sufficient to satisfy inquisitive reasoning minds, since it leaves them ignorant of the means by which the distances, magnitudes, and orbits of the planets and comets were first discovered; and how, if lost, a knowledge of them might be recovered from observations alone.

The most pleasing methods of instruction will generally be found the most efficient. It is impossible for any one who has had the least experience in teaching not to have perceived, that one practical application of science makes a deeper and more lasting impression on the mind of a learner than a thousand theoretic propositions.

An accurate knowledge of the fixed stars is the first step to practical astronomy; it is, in fact, the alphabet of the science. By the rising, southing, and setting of these bodies, astronomers are enabled correctly to measure time; and from their apparent altitudes, to determine the latitude of places on the surface of the globe, whilst the permanent situations which they maintain with respect to one another, furnish them with so many marks by which to trace the course of the sun, moon, and planets through the heavens. Such were the data which enabled Copernicus and Newton to unravel the seeming irregularity of their apparent paths, and explain the beautiful simplicity of their real motions.

The instruments usually had recourse to for this purpose [p373] are, celestial globes, planispheres, and atlases, but none of these afford such ready and certain means of finding or identifying particular fixed stars, as at first might be expected from them.

The Globe possesses the great advantage of being easily rectified to the place of observation and adjusted to the exact hour of the night. It likewise exhibits all the stars in their proper situations of altitude and azimuth;—but the constellations being delineated on a convex surface, and viewed from without, whilst the heavens appear to us a concave viewed from within, the groups of stars are seen reversed, a circumstance which, occasions no small degree of perplexity to a learner.

Planispheres and atlases exhibit the constellations as they appear to the eye when on the meridian, but in a position very different from that which they assume when removed far from it. In short, except the pleiades and a few remarkable groups, it is difficult to recognise a constellation in every position, without great practice and continued observation.

The Equatorial furnishes the best and readiest means of discovering or identifying any particular star, but the great price of this instrument, and the complicated nature of its adjustments, render it unfit for learners.

The instrument which we are about to describe, is in its principle the same as the Equatorial, though not pretending to any thing like the same degree of accuracy; but it has this advantage over it,—its adjustments are more simple and obvious, consequently, better adapted to the capacity of learners; and it can be afforded at a very moderate expense, the price not exceeding that of a common globe.

A, B, C, D, is the stand of the instrument, composed of three triangular pieces of wood glewed together, so that the plane of the upper piece, D B C, makes with that of the lower piece, A B C, an angle equal to the co-latitude of the place it is intended for.

On the upper piece, D B C, is described a circle, E F G, the circumference of which is divided into twenty-four hours, and every hour into twelve parts, equal to five minutes each.

From the centre of this circle, and perpendicular to the [p374] plane on which it is described, rises a pillar, the top of which appears at H above the cone I, which can be made to revolve upon it as an axis.—On the surface of the cone is delineated the principal stars visible in England, and the lower edge is divided into 365 parts, representing the days of the year.

On the top of the pillar is fitted a segment of a circle, K, of [p375] about 140°: viz. 90° of north, and 40° of south declination, which may be made to revolve upon the pillar as an axis independently of the cone. To this part is attached the scale, L, divided into degrees of north and south declination, corresponding to those on the semicircle,—and so contrived as in every situation to touch lightly the surface of the cone.

To the declination circle K is attached the alidade M, which may be set to any degree required, and serves as an index to direct the eye of the observer to any object, which may be viewed along the edge of it, or through the small holes in the sights O P.

Having described the several parts of the instrument, it only remains to shew the use of it; which will be best explained by means of a few problems.

PROBLEM 1. To adjust the instrument.

The instrument being made for the place of observation, need only to be placed on a perfectly horizontal stand, and with the line joining the hours XII and XII on the circle, in the direction of the meridian: the former of these adjustments may be verified by means of a small level applied to the stand at N, in the directions B C and A N successively. If found incorrect in either position, let a piece of card be put under that foot (A, B, or C) from which the bubble is found to recede, and let this operation be repeated until the bubble rests in the middle, in both positions.

The instrument may be brought into the meridian by the assistance of a magnetic needle fixed to the frame at N, or on the opposite side, or more correctly by means of the sun, provided the time be exactly known, thus:—

Set the index M to the sun’s declination, turn the circle K round its axis, till the scale L points to the hour and minute on the circle E F G. Then if the instrument be correctly placed, the sun will be seen through the sights O, P, or what is the same thing, the light admitted at the hole O will fall on the hole P. If not, the instrument must be turned about till this effect is produced.

The instrument being once carefully adjusted to the meridian on any immoveable stand, such as the sill of a window, [p376] the top of a post, &c., lines may be drawn on the stand in the direction of the sides A B, A C, or B C, by means of which it may at any time be replaced with little trouble.

PROBLEM 2. The instrument being correctly placed and levelled, the next operation will be to adjust the conical projection to the day and hour of observation.

Turn the cone round till the day of the month on the circle, at the bottom of it, coincides with the hour and minute on the circle E F G.

Example.—To adjust the cone for the 15th January, at twenty minutes past nine at night. Turn the cone till the 15th January on the circle attached to it coincides with IX h. 20 m. P. M. on the circle E F G.

PROBLEM 3. The cone being adjusted, and any star proposed, to find its place in the heavens.

The cone remaining at rest, turn the declination segment K till the scale L cuts the proposed star on the projection; note its declination on the scale and set the index M to the same degree on the segment K, when the index will point to the star, which, if the adjustments have all been correctly made, will be seen through the sights P, O.

Example.—To find the star Aldebaran; look for Aldebaran on the projection, bring the scale L to cut it, and you will find it against 16° north declination. Set index M to 16° N. P., and look along the edge of it, or through the holes P, O, and you will see the star.

PROBLEM 4. Having observed a star in the heavens, to find it on the projection.

Set the cone as accurately as you can to the day and hour, then turn the declination segment round, and elevate the index till you can see the star through the sights P, O. Note the declination at the segment K, cut by the index M, and against the corresponding degree of the scale you will find the star on the projection.

If no such star can be found, you may then conclude that it is a planet, or a new star.

By this means the place of the moon, of a planet, or a comet, may be noted down, from time to time, and their apparent paths traced out. [p377]

PROBLEM 5. To find the hour of the day by the sun.

Turn the segment K, and elevate the index M, till the sun is seen or shines through the sights O, P, and the scale L point to the hour and minute on the circle E F G.

PROBLEM 6. To find the hour of the night by means of a star.

Direct the index M to the star, so as to be seen through the sights P, O; then laying hold of the scale L, to keep it in that position, turn the cone till the star on the projection is cut by the scale, when the day of the month on the circle at the bottom of the cone will coincide with the hour and minute on the circle E F G.

This instrument, though not capable of extreme accuracy, might, by means of careful workmanship, and the addition of a small telescope, be made sufficiently so for finding stars in the day time; but such a one as that now described will answer all the purposes of a learner, and enable very young people to acquire a correct and extensive knowledge of the stars in a very short time.

The surface of a cone has been adopted for the projection, in preference to that of a globe or planisphere, having been found, after repeated trials, the figure best suited to the nature of the instrument.

An Introduction to the Comparative Anatomy of Animals, compiled with constant reference to Physiology, and elucidated by twenty copper-plates. By C. J. Carus, M.D., &c. Translated from the German, by R. T. Gore, Member of the Royal College of Surgeons in London. [◊]

IF we except Sir Everard Home’s splendid work on comparative anatomy, we have no original treatise on that subject which deserves notice; and even Sir Everard’s lectures must rather be considered as a series of essays on detached parts of that branch of science, than as a regular and systematic view of it. We have long been acquainted with the work of Dr. Carus, and have always considered it as a laborious and accurate epitome of the principal facts and authorities in the study to which it relates. From the immense field of inquiry which it embraces, it is necessarily complicated, and [p378] in some places a little obscure, but it is entirely free from those speculative and hypothetical wanderings which are too characteristic of the German school of physiology; and though it contains some systematic notions in which we cannot acquiesce, and a few new words, not the most harmonious in the world, it may very safely and properly be recommended to the student as a text-book, and to the proficient as a work of reference. The plates by which it is illustrated are upon an economical scale, sometimes rather too small to be distinct, but they are otherwise accurate and carefully drawn; and we are aware that it is impossible to obviate these objections without incurring such expense as would probably render the work inaccessible to those readers for whom it is principally compiled.

Mr. Gore has assiduously and faithfully executed the difficult task of translation, and has added no inconsiderable quantity of new and important matter in the form of notes, rendering the English work more complete, and upon many points much more satisfactory than the original.

Experiments to determine the Comparative Value of the principal varieties of Fuel used in the United States, and also in Europe, and on the ordinary Apparatus used for their Combustion. By Marcus Bull. Philadelphia and London, 1827. [◊]

THE population of London and its immediate environs may be estimated at about two millions, and the annual consumption of coals within the same district does not fall far short of two millions of chaldrons, or seventy-two millions of bushels. Of this prodigious quantity of inflammable matter, a very considerable portion escapes combustion, and lodges in the form of soot in our chimneys, or is vomited forth to contaminate and cloud the atmosphere of the metropolis: so great is this loss, that independent of the mere advantage of getting rid of smoke, its prevention is an important economical problem; and though the rage for smoke-burning has passed over, we are quite certain that the subject still deserves the most serious attention, being convinced that, of the fuel consumed in the ordinary processes of warming our houses and cooking food, at least one-third is uselessly thrown away, and might be saved by a more economical and scientific construction of common grates and fire-places. All useful and well-conducted experiments, therefore, in [p379] relation to these matters, deserve notice; and though much of Mr. Bull’s essay is not applicable to our case, it contains a variety of interesting facts and information: his experiments appear to have been very carefully conducted, and should be consulted by all those who are engaged in similar investigations.

Meteorological Essays and Observations. By J. Frederic Daniell, Esq., F.R.S. Second Part, 1827. [◊]

WE hope to be able in our next Number to enter into a detailed examination of the subject of Mr. Daniell’s inquiries; at present, therefore, our object is merely to announce the second edition of his valuable and laborious essays, and the publication of the present second part, in which, for the convenience of those who possess the former edition, all the new matter is collected. It includes the following essays:—

1. On the Trade winds, considered with reference to Mr. Daniell’s theory of the constitution of the atmosphere; in a letter from Capt. Basil Hall, R.N., F.R.S.

2. On evaporation as connected with atmospheric phenomena.

3. On climate, considered with regard to horticulture.

4. On the oscillations of the barometer.

5. On the gradual deterioration of barometers, and the means of preventing the same.

6. Addenda and notes—among which will be found a valuable table of the elastic force of aqueous vapour, calculated by Mr. Galbraith from the experiments of Dr. Ure, by the formula of Mr. Ivory.

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, for the year 1827. Part II. [◊]

The following are the contents of this Part of the Society’s Transactions:—

On a new form of the differential thermometer, with some of its applications. By William Ritchie, A.M., rector of Tain Academy. Communicated by J. F. W. Herschel, Esq., Sec. R.S.

On the structure and use of the submaxillary odoriferous gland in the genus Crocodilus. By Thomas Bell, Esq., F.L. and G.S.S. Communicated by Sir Everard Home, Bart, V.P.R.S.

On the permeability of transparent screens of extreme tenuity of radiant heat. By William Ritchie, A.M., rector of Tain Academy. Communicated by J. F. W. Herschel, Esq., Sec. R.S. [p380]

On the derangement of certain transit instruments by the effects of temperature. By Robert Woodhouse, A.M., F.R.S., &c.

On some of the compounds of chromium. By Thomas Thomson, M.D., F.R.S. L. and E., Professor of Chemistry, Glasgow.

Rules and principles for determining the dispersive ratio of glass; and for computing the radii of curvature for achromatic object-glasses, submitted to the test of experiment. By Peter Barlow, Esq., F.R.S., Mem. Imp. Ac. Petrop, &c.

On the change in the plumage of some hen-pheasants. By William Yarrell, Esq., F.L.S. Communicated by William Morgan, Esq., F.R.S.

On the secondary deflections produced in a magnetised needle by an iron-shell, in consequence of an unequal distribution of magnetism in its two branches. First noticed by Captain J. P. Wilson, of the Honourable East India Company’s ship Hythe. By Peter Barlow, Esq., F.R.S., Mem. Imp. Sc. Petrop.

On the difference of meridians of the royal observatories of Greenwich and Paris. By Thomas Henderson, Esq. Communicated by J. F. W. Herschel, Esq., Sec. R.S.

Some observations on the effects of dividing the nerves of the lungs, and subjecting the latter to the influence of voltaic electricity. By A. P. W. Philip, M.D., F.R.S. L. and E.

On the effects produced upon the air-cells of the lungs when the pulmonary circulation is too much increased. By Sir Everard Home, Bart., V.P.R.S.

Theory of the diurnal variation of the magnetic-needle, illustrated by experiments. By S. H. Christie, Esq., M.A., F.R.S.

On the ultimate composition of simple alimentary substances; with some preliminary remarks on the analysis of organized bodies in general. By William Prout, M.D., F.R.S.

A Practical Treatise on the use of the Blowpipe in chemical and mineral analysis; including a systematic arrangement of simple minerals, adapted to aid the student in his progress in mineralogy, by facilitating the discovery of the names of species. By John Griffin, Author of Chemical Recreations. Glasgow, 1827. [◊]

PERFORMING with the blowpipe is something like playing upon the fiddle—it looks mighty easy, but for its perfect accomplishment requires a combination of skill and dexterity which practice alone can confer. We are disposed, therefore, to think lightly of those essays upon the subject which pretend to instruct the beginner in the actual use of the instrument; telling him how he is to puff out his cheeks, breathe through his nose, make a valve of his tongue, and keep up a [p381] perpetual stream through the nozzle of the tube; all which is much easier described than done, and is entirely matter of experimental acquisition, more easily attained without than with the usual instructions. In the little work before us, all these matters are passed over with fit brevity, and the attention of the student is chiefly directed to the appearances which different substances exhibit before the blowpipe, and by which minerals may be distinguished and classed. The history of these constitute the bulk of Mr. Griffin’s duodecimo, being preceded only by a few remarks upon the different kinds of blowpipe, respecting which we have merely to observe that justice is not done to Mr. Newman, who first suggested what is here called “Dr. Clarke’s blowpipe;” indeed elsewhere the author seems a little angry with Mr. Children for recommending Mr. Newman’s apparatus. We observe, moreover, that no notice is taken of Mr. Newman’s and several other papers on the blowpipe, which have appeared in the old series of this Journal; nor of Dr. Clarke’s original Essay, published in the second volume of that work, from which, and sundry other symptoms, we conclude that Mr. Griffin is a pupil of Dr. Thomas Thomson. Be this as it may, we bear him no malice, and very conscientiously recommend his book to the mineralogical student, as a valuable and clear epitome of what relates to the behaviour of substances before the blowpipe.

Circle of the Seasons, and Perpetual Key to the Calendar and Almanack; to which is added the Circle of the Hours and History of the Days of the Week, being a compendious Illustration of the History, Antiquities, and Natural Phenomena of each Day in the Year. London, 1828. Small 8vo. [◊]

THE title of this book may lead our readers to suspect it as an interloper among works on science; but it touches upon many points of scientific inquiry, and upon botany especially, and is compiled with so much evident labour and accuracy, as to merit recommendation. The saints and festivals of each day are recorded, by which we make the acquaintance of many worthy persons and curious anecdotes; there is also a brief natural history of each day, containing short notices of the plants which on an average begin to flower or to fade, and of the birds which arrive or begin to sing. [p382] The merits of the descriptive poetry, which is thickly interspersed, we leave to other critics. Those who are destined to live in the “fuliginous tenebrosity” of this smoke-saturated metropolis, and to breathe an atmosphere “sated with exhalations rank and fell,” care little about the first peeping forth of the modest snowdrop, or the early bursting of the golden crocus; but such as reside in the country will be glad to have their attention pleasingly directed to the successive products of the field, the flower-garden, and the green-house.

Conversations on the Animal Economy. By a Physician. 2 vols. small 8vo. London, 1827. [◊]

WE have more than once expressed our opinion on the subject of conveying information to young people in the way of “Conversations,” which in the present volumes are carried on between Dr. A., Harriet, Sophia, and Charles; they are at once instructive and amusing, and evidently the produce of one possessed of much information upon the subjects discussed, and, what is more to the point, of the art of pleasantly and intelligibly conveying it.

The Conversations open with an account of the coverings or integuments of animals; their arrangements by systematic writers are then adverted to, and a short but useful description is given of the varieties of mankind, as enumerated by Blumenbach and illustrated by Camper. The bones and muscles form the subjects of the fifth and sixth conversations; they are concisely described, and with sufficient accuracy. The brain and nervous system and the organs of sense are next talked about. The doctrines of phrenology are fairly explained; and in the conversations on smell and taste, vision, hearing, and touch, the anatomy of the respective organs, and their varieties in the different animal tribes are treated of, the dulness of the details being relieved by physiological illustrations. The remaining conversations are occupied with an account of the principal functions of animals, and of the several organs chiefly concerned in their performance; the varieties of teeth and stomachs are here treated of, and the structures of the heart and blood-vessels, as concerned in circulation and respiration. The production of heat by animal systems is then noticed; and the twentieth and concluding conversation is employed in the exposition of the general phenomena of growth and decay. [p383]

We have thus briefly stated the contents of these volumes, which are further illustrated by numerous woodcuts and several plates; and are perfectly ready to commend the performance as an extremely useful and proper book for young persons, but not, in our opinion, of both sexes: we should have been better pleased if Harriet and Sophy had been replaced by William and Thomas; for we cannot fancy the subjects here discussed as quite fit for young ladies. Boys, on the contrary, ought to know much more of these matters than they commonly do; and for conveying such information in a pleasing and familiar, yet neither vulgar nor superficial style, this compilation seems perfectly appropriate, and will, we trust, find, as it ought, a numerous class of readers.

Notice of a New Genus of Plants discovered in the Rocky Mountains of North America by Mr. David Douglas. By John Lindley, Esq., F.L.S., &c. &c. [◊]

Upon his journey across the rocky mountains in April 1827, in latitude 52° N., longitude 118° W., at an estimated elevation of 12,000 feet above the level of the sea, the attention of Mr. Douglas was attracted by a brilliant purple patch amidst the surrounding snow. On approaching it, he was surprised to find that the colour which had arrested his eye was caused by the blossoms of a little plant, from which the superincumbent snow had not yet melted away. The well-known Saxifraga oppositifolia immediately occurred to his recollection, and he at first imagined he had either discovered that species, or one nearly allied to it; but upon a closer inspection, he perceived that it was no Saxifraga, but a genus apparently new. Specimens having been submitted to me for examination since Mr. Douglas’s return, the following description has been drawn up:—

The plant forms a thick tuft consisting of numerous perennial branched stems, the lower of which are covered with the persistent decayed leaves and fruit of previous summers. The stems are round, bright purplish brown, covered with scattered, rigid, branched, short hairs, and densely clothed with opposite spreading leaves. The leaves are a dull glaucous green, semi-amplexicaul, [p384] linear, obtuse, about five lines long and three-quarters of a line broad, so closely covered with hairs like those of the stem, that the whole epidermis is hidden. Their veins are concealed by the hairs; but if the latter are removed, they appear to consist of a thickened mid-rib, and a few nearly simple spreading venæ primariæ. The flowers proceed from the axillæ of the upper leaves, from three to six on each little branch; at first they are sessile, but their foot-stalks subsequently lengthen by degrees until the fruit is ripe, when they are from three-quarters of an inch to one inch in length, and covered with the same sort of hairs as the leaves and stem. The calyx is hairy in like manner, obconical, angular, with five equal erect narrowly triangular teeth, about the length of the tube. The corolla is of a vivid purple colour, infundibuliform, wholly destitute of pubescence; the tube is a little ventricose and rather longer than the calyx, its whole length being about three lines; the limb is spreading, five-parted with cuneate, oblong, obtuse, segments; the orifice is guarded by five transversely linear calli, placed under each sinus, and corresponding to the same number of external depressions of the neck of the tube. The anthers are linear oblong, nearly sessile, opposite the segments of the corolla, and a little enclosed within the tube. The ovarium is superior, of an obovate figure, one-celled, with a central, free, fungilliform placenta, the lower edge of which has five teeth corresponding to an equal number of peltate ovula; the style is filiform, as long as the tube of the corolla, and continuous with the ovarium; stigma, a minute depressed cup. The capsule is of a cartilaginous texture, surrounded by the persistent calyx; one-celled, with five recurving valves; the seeds are two, peltate, oblong, convex on the outside, concave in the inside, dark brown, covered closely with minute dots or depressions; four only having been found, their internal organization has not been determined.

Hence it appears that, with the exception of the interior of the seed, the whole structure of the plant is determinable: it is also obvious that it is referable to Primulaceæ, of which it possesses all the characters. In fact it is closely akin both to Primula and Androsace. From both these genera, however, [p385] its ovarium which exhibits the greatest instance of reduction of ovula yet known in the order, and its dispermous capsule, with oblong concave seeds, readily and essentially distinguish it.

I have, therefore, named it after its indefatigable discoverer, whose active and successful researches in its native country, richly entitle him to the distinction.

DOUGLASIA.

NAT. ORD. Primulaceæ; inter Primulam et Androsacen.

Calyx obconicus, angulatus, 5-dentatus. Corolla infundibularis, tubo ventricoso, limbo plano 5-partito, fauce callo lineari sub utroque sinu. Ovarium uniloculare placentâ centrali liberâ pedicellatâ fungilliformi, margine 5-dentato; ovula 5 dentibus placentæ opposita. Capsula vestita, unilocularis, 5-valvis. Semina duo concava scrobiculata.—Cæspes suffruticulosus (Americæ borealis), foliis indivisis, pube rigidâramosâ, floribus axillaribus solitariis.

Sp. 1. Douglasia nivalis.

A Description of the Aurora Borealis seen in London on the Evening and Night of the 25th of September, 1827; with Critical Remarks upon other Descriptions of the same, and previous Appearances of the Meteor, both in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. By E. A. Kendall, Esq., F.S.A. [◊]

ON the evening and right of the 25th of September last, the horizon of the metropolis, toward the north, and toward the north-west and the north-east, exhibited a remarkable display of the meteor or phenomenon called, after the example of the Italian philosopher Gassendi, Aurora Borealis.

The weather, for many days preceding, had been mild, with alternate sunshine, clouds, and showers. The wind had been generally in the west and south-west quarters; though on the 18th and 19th it was in the north-west, and on the 20th in the north-east. The barometer, at three o’clock in the afternoon, had stood at from 30° 40′ to 30° 20′, to which latter height it had descended on the 20th; and, from that day to the 25th, it had remained, at 29° 90′ and 29° 75′. The thermometer, at the same hour, between the 14th and the 20th, had ranged between 65° 6′ and 59° 2′; and it stood, on the 25th, at 59° 6′, with the wind in the south-west. The sky, toward the zenith, on the evening of that day, was [p386] partially clear, and partially covered with shifting clouds. On the north, and on the west and east of north, heavy and stationary clouds blackened the whole horizon, to an elevation of more than five degrees; and the southern hemisphere was dark with dark clouds from the horizon to the zenith.

I. By some, the Aurora was seen from the time when the sun was set; but the first appearance in the heavens, which attracted the attention of the present writer, whose situation at the moment shut out from him the horizon upon all sides but the west, was that of a certain breadth of red or copper-coloured light, or of light of a colour nearly resembling that reflected by an ordinary conflagration of buildings, pointing upward from the west. The colour, indeed, was dissimilar from that which is usual upon the occurrence of a fire on a cloudy night; yet, in the absence of any other immediate explanation, he should not have hesitated so to understand it, except for the figure within which it was circumscribed, and which, instead of being diffusive, and less and less conspicuous toward its extremities, or rounded in its outline, like masses of ruddy smoke, had the peculiarities of an equal breadth, rectilinear sides, a square top, and sharp outlines. Its height was continually increasing; but not even that phenomenon, nor even the curve to the eastward, across the heavens, and which it presently began to add to its figure, were appearances absolutely to dissipate the illusion of the existence of a fire; and it was scarcely, therefore, till this breadth of colour, throwing itself entirely over the heavens, and descending, at its projected extremity, toward the east, formed an arch, of which, perhaps, the elevation was seventy degrees, (which was not the work of many minutes, the motion, at the same time, being visible, but of moderate rapidity,) that its real character of a natural phenomenon distinctly impressed itself upon the mind of the present writer, its observer. While this, however, was proceeding, the road which he was pursuing had brought him more into view of the north-western and northern horizon; and, then, the light in the north, and to the west of north, which, from behind the clouds that lined the horizon, seemed like the light of a rising moon, or of the [p387] breaking day, together with the vertical projection of rays of light, beneath and above the arch, removed every doubt as to the cause of the appearance, by demonstrating its connexion with an Aurora Borealis.

It was now about a quarter past eleven o’clock. The sky, beneath the lower or inner edge of the arch, was clear and star-light, and, through the contrast created by the ruddy colour placed against it, appeared of a lively blue. The upper edge of the arch, in the meantime, was relieved only by the dark gray of the clouds, which, with more or less continuity, overhung the upper part of the heavens. But these latter were now dispersing; the cloudless zenith, which presently afterwards disclosed itself, was now progressively and swiftly preparing; and, as the clouds moved and fled, the outlines of the arch lost their sharpness, the colour changed, from that of fire or of copper, to something more or less of purple or of the rose; it spread itself in the vapour, and with the vapour vanished.

II. But this was only the curtain of the stage, behind the folds of which the true scene had its existence. This latter, still concealed, to a certain and uniform height, by a parapet, as it were, of dark and unbroken clouds, consisted, first, in the ground of white light, already described as resembling that of a sky in the midst of which clouds shut out the disk of the moon, or rather that in which the rising sun is just about to appear; and, secondly, in a range of columns, or fountains, or jets of light, more coloured than the ground, which, rising from behind the ridge or parapet of clouds, and from and in the midst of the white light, formed, together, not the figure which would have been produced by their uniform convergence toward the zenith, but one which bore some resemblance to that assumed by the sticks of a fan, or still more to the appearance of stalks in a flower-basket, or in a sheaf of corn. For, in this manner, the column, which, in general terms, may be called the central one, and which arose in the due north, was vertical, and therefore projected toward the zenith; while those which extended from it upon either side, that is, toward the west or toward the east, gradually inclined more and more [p388] toward the horizon on their respective sides; and, as to the outer columns on the east, inclined, not in rectilinear figures, but in curves more or less decided. In these columns or coruscations several particulars were to be remarked.

1. That, within the space of from one hour to two, the whole group appeared to traverse the horizon together, from the west of north to the east of north, as if upon one movable base, or as if the source of their appearance became gradually exhausted to the west of north, and grew gradually into activity upon the east of north; alternatives of explanation, however, which might materially affect the theory of their production. During the whole change, in the meantime, the north preserved its splendour, appearing uniformly as the focus of the fire, or as the pivot of the machine, or as the well from which all else was supplied. The change consisted in the appearance of columns, of more or less magnitude, strength, and brightness, more or less advanced from the north toward the west, or from the north toward the east; but the north, during all this variation, suffered no other change than this, that whereas, in the beginning of the evening, the greater portion of columns rose to its west, while, in the latter part of the night, the greater portion arose to its east. But, besides this general configuration, and this united motion of the meteor, there was to be observed, in the several columns themselves, both the variations of colour which distinguished one from another, and the irregular and independent movement of each, always in the direction of its length or altitude, and situate in the interior, as it were, of its body; and also that peculiarity of form which distinguishes these coruscations from all other luminous appearances.

2. The colours of the columns, in that part of their height which is nearest their base, and where, as a ground, they had only the white light of the horizon, by which, and by their motion, and it should, perhaps, be added, their vividness, they were distinguished, is a point upon which the writer speaks with some hesitation, and with respect to the more close observation of which he could like to enjoy a second opportunity of beholding the phenomenon. The variety and richness, and sometimes the terrible grandeur, of the colours [p389] exhibited in the Aurora Borealis, is the constant theme of spectators and naturalists; and, upon the late occasion, an observer, apparently of more regularly scientific habits of pursuit than himself[120], has particularly insisted upon a column, of a violet colour, rising west of north, and the place of which he thinks corresponding with that of the magnetic pole; a coincidence from which, as it may seem, he would believe a confirmation of the magnetic theory of the production of the Aurora to be obtained. In setting down the present description, the writer tasks himself to the most faithful description of what he actually saw, and suppression of all desire to support or condemn a theory, of which his mind is capable; and by those rules, therefore, the whole statement will be guided. His description already differs from that of some of his fellow-witnesses, as will be expressly considered below; but he confesses that while, in point of persuasion, he much inclines to the idea, that all the light displayed by the Aurora is in itself white, and only tinctured to the eye of the spectator by the atmospherical medium through which it is seen; and while, with respect to all those deeper colours, whether crimson or purple, or blood-colour, which appal the superstitious, and are described by the picturesque narrator as exhibiting the terrible in matters of vision, he judges it supposable that the whole machinery consists in the same interposition of vapour, near the horizon, which so often gives to the sun and moon themselves the appearance of being coloured like blood: while, therefore, he still adheres to his opinion, that the colours ascribed to the Aurora are wholly extrinsic; and, to borrow the words of a scientific writer, “dependent upon the medium through which they are seen;” he is obliged to acknowledge, that it did appear to him, that the several columns, in truth, were yet variously coloured, of pale, but bright and pleasing colours, from a pale yellow to a pale pink and a pale violet, and this in the direction of their height or length,—a phenomenon which wholly excludes, as to those columns and their colours, the influence of an interposing medium, the effect of which would be perceived horizontally, and across the whole range of columns, or part of the range, and not [p390] vertically nor obliquely, according to the direction of each column, and within the limits of its sides. He confesses, also, that he did take notice of the pale, but bright violet-coloured column, distinguished also by its breadth and height, and situated to the west of north; but which column, he is surely right in adding, ultimately moved, with those next to it, toward the north. He distinctly and pointedly observed, at the same time, that the columns which stood due north were always white, and that the colours of the other columns appeared to strengthen in proportion as they were distant from the due north, either west or east; and he came to a fixed conclusion, while the phenomenon was under his eye, that, to his judgment at least, the strength of the fire, so to say, was in that point of the horizon which lay due north; and that there was a diminished brightness, with a proportionable increase of colour, to the right and left.

3. As to the separate movements of the columns, these, in the first place, were quick, and forced upon the eye, while the movement which gradually deployed or advanced the right wing of the celestial arm, and gradually contracted or withdrew the left, was slow, and perceived only by its results; and, in the second place, while these latter were parallel to the horizon, the former were either vertical, or in the oblique or curved direction of the bodies of the columns. But this motion consisted either in vibration, or in irregular but alternate projections and contractions; and the motion of each column, as has been said, was independent on that of others. Rarely, two adjoining columns were in motion at the same time. Almost always the moving column or columns were seen to start from the midst of others, which, for the time, were quiescent, but which had had their turn before, and would presently have it again. What eminently struck the writer, however, was the internal motion of that to which he cannot allow himself to give another name than that of the apparent luminous material of the columns. It seemed to him as if the volume of each column or coruscation was itself composed of parallel lines of luminous matter, arranged in the direction of the column, and every one of which was separately the subject of movements similar to those of the entire [p391] column, or entire bundle of lines; or as if the whole column were like the stalk of a plant, and filled with upright and luminous fibres, or like a skein of thread, drawn vertically or obliquely, and of which each particular thread should have particular motion in the direction of the whole; or (what he thought the comparison which proclaimed the very nature of the material of the columns) like fountains, or jets of water in the sun, in which every particular particle should be moving in the general direction of the jet, and yet each moving and shining for itself.

4. And this apparent nature of the substance of the columns or coruscations allies itself to what finally regards them; namely, their form. In this description, they have hitherto been spoken of by the name of columns or pillars; and the similitude, which that name suggests, is justified by the general figure of all the lower parts of their bodies, which, unlike the figure of rays of light on the one hand, and unlike that of flames of fire on the other, is a tall or lengthened object, of small comparative diameter or breadth, and of which the sides consist in right and nearly parallel lines. But, by the English, these columns, pillars, or coruscations, were anciently called so many burning spears; and they have also received the names of streamers and pencills[121], which two latter, in the history of appurtenants of war, signify long and narrow, and pointed banners or flags. Their similitude to flags is excusably fancied from their quick, capricious, and irregular motions, but their likening to “spears,” is that which may claim to be thought the most felicitous, as to the true conception of their form, as it is also that, the idea of which contributes to render the phenomenon the most fearful in the [p392] survey of ignorance and superstition. But the SPEAR-SHAPE is descriptive, because the coruscations, unlike rays of light, and unlike flames of fire, have neither the obtuse figure of a pyramid, nor the acute one of an obelisk, upright or reversed; but, after rising, through almost their whole height or length, of an equal or nearly equal diameter, terminate in a point which is formed, not of right lines, like the point of a dagger, but of curved lines, so as to form the rounded point of a spear, or that figure which is so familiar to botanists, as spoken of “spear-shaped” leaves. A ray of light, in whatever direction it is thrown, broadens, with right-lined sides, from the first point of its departure, to the furthest stretch of its projection; a flame of fire points uniformly upward, with the same regularity of form, excepting only as it is liable to undulation from the motion of the atmosphere; but, the columns, spears, streamers, or coruscations of the Aurora Borealis, have no form but that under review.

5. About half-past eleven o’clock, or nearer to twelve, several powerful columns shot toward the zenith; while, to the east of north, others were at once curved in their form, and projected in an angle of about thirty degrees with the horizon. But while, upon the west of north, the sky, above the ridge of clouds, was entirely clear, so that, there, the columns played upon a ground which formed a slight contrast with themselves, here, the clouds were still heavy, and the columns behind them appeared, in consequence, of a fiery red, deepening as they approached the outer edge of the whole display, at which was the sharpest outline, contrasted in the distinctest manner with the dark sky. The light upon that side called to the mind of the writer the “dunnest smoke of hell,” of Macbeth; while, as to its outer line, as seen from the east end of Pall-mall, the sides of the stone spire of St. Martin’s church, which rose to the eastward of it in the sky, were not more sharply defined; the dark intervening sky affording relief to both, though not equally so, upon account of the superior brightness of even the obscured columns. But, in taking leave of this columnar, or spear-like, and main part of the Aurora, it may be permitted to add, that, in those tapering forms, together with their motions, (though the comparison [p393] may still be sufficiently remote and fanciful,) it was easy to discern the origin of their having been resembled to weapons of war; that is, to the spears of an army, raised, lowered, laid at angles, and gleaming, glittering, crossing, and clashing in battle. And equally, too, from their quick, varied, and separate, and, as it were, whimsical motions, might they reasonably receive, in their milder displays, and in moments of more peaceful and cheerful association, the very different name of merry dancers!

III. Though, as will presently be found, it is the ruling idea of the present writer, that the Aurora Borealis is a single object, its appearance, when unmodified by the accompaniments of clouds or fogs, being merely that of its own coruscations, playing in the free expanse, yet for the purposes of analytical description and contemplation, it is here thought convenient to divide it into the three parts in which, through the temporary and accidental intervention of the coloured arch before-mentioned, it appeared in the night now in recollection. These three supposititious parts, then, may be understood as follows: first, the arch, belt, or band which was temporarily thrown across the heavens; second, the main body of the coruscations below the arch; and third, the coruscations above it, and in or near the zenith. It is of these only that it remains to speak.

It was not till about midnight that the zenith itself (which, however, formed the southern boundary to this part of the display) became the scene of a class of appearances, differing, indeed, essentially, in their forms, from those in the horizon, but closely connected, as it may be believed, with all the materials, and all the movements, of these latter. The zenith, at that hour, was cloudless, and resplendent with stars, and the air was freshened by a gentle breeze from the south. Between the earth and the stars above, there was no apparent intervening vapour, and nothing, therefore, save that atmospherical fluid which eludes the sight. But, through that medium, if such only it was, coruscations were now continually shooting, of which the appearance was, that it overspread this portion of the vault of heaven with an ever-shaken [p394] sheet of thin, gauzy, white, or yellowish-white, and nebulous, or cloudy matter. To the writer, this superior portion of the Aurora, though not the most lustrous, and, therefore, not the most striking of the whole, was yet by no means the least interesting and inviting to attention; for, here, as its appeared to him, the material and the manner of operation of the meteor were brought nearer to the eye, and exhibited with such a back-ground (the starry heavens) as gave a transparent view of the same matter as that, which, (as he thought,) seen vertically, and in the horizon, appeared comparatively, at least, opaque. The transparent medium, however, above, through which, even when shook or vibrating, and even when whitened with light, the stars were always seen in more or less brightness, was now in continual motion; or, meteoric light or matter was continually, though irregularly, and as it were, playfully shot through it. The illuminated substance (whether the atmospherical fluid, reflecting the light of the meteor, or the luminous body of the meteor itself, but probably the latter) was incessantly discovering itself in different places; now here, now there, now bright, now dim; but far less in a manner, or with an appearance, such to be compared with lightning, than with such as resembled the changes of ripple upon the bosom of a wide-spread water, when a variable breeze blows over it; first in one part, and then in another; and now in one direction, and the next moment in a second. Or, the canopy of heaven, at this time, might be said to be composed of a lace or gauze bearing a figured pattern, of which the fluttering motion continually changed the places, or hid or re-displayed the figures represented; or the picture, perhaps, will be more easily imagined, if conveyed in the very appropriate language of an older hand, which, referring to the appearances displayed in the zenith, remarks, “They break out in places where none were seen before, skimming briskly along the heavens; are suddenly extinguished, and leave behind a uniform dusky track. This, again, is brilliantly illuminated in the same manner, and as suddenly left a dull blank.” It should be understood, however, that, at least as seen by the present writer, in this mixture of white and blue, the blue was always the preponderating colour; or, in other words, [p395] that, the field of the unoccupied zenith always bore a large proportion to the space or spaces covered, however momentarily, with light, or with the luminous substance. For the rest, the particular mentioned in the passage which has now been quoted, namely, that of the residue of a dusky track, after the departure of the white light, did not, if it was there, attract the attention of the present writer, upon the late occasion; but he certainly, in many instances, remarked the return of the light to the places in which it had been visible before; and this feature, either with or without that of the continuance of a dusky track, is possibly capable of adding some support to the general opinion which he conceived at the moment, which all subsequent information has still allowed him to retain, and of which he proposes to make further use; namely, that the appearances in the zenith are only extended exhibitions of the luminous phenomena in the horizon, or their southern extremities, or the tops of columns projected from the northward. He thought that, in the zenith, he saw the same material, parcelled out, attenuated or diluted, spread thin, and, as it were, shown with greater transparency, with that which, in thicker volume, with more accumulated strength, intenser light, with more solid body, and withal behind a denser mass of atmospherical vapour, arose, and glowed, and sometimes gloomed, in the horizon. But, be this as it may, it is, perhaps, this upper part of the exhibition, in which the lights or streamers seem to interweave, or cross and recross each other, to dance in and out of the area, and to indulge in motions still more capricious or anomalous than is probably the real fact; it is, perhaps, this upper part which has alternated, as before recalled to view, the names and similitudes of spears, gleaming, glittering, interposing and clashing as in battle, and of merry dancers, the latter the gayer comparison of the dancing north.

IV. The Aurora continued to fix the attention of the writer till between twelve and one o’clock of the morning of the 26th; and he presumes that it continued visible till the superior light of the rising day eclipsed its glory. The 26th was warm, but oppressed with fog, through which the sun broke [p396] only at intervals; and, between four and five o’clock in the evening, a small but steady rain commenced, and continued, or rather increased in heaviness, till after midnight. Between eleven and twelve, while it still rained, the writer, on looking at the sky, which was covered with a uniform mass of clouds, the writer observed, from point to point, over the northern and southern hemispheres, a glow of ruddy light, which he suspected, and still suspects, to have been produced by the light of the continued Aurora, reflected by the vapour. He took the opinion of a fellow-traveller, which coincided with his own; but it has not come to his knowledge that any individual, himself and his companion excepted, has formed a similar conjecture—nor, indeed, is it impossible that it was no more than the light of the hidden moon. The night of the 27th was star-light, though with fog near the surface; and there was then no appearance of an Aurora. The night of the 28th was remarkably clear, and there was still no return of the Aurora. The morning of the 29th was warm, with continued and heavy rain; but, after this, there succeeded a week or more of clear and dry weather; and these united particulars close the history of the phenomenon, as far as belong to the personal observation of the writer. The direction of the winds, and the state of the barometer and thermometer, were of the same general description, during many days subsequent to the appearance of the Aurora on the 25th, as that which had belonged to them from the 20th, and almost for many days before, and of which the particulars have been stated above; and these remarks may merit record, as connected with the question of the ordinary duration of the Aurora, and of the weather by which it may be thought produced, or which it may be thought to bring. In many instances, it has been observed, even in its splendour, and even in southern latitudes, for several nights in succession; and an influence upon the weather has likewise been expected from its appearance. Upon this occasion, there was no remarkable change in the latter till the night of the fourteenth day after the Aurora (October 10th), when there occurred a violent gale of wind from the south-west, accompanied with loud thunder, and the most vivid lightning; subsequently to which, as usual, [p397] the air, for a few days, was felt to be cooler than before. It has been said, that a gale of wind, from the south-west, is always to be looked for within twenty-four hours after the Aurora.

V. The astronomical writer, already more than once mentioned, speaking of the Aurora of the 25th of September, describes it as “that mysterious phenomenon;” and Mr. Adams, the meteorological correspondent of the publication referred to, records it as, “perhaps, as conspicuous as any that has ever been seen in England[122];” so that, assuming these impressions in both instances to be well founded, neither the present state of science upon the one hand, nor the specimen of the phenomenon upon the other, are such as to discourage either of the objects of the remainder of these pages; namely, the one to contribute, as fully as possible, to the completion of a faithful account of the Aurora, as seen in London upon the late occasion, by uniting, and by analysing the descriptions that have caught already the eye of the writer; and the other, to correct, and to enlarge if it should be practicable, the natural history of this description of meteor, by the comparison of what has hitherto been usually written upon the subject, either descriptively or philosophically, as well with the results of the late actual observations, as with the several facts or opinions more anciently registered. According to some, the interval which had elapsed, since an equal or a superior display of this phenomenon was witnessed in London, is twenty-four years, and, according to others, thirty-six; nor is the scanty list of examples scientifically recorded, at all inconsistent, from the wide separation, as well as irregularity of its dates, with such a view of the infrequency and uncertainty of any considerable appearance in other southern latitudes. The opportunity, therefore, now offered, ought not, perhaps, to be neglected; and the writer is not wholly without the prospect, that, upon a re-examination, both of opinions and facts, some safe and inevitable conclusions may be elicited, both as to the history and the theory of the meteor, hitherto, the one hastily received, [p398] and the other negligently overlooked, or unwarrantably contradicted. The paragraphs, then, which immediately follow, will connect and review the accounts of the writer’s fellow-observer of the 25th of September; while those which succeed will be devoted to a brief enumeration of statements already recorded in books; though, to a certain extent, both these paths will involve us in mixed investigations, historical and theoretical.

1. “It first appeared,” says Mr. Adams, who dates from Edmonton, in Middlesex, “about eight o’clock in the evening, as a strong white light, much resembling the approach of sunrise; and so continued till a short time after eleven, when a considerable number of dark clouds collected toward the north and north-west, and several streaks of a pale white light were seen proceeding from the clouds, and reaching nearly to the zenith. But the most remarkable part of the phenomenon was exhibited in a N.N.E. direction, where, at about 30° above the horizon, was a small dense cloud, above which was a broad streak curved, and about 10° in length, varying in colour from a deep copper hue to a red.” “From this,” continues Mr. Adams, “the coruscations were incessant, and remarkably bright, darting frequently to the zenith, where they were frequently crossed by others equally bright and numerous, proceeding from the west toward the east.”

2. The astronomical writer, who dates from Deptford, describes the phenomenon as commencing at a quarter past eight o’clock, and travelling, from west and north-west, to north-east; and the streaks, or streamers, or, as he denominates them, the flashes, “converging to the zenith,” and “coruscating with great velocity.” He also particularises the peculiar appearance of “a streak or column of a phosphorescent violet tinge;” and adds, “The two red beams of light, seen in the easterly and westerly direction [directions], were diametrically opposite to each other, and ninety degrees distant from the violet light (by far the most luminous, though comparatively quiescent) which was to the west of north, and therefore could not be far from the magnetic meridian, which would be crossed at right angles by a line joining the places of the red beams. The southern edges of these were accurately defined, not blending with the adjacent azure, but most distinct from it, and [p399] perpendicular to the horizon.” Finally, this gentleman speaks of the general luminous aspect, as “much resembling the tail of a comet,” and says, that Ursa Major, and other stars, were visible through its medium; that three meteoric stars also appeared, during the phenomenon, in the east and north-east; and that the entire horizon was obscured by dark, heavy clouds, from three to five degrees in height[123].

3. Besides these observers, two or three others, if not many more, less scientific, perhaps, but yet entitled to attention, have communicated to different newspapers their accounts of the same phenomena. “The metropolis,” says one of these, “was surprised on Tuesday night by a brilliant display of Northern Lights, which but very seldom stray so far south. The last which we beheld in London were in the autumn of 1804, about the end of September, or beginning of October; and the fancied prodigy filled all the superstitious heads, at the time, with fearful prognostics, and loosened the tongues of a hundred prophets. The spectacle, then, was truly magnificent. On Tuesday night (the 25th) the northern parts of the heavens displayed, about eleven o’clock, so ruddy a blaze, as to appear like the reflection of a mighty conflagration. An hour later, the red hue was gone; but the whole horizon, from the north to the east, was lined with a thin cloud, from which the rays of light rolled, or sudden rays flashed up, and as suddenly vanished, to appear in a different part.” “At about half past eleven o’clock,” says a second, “my attention was attracted to a singular appearance of light and streakiness in the sky. I observed it for nearly two hours. The sky, to the north, was obscured, for about fifteen degrees above the horizon, by a dense stratum of black clouds; from the upper edge of this, the light became first apparent, extending from nearly north-east to north-west, exceeding considerably in power that arising from the moon just previous to its rising. From this broad stratum of pale yellowish light shot beautiful pencils, of a luminous, hazy appearance, up to the very zenith, changing momentarily in length and intensity. During this period, the wind blew gently from the south; and I frequently observed, that when it freshened [p400] a little, the Aurora Borealis became more brilliant in its appearance, sending beautiful coruscations of light, in rapid succession, towards the zenith, and frequently passing that point ten or fifteen degrees to the southward. I have been assured, by those who are well acquainted with this beautiful phenomenon, that they have not seen any appearance of it equal in brilliancy and beauty to this, for upwards of six and thirty years.” “Last night,” says a third, “we were favoured with that interesting phenomenon, the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Twilight, which so often amuses and cheers our neighbours in the north, but seldom, I believe, is seen in our latitude. It was without those varied colours,” adds this writer, “which cause it to be a grand spectacle in those regions.” “Not far from the horizon,” he adds, “in the northern hemisphere, were transparent bodies of light, eclipsing the brightness of the stars, which, however, were perceptible through it. From hence, beams of light, varying in degrees of brightness and breadth, shot up towards the zenith; here streamers of light flew from the east to the west, and from west to east. The southern hemisphere was cloudless, the stars shining with brilliancy. By the light of this phenomenon, I could discern the time of night, which was between eleven and twelve, as well as other objects, as they appear on a moon-light night, when the moon is obscured by clouds.” “The sky in the north,” we are told by the fourth, “appeared as if a light shone from behind some dark masses of clouds. As I approached Hampstead, the silvery light was gradually tinged with rosy spiral streams, like those which sometimes precede the rising and follow the setting sun. These spiral red streaks did not appear to move quickly; but they were subsequently followed by the merry dancers, which fully maintained the character bestowed upon them by our northern neighbours. After passing through Hampstead, I crossed the heath, and came down what is called North-end Hill, to Golder’s Green, Hendon. When you arrive at the foot of the hill, you enter upon the open part of Golder’s Green, where you have a clear and unobstructed view of the sky from west to north. I never shall forget the grandeur of the scene which awaited me there. A continuous border of dark cloud skirted the horizon completely from west to north, whilst [p401] from behind it, incessantly and rapidly shot up the most beautiful coruscations of white light, which, being relieved by the dark border, added double brilliancy to the ever-shifting scene.”

VI. But, after transcribing these respective accounts, it may be permitted, for the purpose of uniting them with that submitted in the preceding pages, to remark,

1. That the account by Mr, Adams, of the appearance worn by the Aurora at an early hour in the evening, is, no doubt, entirely correct; and that it is easy to understand, from this description of that early appearance, why little observation was attracted to the phenomenon till about eleven o’clock at night, the time assigned, as well in this, as in all the other accounts, for the commencement of the phenomenon.

2. That the “streaks of a pale white light,” which Mr. Adams describes as proceeding, a short time after eleven, “from the clouds,” must be understood, as stated by the writer last quoted, as proceeding “from behind the clouds;” that, when the astronomical writer at Deptford speaks of Ursa Major and other stars being seen through the Aurora, it must be recollected, that, perhaps, this remark should apply to the medium of the thin and shifting lights in or near the zenith; and,

3. That it is with respect to the “broad streak, curved,” of Mr. Adams; the “two red beams of light,” of the astronomical observer at Deptford; and the “arch” of the present description, that the principal, if not only discordance obtains. Neither of the other three writers appears to have seen any thing, whether of one “broad streak, curved,” and “varying in colour from a deep copper hue to a red,” or of “two red beams,” as spoken by the writer at Deptford; while, in each of the three accounts in which that part of the phenomenon is actually referred to, the descriptions are materially dissimilar:—

1. The writer at Edmonton mentions only a single streak, while the writer at Deptford speaks of two.

2. The writer at Edmonton describes his single streak as curved, while the writer at Deptford says nothing of curvature; and, in describing the position of the beams as “perpendicular to the horizon,” may seem to leave no curvature to be understood. [p402]

3. The writer at Edmonton seems to lift his “broad curved streak” much above the horizon; for he first places a small dense cloud 30° above the horizon, and, then, his broad streak above the cloud; thus describing a curve of which the situation was near the zenith, while the writer at Deptford is describing “two red beams,” standing perpendicularly to the horizon.

4. The writer at Edmonton places his “broad streak, curved,” “in a N.N.E. direction;” while the writer at Deptford records “two red beams of light, seen in the easterly and westerly direction.” Lastly,

5. The writer at Edmonton seems to make coruscations, “incessant and remarkably bright,” dart from his “broad streak, curved;” while the writer at Deptford seems only anxious to place his “two red beams,” as perpendicular pillars, standing on either side of the magnetic meridian.

VII. And, from the whole of this, from the total silence of four accounts, and from the extreme discordance of the other three, the present writer presumes to draw the following inferences, including that of the accuracy of his own original statement:

1. That the two perpendicular red beams of light, of the writer at Deptford, should be joined with broad curved streaks of a deep copper, or red hue, of the writer at Edmonton, to complete the arch which has been spoken of in the foregoing pages.

2. That this arch, or curved streak, with its feet east and west, sent forth no coruscations itself; but that the coruscations rose beneath it, and passed above it.

3. That it was described upon the clouds only; was no part of the Aurora; and, from its connexion with the clouds only, had an evanescence which, on the one hand, was the cause of the various descriptions, and, on the other, of no descriptions at all. The present writer observed this part of the phenomenon from its beginning to its ending. He saw it rise in the west, extend itself from the north, and descend in the east; and he thinks it reasonable to ascribe the variations concerning it, in the coincident narratives, to the different points of time to which alone they really refer. The writers at Edmonton [p403] and Deptford seem to have had their attention fixed upon it at different epochs of its progress; and all the four other writers, who have been cited, seem to speak of a time subsequent to its disappearance. The present writer does not recollect the small cloud below it, spoken of by Mr. Adams; but he well remembers the clouds above it, and along and near the northern edge of which it seems to be formed. He does not recollect seeing its definite southern outline contrasted with the azure sky; but he well remembers seeing that outline contrasted with the dark clouds above it, or to its southward; and also the contrast of its definite, northern outline, as contrasted with the azure sky beneath.

VIII. It is necessary to take notice, also, of what is said above, by the astronomical observer at Deptford, as to the “flashes converging to the zenith,” and, further, of the omission, both by this writer and by Mr. Adams, to speak of the curved beam, streamer, or coruscation, to the east of north, as described above. The whole veracity of the foregoing description depends upon the denial of a uniform convergence of the streamers, pillars, columns, or coruscations toward the zenith; nor was it, in all probability, the intention of the writer at Deptford, to assert any such convergence, but only to speak of those coruscations, or shifting lights, in the zenith, which are described by Mr. Adams as crossing each other from east to west. It is remarkable, at the same time, that neither the one nor the other of these writers have mentioned that direct reverse of convergence which marked the general figure and arrangement of the streamers or columns of the Aurora, and which was so opposite to what would have been given to it by the phenomenon of convergence. Indeed, the violent curve of the extreme column to the N. E. or N. N. E., shrouded, too, as that column was with a body of dense vapour through which its light appeared of a deep and dull red colour, might make the description of this itself answer to the “broad streak, curved,” of Mr. Adams, if we were not certain, from other particulars mentioned, that Mr. Adams really refers to the curve which formed part of the arch. For the rest, no mention of the real directions of the several columns having been made by any observer of the Aurora of the 25th [p404] of September but himself, and especially none of the outward curve of the easternmost column, it is satisfactory to the writer to have found an account of an appearance similar to this last, in an Aurora of which he will presently have occasion to speak.

IX. Finally, there is an observation to be made upon that part of the description, by the second correspondent of the newspapers, where it is said, that during the appearance of the coruscations in the zenith, “the wind blew gently from the south,” and the spectator “frequently observed, that when it freshened a little, the Aurora Borealis became more brilliant in its appearance;” to which it may also seem the writer’s intention to add,—“sending beautiful coruscations of light, in rapid succession toward the zenith, and frequently passing that point, ten or fifteen degrees to the southward.” Now the reality of any dependence of the light and motion of the Aurora upon the freshening of the breeze, would seem too strongly to affect the question of the nature and action of the auroral matter, to be admitted without cautious examination. In truth, what was it that constituted the luminous matter which we saw in the zenith? The stars were visible through it. But for luminous appearances that flew or skimmed along the heavens, we should have said, that the latter were clear, and that there was nothing but the purest atmosphere between the earth and the heavens. Was it, then, the atmospherical matter which was thus illuminated, and which, being ruffled by the breeze, can be supposed to have really exhibited the appearances described by this writer, or, was it not, rather, illuminated auroral matter, which was shot through the atmosphere; and, if this last, how are we to understand that its brilliance, and still less the frequency and vigour of its coruscations, could have been affected by the freshening of the breeze?

X. But, taking, now, a final leave of the description of the Aurora of the 25th of September, and of the observations specially suggested by it, let us here examine the several particulars which are commonly offered as part, at least, of its true history; an undertaking, for the greater convenience of which the account given in a modern work of much and [p405] deserved reputation, shall be quoted and considered sentence by sentence, as follows:

1. “AURORA BOREALIS, Northern Light, or Streamers; a kind of meteor, appearing in the Northern part of the heavens, mostly in the winter time, and in frosty weather.

2. “It is in the Arctic regions that it appears in perfection, particularly during the solstice.

3. “In the Shetland Islands, the Merry Dancers, as they are called, are the constant attendants of clear evenings, and prove great reliefs amidst the gloom of the long winter nights.

4. “They commonly appear at twilight, near the horizon, of a dun colour, approaching to yellow; sometimes continuing in that state, for several hours, without any sensible motion, after which they break out into streams of stronger light, spreading into columns, and altering slowly into ten thousand different shapes, varying their colours from all the tints of yellow to the obscurest russet.

5. “They often cover the whole hemisphere, and then make the most brilliant appearance.

6. “Their motions, at these times, are most amazingly quick, and they astonish the spectators with the rapid change of their form.

7. “They break out in places where none were seen before, skimming briskly along the heavens; are suddenly extinguished, and leave behind a uniform dusky track.

8. “This again is brilliantly illuminated in the same manner, and as suddenly left a dull blank.

9. “In certain nights, they assume the appearance of vast columns; on one side of the deepest yellow, on the other, declining away till it becomes undistinguished from the sky.

10. “They have generally a tremulous motion from end to end, which continues till the whole vanishes.

11. “In a word, we, who only see the extremities of these northern phenomena, have but a faint idea of their splendour and their motions.

12. “According to the state of the atmosphere, they differ in colour.

13. “They often put on the colour of blood, and then make a most dreadful appearance[124].” [p406]

1. Now, with respect to the first and second of the sentences here transcribed, there seems reason to doubt the accuracy of the account which almost limits the appearances of the Aurora to the “winter time,” to “frosty weather,” and especially to the winter “solstice.” The frequency with which the season approaching to Christmas, or that of the winter solstice, is distinguished by the occurrence of weather peculiarly mild, insomuch that, almost every year, the period is marked by observations upon what is annually called the extraordinary and unseasonable genialness of the weather, cowslips blooming, leaves budding, and birds building their nests; this frequency of a mild temperature of the air about the period of the winter solstice, may justify, even under a general view, a doubt of the accuracy with which, as things of course, the winter solstice, and frosty weather, are spoken of as arriving in conjunction. But, that the appearance of the Aurora Borealis is not peculiar, either to the occurrence of frosty weather, or to the period of the winter solstice, whether the two latter phenomena are related or otherwise, seems probable, as well from the mildness of the weather at the late appearance, as from the various seasons of the year in which the few others described in our books are recorded to have presented themselves. The earliest mentioned was seen in London in the year 1560, on the 30th day of January. The next was in 1564, on the 7th of October. The next, in 1574, on the 14th and 15th of November. The two next, observed in Brabant, in 1575, on the 25th of February, and 28th of September. The next, at Wurtemburg, as we are assured by Meestlin, seven times, in the year 1580. The next, in an extraordinary manner, in the months of April and September, 1581; and in a less degree, at some other places, in the same year. The next, observed all over France, in 1621, on the 2nd of September. The next in 1707,and 1708, during which two years the Aurora was witnessed five times. The next, in the month of March, in 1715–16. The next, in 1737, on the 16th of December; that seen in London in 1791, of the month of which the writer is uninformed; another in 1803, or 1804, at the latter of September, or the beginning of October; and this, of 1827, on the 25th of September. But, from these statements, it is now seen, that, [p407] exclusive of appearances of the Aurora in respect of which the month is not particularised, eight of the different months of the year occur by name; that is to say, the months of September, October, November, and December, January, February, March, and April; leaving only four months (May, June, July, and August, the identical summer-months of the Polar regions, or months during which the sun visits the Polar horizon!) hitherto undistinguished by the phenomenon of the Aurora, and almost establishing, as the season of its occurrence, not the middle point of the winter solstice, but the whole period extending, in general terms, from the autumnal equinox to the vernal, beginning at or before the first, and ending at or after the last; or, what may be called the entire winter of the northern hemisphere, or the period during which the sun’s course is to the southward of the tropic of Cancer; a deduction from the scanty data offered by such archives of the phenomenon as we possess, not, perhaps, of trifling importance toward the establishment of the true theory of the cause, as well as of the purpose of its being.

2. The third sentence, where it describes the Aurora Borealis as the constant attendant of clear evenings in the Shetland Islands, and thereby a great relief to the gloom of the long winter-nights, is probably tainted with errors in regard to the phenomenon, such as affect its whole history and philosophy. The suggestion has just been hazarded above, that at least considerable displays of the Aurora are probably almost as rare, even in the Arctic regions, as in climates further south; and the truth of this persuasion, as the writer anticipates, will fully appear below. In the sentence now referred to, the word “constant” should, at least, give way to “frequent,” if not to “often;” and a distinction should be allowed for, between those feeble appearances which alone, it may be suspected, are even often beheld in the Shetland Islands, and those extraordinary displays which make themselves visible to their southward.

3. The fourth of the above sentences, in which the Aurora is said to appear commonly at twilight, will have been seen to agree with the time assigned for the commencement of the Aurora in the late example; and this, when coupled with the [p408] observation in the third, that, in the Shetland Islands, it is the constant attendant of clear evenings, will seem to suggest, what, indeed, will probably be easily agreed to, that the Aurora, in itself, is peculiar neither to clear evenings nor to evenings at all; but is in activity during the twenty-four hours, or without intermission; though, to be visible to human eyes, first, the atmosphere must be dark, and, secondly, it must be more or less clear. It may also be thought apparent, from the terms of the twelfth and thirteenth sentences, that too much has not been said by the present writer, of the degree in which the peculiar spectacle, upon each separate occasion, depends, not alone of the proper and really uniform features of the Aurora itself, but also of the atmosphere through which it is seen, with the appearance of which its own appearance is combined; and of the consequent value of a careful separation of the real phenomena of the Aurora, from the adventitious phenomena of the intervening and surrounding atmosphere. That the colours which, whether visibly connected with the atmosphere or otherwise, are displayed during the appearance of the Aurora Borealis, are wholly derived from the atmospherical medium through which we behold it, and that the Aurora itself exhibits only a pure white light, is what the writer greatly inclines to suspect, and what may seem to be rendered still more credible by that which is reported by those who have obtained a partial glimpse of the Aurora Australis, or corresponding phenomenon of the south. This is described, by Mr. Forster, who sailed round the world with Captain Cook, as consisting in “long columns of clear white light;” but the whiteness, in the eyes of the narrator, seemed to establish a difference, instead of a similitude, between the Auroræ Australis and Borealis, Mr. F. wholly overlooking the explanation which his own account supplies! “These columns,” says he, “though in most respects similar to the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) of our hemisphere, yet differed from them in being always of a whitish colour, whereas ours assume various tints, especially those of a fiery or purple hue. The sky was generally clear when they appeared, and the air sharp and cold, the thermometer standing at the freezing point.” Now this text is its own commentary. The [p409] Aurora could not have been seen if the sky had not been more or less clear. But the sky was very clear; and this because the weather was severely frosty. The thermometer “was standing at the freezing point.” The weather was settled frosty, and therefore settled clear; for the Aurora appeared for “several following nights.” The atmosphere, therefore, was clear; there was neither cloud nor fog, and thence the whiteness of the Aurora. But these views of the Aurora Australis were partial occurrences, and were characterised, as we must conclude, by the state of the atmosphere at a particular conjuncture, or at a particular season of the year. In point of fact, the Aurora was seen on the 16th of February, 1773, in latitude 58° S. This was the beginning of the Australian winter, and it might be a very cold, and therefore a very clear beginning. But the atmosphere of the southern half of the globe is not always thus translucent; and when it is otherwise, we may depend upon it that the columns of its Aurora “assume various colours; especially those of a fiery and purple hue,” more or less like our own. A friend of the present writer was in the same latitude (58° 12′ S.) in the month of March, a few years since; and, upon asking that gentleman whether he had ever beheld an Aurora in the Southern Hemisphere, his answer was in the negative. The season of his visit, however, was a month later in the southern winter than the visit of Messrs. Cook and Forster; the weather was thick and sleety; it was unfavourable to any view of an Aurora at all; but, had the phenomenon happened to present itself, its appearance, we may believe, would not have presented that of a uniform, clear, white light.

4. In the fourth and sixth sentences, what is said of “change of shape,” and “change of form,” is of a nature exceedingly to mislead such as, never having themselves witnessed the phenomenon, may desire either to figure it to their imagination, or to reason upon its appearances. In reality, there is no such change of shape or form as the words naturally suggest to our ideas; the forms, under all changes, are still linear; and the actual changes, as to form, are limited to such changes only as can be produced with the single material of lines, lengthened, shortened, varied in their direction, and now fixed, now shaken, now darting; and now joined in rapid and intermingling motion. [p410] Add, that these lines are luminous, and varied in colour from white to yellow, red, and crimson, and, sometimes, perhaps, to purple and to violet; that they play, in the lower heavens in a field of light, and in the upper over a sky of blue; and the picture of the Aurora Borealis is well nigh complete. The observation in the ninth sentence, that the vast columns, of which, upon some occasions, the Aurora displays the forms, are of a deep yellow upon one side, which, upon the other, fades gradually into that of the sky, is to be understood, as expressing, that, as in the late example, the outer edges of the columns, or those next the dark or unillumined portion of the horizon, are sharp and strongly defined; while the inner ones are less distinguished from the general field of light in which they stand; and which distinction, after all, is but a delusion of the eye, which more readily distinguishes the variation of colour in the outer edge, which is so strongly relieved by the dark and colder-coloured part of the sky, than the colour of the inner part and edge of the column, which, more or less, approaches that of the ground behind it.

5. Sentences seven and eight appear to the present writer to convey the most accurate description possible, of the appearance of the Aurora in the zenith. The “dusky track,” which remains after the lights which have enlivened it are extinguished, and in which they are so often seen again, may seem to attest the justice of his opinion, that these appearances in the zenith are no other than the far-projected tops of the columns which have their bases in, or rather below, the horizon; tops which, while they fill the southern half of the zenith, to the view of spectators under our parallel, must gradually descend toward the horizon, in the eyes of such as behold them further and still further to the south; till, like the topmast of a receding ship, they first scarcely remain discoverable above the convexity of the surface intervening, and finally dip and sink beneath it. But, upon this assumption, the appearance, and therefore office, of the Aurora Borealis, must be conceived as extending far to the southward of even our own island; and the statement, as in the eleventh sentence, becomes more or less inaccurate, that “only the extremities of these northern phenomena” are witnessed by ourselves. In reality we are [p411] ourselves inhabitants of the Northern hemisphere; and the relationship of the Aurora to the wants of the whole hemisphere is more extended, perhaps, than we have commonly imagined. It is even a contradiction to say, as in the eleventh sentence, that we see only the extremities, that is, the Southern extremities of these Northern phenomena, after having said, in the fifth sentence, that “they often cover the whole heavens, and then make the most brilliant appearance;” unless, indeed, in both of these remarks reference is made to the spectacle beheld under more Northerly parallels, a reference which is further suggested, together with their apparent origin, in the terms of a description by Gmelin, to be cited below, of the Aurora as beheld upon the coasts of the Icy Sea; If the Aurora, there, or upon the banks of the Lena or Yenesei, is seen to rise in the north, but yet to stretch itself over the whole hemisphere, it must follow, that its “extremities,” that is, its southern extremities, so far from being all that is seen in these situations, are really projected, on those occasions, so far to the southward, as to escape the ken of our northern optics; a fact of which the explanation must be familiar, inasmuch as, owing to the convexity of the surface of the globe, the horizon of every part is narrowly bounded, whether upon the South or upon the North; whence it results, that any celestial, or even atmospherical appearance, stretching only a little way beyond us to the Southward, or toward the East, or toward the West, must soon reach the horizon upon either of those sides, and thus cover all that, to the eye of any individual, is visible of the “whole hemisphere.”

6. But the description, by Gmelin, of the Aurora, as seen upon the shores of the Icy Sea, and more than all, the simplicity with which the naturalist is disposed to fix its birth-place in that precise interval of the earth’s surface which divides the mouth of the river Yenesei from that of the river Lena, in the North-east of Asia, (a spot so far to the North-eastward, too, of our own!) while it may possibly explain the origin or bearing of remarks, that it “sometimes covers the whole hemisphere, and then makes the most brilliant appearance,” will also afford something of an answer to such as, with the writer quoted above, seeking to connect the Aurora Borealis with the [p412] Magnetic Pole, would discover its same birth-place, or focus, in the North-west, or nearer to the North-west of America, than to the North-east of Asia! It may furnish a reply, also, to Gmelin himself, who, though he tells us that, even upon the banks of the Lena and Yenesei, the Aurora is still seen to rise to the North or North-east of those situations, yet imagines those very banks to be its “real birth-place;” for is it not plain, in the meantime, and this from the very statement of the author, that, travel as far northward, or north-eastward, as we will, the birth-place of the Aurora still retires from our feet; that, even upon the shores of the Icy Sea, the joyous phantom is still to our Northward, or North-east, and that we may reasonably conclude, that even a voyage upon that sea would not carry us to the cradle in pursuit; that, in short, at the North Pole, we should still behold it rise in the North, or the North-east, or the North-west; that we might sail down the Western Hemisphere, and yet only discover, that the Aurora was now in the North behind our backs, as it had been before in the North before our faces; and that, in short, so long as we do but admit its existence in the North, the particular soil or sea is best described in the most general terms:—

“In Nova Zembla, or the Lord knows where!”

The search, too, for the paternal hearth of the Aurora Borealis in any particular division of the Northern Hemisphere, and especially the attempt to find it at the Magnetic or Electric Pole, is, perhaps, so much the more hopeless, after ascertaining, as above, that each hemisphere has its Aurora; and after concluding, as we may have been led to conclude with reason, that each Aurora, other things equal, resembles the other! What is remarkable, also, is that, in the Southern Hemisphere, as well as, according to Gmelin, in the Northern, it is to the Eastward, or to the East of North, that the Aurora has its apparent focus. “A beautiful phenomenon,” says Mr. Forster, (Feb. 17, 1773, lat. 58° S.) “had been observed during the preceding night, which appeared again this and several following nights. It consisted of long columns of white light, shooting up from the horizon to the eastward, almost to the zenith, and gradually spreading over the whole southern part of the sky. These columns are gradually bent sideways [p413] at their upper extremities; and, though in most respects similar to the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) of our hemisphere, yet differed from them in being always of a whitish colour; whereas ours assume various colours, especially these of a fiery or purple-hue. The sky was generally clear when they appeared, and the air sharp and cold; the thermometer standing at the freezing point.” This occasional bending of the columns, “sideways at their upper extremities,” instead of uniform convergence toward the zenith, observed by Mr. Forster in the Aurora of the South, is plainly the same peculiarity which was recently witnessed in London, in the Aurora of the North, and a circumstance which, in whatever way explained, assists in the identification of the natures of the two phenomena; and, if we are still to hesitate, upon account of the whiter light of that of the South, let us believe that particular to originate in some peculiar constitution of the Southern atmosphere, from which, in one way or another, not here to be discussed, the cause of the difference may offer itself. But Gmelin’s account of the Aurora of the North, to which the attention of the reader has already been called, is that which is here required to follow. It is to serve to illustrate, as will be remembered, much of the foregoing: “This Northern Light,” says that author, “begins with the rising of single light pillars in the North, and almost at the same time in the North-east, which, gradually increasing, fill a large space in the heavens, rush about, from place to place, with incredible velocity, and finally almost cover the whole sky, up to the zenith: the streams are then seen meeting together in the zenith, where they produce an appearance as if a vast tent was expanded in the heavens, glittering with gold, rubies, and sapphires. A more beautiful spectacle cannot be described; but whoever should witness such a Northern Light for the first time, could not behold it without terror; for, however beautiful the illumination may be, it is attended, as I have learned from the relation of many persons, with a hissing, crackling, and rushing noise, throughout the air, as if the largest fireworks were playing off. To describe what they then hear, they make use of the expression, ‘Spolochi chodjat;’ that is, ‘The furious army is passing!’ The hunters, who, upon the confines of the [p414] Icy Sea, follow the chase of the blue and white foxes, are often overtaken in their excursions by the Northern Light; and, upon this occurrence, their dogs are so much frightened, that they will not move, but cower obstinately upon the ground till the noise is over. The weather, after the appearance of the Northern Light, is usually clear and calm. I have heard these accounts, not from one person only, but from many of those who have spent several years in these very Northerly regions, and inhabited different countries from the Yenesei to the Lena, so that no doubt of its truth can remain; for here seems to be the real birth-place of the Aurora Borealis.”

8. Upon this statement itself, it is only needful to remark, that the rising of the pillars in the North-east, or to the East of North, rather than to the North-west, or West of North, almost at the same time with their first appearance in the North, is not, perhaps, even as seen between the Lena and Yenesei, so uniformly the case as M. Gmelin may have been led to believe; and that, at all events, as above described, the progress of the late display, observed in London, was, first from North to West, and afterward from West to East; the North being always the centre, or always light, while the West and East were changed. The covering of the whole sky, and the splendour of the scene produced, have been the subject of previous remark; and the observation, “that the streams (previously called pillars) are then seen meeting together in the zenith,” entirely corroborates what the present writer has said of the nature of the lights seen skimming across the zenith, and across each other, and the deduction which he has thence made, that the luminous appearances in the zenith are the summits of those very pillars of which the bases are on or below the horizon. The clear and calm weather which, on the shores of the Icy Sea, commonly follows the appearance of the Aurora is, in some degree, in concord with the phenomena of its recent appearance in London; where, without any material change in the temperature, a succession of clear, calm, and bright days supervened, within a day or two of the Aurora. As to the hissing, crackling, or rushing noise, which is said to accompany the Aurora in the more northern regions, and which has sometimes been compared to that of the furling and [p415] unfurling of flags, there is nothing difficult, (knowing what we do of the noise of winds and of thunder,) in admitting its probability, unless what may arise from the consideration, that the noise might, or might not, be expected to be heard, where-ever the phenomenon is to be seen. But the most striking and important truth, communicated in the foregoing account, is that which we cannot but rigorously infer from the collective testimony of two very distinct descriptions, which is afforded in two of the concluding sentences. It consists in that real infrequency, as well in the Northern, as in the Southern Hemisphere, of the appearance of the Aurora; an infrequency the knowledge of which is so essential to the true history of the phenomenon, and therefore to its true philosophy, and consequently to much of the history and philosophy of nature at large;—an infrequency which the present writer has given notice of above, as a proposition for which, in dissent from all received authorities, he will contend; and upon the opposite account of which matter, in the general account quoted, he has already requested the reader to suspend his judgment. It is obvious that, as a natural phenomenon, an Aurora Borealis, which, though constantly experienced in the more Northerly regions, is but rarely observed in the more Southern; that is, an Aurora Borealis which, though familiar to the Samoiede, the Laplander, and even the Shetlander, is an extraordinary, and a terrific, or at least a marvellous event, to the Italian, the Frenchman, and even to the Englishman; it is obvious, that such an Aurora Borealis, constant in its occurrence a little further to the Northward, and almost the solitary spectacle of a generation a little further to the South, is, as a natural phenomenon, a very different thing from an Aurora Borealis which, though far enough to the South, sufficiently frequent in comparatively trivial magnitudes and lustre, is seen, either in the South or in the North, in its greatness, and in its splendour, but yet rarely, and with, perhaps, almost equal rareness; it is obvious that, as natural phenomena, and not less so as sights connected by mankind with their own fortunes, the two things now described are exceedingly unlike as matter of history, and equally so as matter of philosophy. If we are simply to record the occurrence, it is one thing to speak of a phenomenon [p416] which, in the South, is seen only at long intervals, while it is a “constant attendant” in the North; and another thing to speak of that which, whether in the South or in the North, is equally rare, and equally out of the “constant” course of nature. If we are to write the history of nature, it is one thing to relate, that such phenomena, or rather others, infinitely more splendid, more terrific, or more marvellous, than that which was witnessed in London, in the month of September in this year, or in the same month some three-and-twenty years ago, or else some six-and-thirty, and, to judge by experience, is not to be looked for, in the same city, during twenty or thirty years again;—it is one thing to relate that, in the Shetland Islands, such a spectacle is a “constant attendant of clear evenings,” and another thing to relate, that though, perhaps, on clear evenings, in the Shetland Islands, some small displays of the Aurora are not unfrequently perceived, yet, that such an exhibition as has recently been witnessed in London, and still more, such as, more effulgent, and more extended, and more vigorous, and even coloured by the atmosphere into the terrific;—that those exhibitions, in short, of which our naturalists and men of science would persuade us, that, while beheld nightly by those of the North, they are known to us by very faint examples alone;—those exhibitions,—that those extraordinary examples of the brightness and vigour of the Aurora—are as rare, or almost as rare, not only in the Shetland Islands, but in Iceland, and on the shores of the Icy Sea, as in the streets of London themselves! It is obvious, too, that if we are to speak of this phenomenon philosophically, if we are to attempt to explain its origin and use,—its source in the natural elements, and its office in the natural economy; here, too, the solving of this question of the frequency or infrequency, the constancy or the inconstancy, of these mighty exhibitions, even in the North, and under the Pole itself, is matter of foremost importance. And what is the testimony, upon these heads, which is borne by the accounts collected by Gmelin? Is the Northern Light of the German naturalist, the apparently constant attendant of clear evenings, even in the countries between the Lena and the Yenesei? Is the spectacle, and the atmospherical hurley, which seems to rush over the [p417] hunting-grounds of the hunters and their dogs, and which frightens the very dogs, and pins them to the ground till it is passed, or has seemed to pass; is this the “constant attendant of clear evenings,” or, is it a prodigy so uncommon as to defy familiarity? But, if this evidence is insufficient, let us look to what is said of its influence, in these countries, on the subsequent state of the atmosphere. So far from the Aurora being an attendant or follower of clear evenings, it seems that clear evenings follow the Aurora! It is said, that after its occurrence, clear and calm weather is customary to follow; and, here, the expression itself is implicative of the rarity of the occurrence. If it were constant, how should this result come to be noticed; and, indeed, if the Aurora Borealis were the constant attendant of each twenty-four hours, and if clear weather were usually in the train of the Aurora Borealis, how could it ordinarily happen, that there should be any thing else than clear weather, in the countries visited by the Aurora, or any foul weather for the Aurora to dispel? Yet, such is the established prejudice concerning this supposed frequency of the more powerful displays of the Aurora in the climates further to the North than our own, that a writer, quoting the very statement above, absolutely prefaces it with the remark, that Gmelin, in pointed terms, speaks of the Aurora as “frequent,” as well as “very loud,” “in the North-eastern parts of Siberia[125]!” A simple perusal, in the meantime, is sufficient to show, that Gmelin says nothing affirmative as to its frequency; while a slight consideration of the facts which he adduces must satisfy us, as no doubt they satisfied Gmelin himself, that the occurrence, even in Siberia, is actually infrequent!

XI. In reference, however, as well to the image presented above, of “a vast tent expanded in the heavens, glittering with gold, rubies, and sapphires;” as also to many less ambitious and figurative descriptions of the spectacle of the Aurora Borealis, (not excepting that indicted by himself,) the author is anxious to suggest a caution against the too exaggerated conception of the realities intended. Words, [p418] upon such occasions, are rarely more than imperfect pictures, presenting but feeble likenesses, and either deficient or excessive in the amount of beauty, or of the reverse, of whatever kind, which they attempt to copy from their originals; and the inconvenience is seriously great, whenever the object portrayed is wholly strange to the mind before which it is placed. The imperfect power, both of words and written characters, to convey precise, and sometimes even tolerable ideas, of the objects, either sensible or abstract, which they are intended to represent, and the superior intelligibility so often belonging to diagrams or figures, or other resources of the art of drawing, (the primitive, and, for so many purposes, the most instructive mode of writing[126],) would have led the present writer, had time permitted, to endeavour, as often as possible, to elucidate by such means the several parts of the foregoing observations; but which means, at last, and in reference to the actual phenomena of the Aurora, would necessarily fail to convey the due, and yet no more than the due impression, to such as are wholly without its ocular acquaintance. We are little aware how much, upon ordinary occasions, our understanding of words heard or read is assisted by our previous knowledge of the sensible objects, or of the acquired notions, to which they refer; and the examples would be endless, of the sensible objects preposterously misconceived, as well as the propositions made false or ridiculous, through the frequent inadequacy of words to communicate truths entirely new [p419] to the disciple. Even the history of opinions concerning the Aurora Borealis itself, might be cited upon this very point.

The ordinary and natural resource, in such circumstances, is comparison; but even comparison has been the source of great and endless errors of description. Of the degree of resemblance proposed between the known and the unknown, there is no common measure for the minds of the hearer and the listener, and the point or points of comparison intended by the first must often be mistaken by the second; or, if reference is made to a similitude under one aspect, the imagination conceives a resemblance also under another: thus, if it is said, that an unknown animal is as large as a horse, the idea of the figure also of a horse, is apt to be attached. A modern English work of science premises, upon the subject of the Aurora Borealis, that its appearance is so well known as to render description needless. It is true that the work referred to is printed in the Northern part of the island, where the phenomenon is doubtless more familiar than in the Southern; but, in the foregoing pages themselves, it has, perhaps, been demonstrated as probably certain, that if it is any where sufficiently known to render description trite for the common eye, it has at least never hitherto been described with sufficient precision for the aid of speculative research. To attempt to explain its cause, and to relate its entire history, its appearance must first be either observed or described with accuracy; and we have seen, above, that some of the most scientific reasonings which have hitherto been offered as to the former, are wholly inapplicable to the true peculiarities of the latter.

Considered simply as a visual object, and as a meteor differing from all others, and especially from all other luminous meteors, in this, that its duration extends to hours, if not to days and months; the only resemblance, perhaps, that can be suggested, is to that description of lightning which is called heat-lightning, the frequent companion of our summer-evenings. But, here, the similitude is inexpressibly feeble; since heat-lightning has nothing, either of the splendour, the volume, or the beauty of the Aurora; and since the light of the latter, however mobile, varied, and, from time to time, increased and diminished in itself, is yet, as to general effect, continuous and [p420] steady. There remains, then, but to compare the phenomenon of the Aurora with the rising or the setting Sun. In both of these latter, as in the Aurora, the light is in the horizon, and that light is shot upward, perpendicularly, or obliquely, toward the zenith or toward the right and left; and both of these, like the Aurora, are more or less constantly attended with a variety of colouring, similar in hue if not in depth, and always beautiful, and often gorgeous. With the Sun, and with the beams of the Sun, ancient description, in point of fact, has confounded the Aurora Borealis, to the degree, perhaps, of giving origin to some of the ancient and poetical descriptions of the Sun, utterly inappropriate and inexplicable as understood of that day-star, but easily recognised in the Aurora; yet the dissimilitudes, at last, are numerous and great! Of the essential difference of figure, both as to the beams of the Sun, and the beams of the Aurora, in severalty, and of the inevitable difference of indication of which, as to their nature, mention has been already made; and also as to the general or collective figure of the beams of the Aurora, as contrasted with that of the rising, or of the setting Sun. The next point is the homogeneity of colour in the beams of the Sun, however the apparent colour may vary, as it is seen to do, from horizontal stratum to horizontal stratum, from the horizon to the zenith, according to the varied density of the medium between the light and the eye of the spectator. The light, upon the other hand, of the beams of the Aurora is heterogeneously coloured in itself, and is so displayed; and not, therefore, varied as the beams ascend from horizontal stratum to horizontal stratum, or as crossing all the beams together, but found in each particular beam itself, and attending its direction, whether vertical or inclined, and whether rectilinear or curved. Waiving, then, any comparison in detail, between the phenomena of the Aurora, and the phenomena of the rising or of the setting Sun, but admitting that, to a certain degree, all are alike vast in dimensions, splendid in light, rich in colour, and durable upon the eye; there is still nothing else to be subjoined, than that, at least with reference to vastness of dimension and magnitude of the volume of light; to the quantity of light diffused; and to the richness and gorgeousness of [p421] the attendant colouring; there can be little risk, in the assertion that, vast, and splendid, and beautiful, and rich, and gorgeous, as, when seen in the most favourable situation, and under the most favourable circumstances, the Aurora may be, it is, at last, but insignificant, when compared, for those features, to the vastness, the splendour, the beauty, the richness, and the gorgeousness, more or less, from day to day, displayed in the rising or the setting of the Sun; and, that for chaster beauty, and even for amount of light diffused, it is not even to be likened to the silver Moon! As a substitute, too, for either, or for both, the Aurora, in the regions of cold and night, may justly demand the admiration and the blessing of mankind; and, in regions cold and inclement, its rarity, not unaccompanied by beauty, by grandeur, and sometimes even by the terrible in appearance, may well invite the gaze and fix the attention of beholders; but, considered along with the light of the luminaries of heaven, its claims reduce themselves in quality, though certainly not in degree, to a level with those of an artificial lustre; and we almost repeat, in reference to the light of the Aurora, as compared with that of the Sun, or even of the Moon, what the poet has said in reference to the lights of our chambers:—

“Who but rather turns

To heaven’s broad beam his unconstrained eye,

Than to the glimmering of a waxen flame?”

The Moon, in the meantime, inferior as she is to the Sun, has been “blessed,” from age to age, for her “useful light;” and the “useful light” of the Aurora, also, has its claims to “blessing.” It co-operates with the Sun, the Moon, and with other agents of nature, to make, not merely the Polar regions of the earth, but the entire globe of the earth, fruitful, at once, and habitable[127]! [p422]

XII. In a succeeding paper, the author may possibly submit to the consideration of his reader, the particular and novel hypotheses which he has allowed himself to form, as to the substance, causes, and effects of the Aurora; hypotheses partly dependent upon those facts in its natural history, which, above, have been almost the exclusive objects of attention. At present, the leading particulars of the natural history of the phenomenon, which it has been attempted either to bring or to fix in view, are these:

1. That the Aurora is a phenomenon observed both in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.

2. That, in either hemisphere, it is observed in the general direction of the corresponding pole of the earth.

3. That, in the Northern Hemisphere, on the shores of the Icy Sea, or at the furthest distance north, its situation is still observed to be the northward.

4. That, in the Southern Hemisphere, it has been observed to the east of the South Pole, and in the Northern, to the east and west of the North Pole.

5. That, upon the late occasion, the place of its columns, during the exhibition, was observed to change from the west of north to the east of north; but, so as always to have the north for the apparent centre of its strength.

6. That, in the Arctic regions, the appearance of the Aurora is said to be usually followed by clear and calm weather.

7. That the appearance of the Aurora Borealis is no wise peculiar to the winter solstice, but has been observed in each of the eight months of September, October, November, December, January, February, March, and April, and may be regarded, therefore, as coincident with the Arctic winter; and that the appearance of an Aurora in the Southern Hemisphere, in the month of February, or beginning of the Antarctic winter, as observed during the voyage of Captain Cook, in the year 1773, is [p423] consistent with the persuasion, that the Aurora Australis, in its turn, is a phenomenon of the Austral or Antarctic winter.

8. That considerable or powerful displays of the Aurora are infrequent, even in the extreme Polar regions; and that it is very considerable or powerful displays alone, which make themselves visible in the lower latitudes, north or south of the equator.

9. That no appearance belongs to the Aurora itself, but that of its coruscations, columns, spears, or streamers; and that all colours, therefore, or coloured figures, not belonging to the coruscations, but coincident in their appearance, are to be regarded only as reflections or refractions of light, derived from the coruscations by the clouds which happen to cover the sky.

10. That the colours, or coloured light, proper to the Aurora, or seen in the columns or coruscations themselves, are varied from column or coruscation to column or coruscation, and severally continued in the direction, and throughout the length or height, of each.

11. That, in the late example, the columns or coruscations situate in the due north, or apparent centre or focus of the phenomenon, exhibited a light at least comparatively white; and that the variation, from white to colour, had an apparent relation to the comparative remoteness of each column or coruscation from the column or coruscation in the central north.

12. That the direction or position of the columns or coruscations of the Aurora, are so far from being uniformly convergent toward the zenith, or uniformly vertical, or from the horizon to the zenith, that, in the late example, they did not converge toward the zenith, but, contrariwise, diverged from it; spreading themselves like the sticks of a fan, or like stalks in a flower-basket.

13. That the columns or coruscations of the Aurora are not uniformly rectilinear in their figure; but that, in the late example, those on the north-eastward were curved outwardly, or “bent sideways,” as described in the appearance of the columns or coruscations of an Aurora seen in the Southern Atlantic, during the voyage of Captain Cook, in the year 1773.

[120] Literary Gazette, Sept. 29, 1827.

[121] “PENCELLS.—Pencills, or flagges for horsemen, must be a yard and a halfe long.” Harleian MSS., cited in an interesting and valuable essay on the “Banners used in the English army, from the Conquest to the reign of Henry VIII.” By N. H. NICOLAS, Esq., F.S.A—Retrospective Review, Oct. 1, 1827.

“The Pensell, or Pennoncelle, was the diminutive of the Pennon, being a long narrow flag.”—MEYRICK’S ANCIENT ARMOUR.

“STREAMER.—A Streamer shall stand in the toppe of a shippe, or in the forecastle, and therein be put no armes, but a man’s conceit or device, and may be of the lengthe of twenty, forty, or sixty yards; and it is slit, as well as a guydhomme or standarde.”—HARLEIAN MSS.

An item, in a bill of parcels, charged to the Earl of Warwick, in 1437, consists of “a great Stremour for the Ship, of xl yerdis lenghth, and viij yerdis in brede.”—BANNERS USED IN THE ENGLISH ARMY, &c.

[122] Meteorological Journal, Literary Gazette, Sept. 29th.

[123] Literary Gazette, as above.

[124] Encyclopædia Britannica. Art. Aurora Borealis.

[125] Encyclopædia Britannica.

[126] The individual, social, and political importance of making the art of drawing a branch of general education, is a subject which the author can never cease to urge upon the attention of his fellow-countrymen, and of all the civilised world. It is more than ten years since he first endeavoured to lead the public eye to its regard. In England, and with a view to the subsistence of a large and always increasing population, it is an EDUCATION IN THE ARTS which is the great want; and the art of drawing, besides being the assistant of all knowledge whatever, is peculiarly so of all other arts than itself, or of all other works of the hand. A recent Sermon, by the Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells, preached at Wells, for the benefit of the Diocesan National Schools, bears ample testimony to the deficiency, and even the dangers, to the poor not less than to others, in all the present popular education; and, so far, therefore, to the soundness of the author’s principles, and to the fitness of his remedy. His own design, however, is not only to remedy an evil arising from the present practice, but also to produce an independent good; and, not merely to aid the poor, nor merely to promote the political welfare of this kingdom, but to increase the resources, physical and intellectual, of all classes, and to promote the welfare of the whole world.

[127] The author has an opinion, that among the “agents of nature,” for equalising the temperature of the surface of the globe, is to be reckoned, not only the Northern and Southern Lights, but the entire Ocean; and that this agency is the immediate object aimed at in the existence of this last, as one body of water surrounding the entire globe. His evidence consists in geographical, hydrographical, meteorological, and physiological facts, as also in the apparent reason of the case. He supposes, in consequence, a perpetual circulation of the waters of the sea, longitudinally round the globe, or from North to South, and from South to North again; and the result of Captain Parry’s late attempt to reach the Arctic Pole, as also some of the facts which have transpired respecting Captain Franklin’s late land expedition, appear to confirm his theory, according to which the physical use, or final cause, of the existence of the Ocean has never previously been understood. His theory affects the question of the North-west Passage, which latter object he suspects to have never yet been pursued in the true direction; even the discoveries of Captain Parry appearing to him to have fallen short of ascertaining the communication with the Polar Sea by the channel of Davis’s Strait.—Some introductory observations upon this subject have been already made in an article in the New Monthly Magazine for October, 1826, (vol. xvii. p. 371.)

[p424]

Proceedings of the Royal Society. [◊]

THE anniversary meeting of the Royal Society for the election of a president, and other officers, was held as usual at Somerset House, on Thursday, the 30th of November, being St. Andrew’s day.

Till within a few days of the election, it was generally understood that the Rt. Hon. Robert Peel was a candidate for the chair; in consequence, however, of that gentleman having declined, Davies Gilbert, Esq., M.P., was put in nomination, and was almost unanimously elected the President of the Royal Society.

The late secretaries, Messrs. Herschel and Children, having resigned their respective offices, Dr. Roget and Captain Sabine were nominated in their places, and were duly elected.

The accession of Mr. Gilbert to the chair having rendered vacant the office of Treasurer, Major Kater was elected in his place.

The following council was elected, to continue in office until St. Andrew’s day, 1828.

[p425]

In consequence of having been elected President pro tempore by the council, (the chair having been vacated some weeks previous to the general election,) the duties of the office were performed by Mr. Gilbert, on occasion of the present anniversary. After having read over the list of members admitted, and of those deceased during the last year, he proceeded to announce the disposal of the Royal and Copley Medals, as awarded by the votes of the council.

Of the Royal Medals, one was awarded to Sir H. Davy, and the other to Professor Struve. Of the Copley Medals, one was given to Dr. Prout, and another to Lieutenant Forster. On this occasion Mr. Gilbert pronounced an eulogium upon the respective receivers of the medals; and, in adverting to the labours of the several individuals, he justified the decision of the council, in bestowing upon them these marks of distinction, in a learned and eloquent discourse.

Proceedings of the Horticultural Society. [◊]

September 4th.

A PAPER by Mr. Lindley was read upon the new hardy plants which had flowered in the Society’s garden; among them a number of new shrubs were mentioned, which appeared likely to prove acquisitions to the public. A thermometer was exhibited by Mr. Bregazzi, of Derby, for ascertaining the temperature of bark-beds. It consisted of a thermometer enclosed in a shaft of copper with a wooden handle, and a door in its side, by which the temperature can be ascertained with precision. It is needless to point out the superiority of this plan, over the common mode of determining this very essential point, by feeling of a stick previously stuck in the bed; the sensation of heat when the stick is grasped in the hand will obviously depend in a great degree upon the temperature of the hand itself. As usual, there was an extensive display of all the choicest flowers and fruit of the season. One hundred and seventy-two subjects of this description were placed upon the table. Among the flowers, the most remarkable was a new hardy climber from Mexico, with deep purple blossoms studded [p426] with glittering green glands, called Maurandya Barclaiana; among the fruit was a fine specimen, from Lord Grantham’s garden, of the Papaw, a tropical fruit never ripened in England before.

September 18th.

The exhibitions of this day were chiefly confined to a display of Dahlias, which for magnificence exceeded any thing of the kind we ever witnessed before. The large meeting-room was filled with masses of the richest and most lively colours. In the whole, eight hundred and fifty-one varieties were shown, among which the finest were from the garden of William Wells, Esq., of Redleaf; but where all are so excellent, it is almost invidious to particularize. The time will be remembered by many of our readers when gardens in the autumn contained little besides marigolds, sun-flowers, and sweet-peas; by the aid of dahlias and chrysanthemums the autumn has now become the liveliest season of the year, and the beauty of the flower-garden is only destroyed by the severest of the winter frosts. Among the grapes upon the table was a remarkably excellent yellow-berried kind, from Portugal, from the garden of Mr. Holford, of Hampstead, which was quite new to this country. Apples, nectarines, peaches, and pine-apples abounded.

October 2nd.

Among the flowers was a fine bunch of ranunculuses, from Mr. Groom, of Walworth, a rare sight in October; they were obtained by having been planted in July and carefully protected by tulip-shades when coming into flower. The season for softer fruits being nearly over, pears and apples formed the chief display; of these a vast number, upwards of one hundred and eighty of the latter, were upon the table: the Blenheim orange, or Woodstock pippin, pomme gris, scarlet nonpareil, courtpendu plat, golden reinette, and packhorse apples; and Chapman’s, Marie Louise, and brown beurré pears, appeared to us to excel all their rivals. The famous gloux morceau and beurré d’Aremberg pears were also exhibited, but were not ripe. [p427]

October 16th.

The first number of a new periodical work, called the Pomological Magazine, consisting of coloured figures of the fruits cultivated in Great Britain, was placed upon the table. Among the apples were specimens of a variety sent from England to Connecticut, in the year 1636, and reimported from America within a few years. It proved to be a kind not known at the present day in this country, but still cultivated in France. In the gardening books of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it is mentioned under the name of the haute bonté. The specimens exhibited served to disprove the opinion that many of the American apples are European kinds altered by climate; these, although the produce of trees which have been growing in America for nearly two hundred years, differed in no respect from French samples exhibited at a subsequent meeting of the Society.

November 6th.

An excellent paper was read upon the method of cultivating horse radish, in Denmark. The roots are cut into slips, and planted horizontally, the lower end inclining a little upwards, and the crown of the plant hanging over the alleys, by which the beds are separated. From time to time the roots are uncovered, and all the lateral fibres are carefully removed, by which the size and length of the roots are much increased. The place hitherto occupied by dahlias, was now taken by Chinese chrysanthemums, of which a large number, consisting of twenty-two different varieties, was exhibited at the bottom of the room.

November 20th.

Cuttings of the fine new Portugal grape, of which fruit was exhibited on the 18th of September, were distributed to the members present. A few dahlia flowers still showed themselves, notwithstanding the unusual severity of some early frosts, and the room was crowded with chrysanthemums. The gloux morceau and beurré d’Aremberg pears were tasted, and found to retain the station which has been assigned to them at the head of all known varieties. [p428]