Rochefort. The experiments here have not been made with the same regularity; because the fifteen persons fixed upon had all agreed to say that they were very ill. The two principal ones complained of violent cholics and diarrhœas: but the plot was discovered, and upon being put upon the sick-list, (à la diète,) they were laughed at by their companions. No one of them was really indisposed; on the contrary, many thought they experienced some good effect in regard to some infirmities under which they had long laboured.
The above are not, however, the only experiments which have been made upon this beverage. Several persons wishing to ascertain its effects by individual experience, have voluntarily confined themselves to its use; and the members of the commission of inquiry are almost in the daily practice of taking it. The captain of the Duclat has taken it every day at his meals for twenty days, and has experienced not the smallest inconvenience from its use. M. M. Vasse, and Chatelain, apothecaries to the marine at Brest, have occasionally kept the water in their mouths for four hours, by constantly renewing it, and have not found either the sharp taste, or other caustic qualities, which have been said to be peculiar to it. And here it may be proper to state, that the mouths of all the individuals who had taken the water for a length of time were examined, without the detection of any thing in them either of a swollen or inflammatory appearance. Such are the reports of commissioners employed to investigate the effects of distilled seawater, who, although separated at a great distance from each other, and having no communication, all agree in the inference, that it may be employed without any injury to the health, both as a beverage and in cookery, for the space of at least a month; and the fair presumption is, that it may be employed for a much longer time; and that in consequence, it must be considered as a very happy resource in long voyages of discovery.
FINE ARTS.
Art. XXI. Essay on Musical Temperament.
Art. XXI. Essay on Musical Temperament. By Professor Fisher, of Yale College.