reference, even to those who are already possessed of the original works which contain them.

In order to avoid the introduction of arbitrary hypotheses and erroneous conclusions, no commentaries, nor even any particular nomenclature, will be admitted into this series of hieroglyphics. It was indeed in contemplation to have begun the work with a copy of the Inscription of Rosetta, subdivided, and having the parallel passages of the three texts printed together, according to the arrangement of the anonymous translation published in the Archæologia; but it has been thought more advisable to defer this comparison, in the hope that some of the duplicates of the stone, which have remained more entire, may speedily be obtained from Egypt.

The general subjects of the Hieroglyphical Inscriptions, which they contain, may be collected from an article on Egypt, which is about to appear in the Supplement to the Encyclopædia Britannica. The first six exhibit a tolerably perfect specimen of the manuscripts frequently found with mummies, and which always contain a series of homages, addressed to the different deities in the name of the deceased: the next subject consists of friezes brought from Egypt, and now in the British Museum, compared with another fragment of the same series found in the ruins of Rome. The colossal head, which has lately been presented to the British Museum in the names of Mr. Salt and Mr. Burckhardt, occupies the greater part of the 10th plate; and the subjects delineated in the five following plates are more or less immediately connected with this figure, exhibiting either the name, which is still distinguishable in the inscription on the back, or that of Memnon, whom the head has sometimes been supposed to represent, or some other name approaching very near in its form to one or the other of these two.

The execution of the work is so arranged as to afford the subscribers the greatest possible benefit for their contributions; and not only the whole of the money collected will be employed for defraying the expenses, but some further veluntary assistance may be expected from individuals; a nobleman, who has travelled in

Egypt, having already set the example, by taking upon himself the expense of the drawings of a valuable hieroglyphical MS. which he has lately received from the British Consul at Cairo.

Each Subscriber will be required to pay One Guinea in advance at the time of subscribing, and Two Guineas annually upon the receipt of each volume, which will probably contain from 20 to 50 folio plates.

No copies will be sold, except to those who may become subscribers at a future time; and in such cases the amount of the sale will be carried to the account of the society, of which an annual statement will be laid before the subscribers. A copy will be deposited in the British Museum, another in the King's Library at Paris, a third in the Vatican, and a fourth in the Academical Library of Göttingen. Other public libraries will be admissible as subscribers, it not being intended to limit in any manner the description of persons subscribing, nor the number of copies which they may wish to take.

The management of the work, and any further proceedings of the Society, which may be thought advisable, will rest entirely with the Directors, who will also have the power of making, from time to time, such additions to their own number as they may think proper. For the present, Taylor Combe, Esq., William Hamilton, Esq., Lieut.-Col. Leake, the Earl of Mountnorris, and Matthew Raper, Esq., have undertaken the responsibility of this office.

Subscriptions will be received by Mr. Yeoman, Collector to the Society, No. 3, Lincoln's Inn Fields.

9. Prize Questions.-The Royal Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres at Paris, have proposed the following prize subject for the year 1821:-"To compare the monuments which remain of the ancient empire of Persia and Chaldea, either edifices, bassorelievos, statues, or inscriptions, amulets, coins, engraved stones, cylinders, &c., with the religious doctrines and allegories contained in the Zend Avesta, and with the indications and data which have been preserved to us by Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Oriental writers, on the opinions and customs of the Persians VOL. VIII.

and Chaldeans, and to illustrate and explain them as much as possible by each other."

The prize is a gold medal of 1,500 francs value. The essays are to be written in Latin or French, and sent in before the 1st of April, 1821. The prize will be adjudged in July following.

The Society of Sciences, Arts, and Belles Lettres at Dijon has proposed the following question as the subject for the prize to be awarded in 1820:-"What may be the most effectual means of extirpating from the hearts of Frenchmen that moral disease, a remnant of the barbarism of the middle ages; that false point of honor which leads them to shed blood in duels, in defiance of the precepts of religion and the laws of the state?"

10. Prizes proposed by the Royal Academy of Copenhagen.Mathematics.-Nùm inclinatio et vis acus magneticæ iisdem, quibus declinatio diurnis variationibus sunt subjectæ ? Nùm etiam longiores, ut declinatio, habent circuitus? Nùm denique has variationes certis finibus circumscribere possumus ?

Quibus naturæ legibus rejetur primaria evolutio corporum animalium, ut formam sive regularem, sive abnormem abscissant. The prizes attached to these subjects are 50 Danish ducats. Geology.-Quæ Saxa ad montes ordinis secundi, seu transitorios, pertinentia in Norwegia reperiuntur ?

This prize proposed by his Excellency S. G. Moltke, is of the value of 550 rubles. The memoirs are to be written in Latin, French, English, German, Swedish, or Danish, and should be directed to M. H. C. Orsted, Secretary to the Academy, by December 1819.

11. Scientific Questions. The Royal Academy of Sciences and Belles Lettres of Brussels have proposed for competition, during the year 1820, the following questions in the department of science:

1. Suppose a plate of a given figure, attached to a surface either by means of screws of a known number, position, and force, or by means of some intermediate matter capable of uniting the one to the other solidly, and the specific tenacity of

which is also known; if to a point in the circumference of this plate, an arm be affixed, which acts in the same plane with the surface, it is required to know what resistance this plate will be capable of making against a force applied to this arm as a lever, considering the material, as well of the plate as of the arm and surface, as a perfect mathematical abstraction; that is to say,' as perfectly rigid or non-elastic, as infrangible or incapable of breaking, &c.?

2. A body being suspended from the extremity of a cord, the other extremity of which is fixed to the roof of a room; if this body is made to describe an arc of a certain circle round the fixed extremity; and if, besides, a movement of projection is given to it, it is required to know the nature of the curve, or rather double curvature, which this body will describe according to the hypothesis-As is the resistance of the air, so is the square of velocity?

3. If there is an identity between the forces which produce the electrical phenomena, and those which produce the galvanic phenomena, whence is it that we do not find a perfect accordance between the former and the latter.

4. Many modern authors believe in the identity of the chemical and galvanic forces,-it is required to prove the truth or falsity of this opinion.

5. What is the true chemical composition of sulphurets, as well oxidized as hydrogenized, made according to the different processes, and what are their uses in the arts?

The answers are to be supported, as far as possible, by new facts and experiments easy of repetition.

12. Death of M. Benedict Prevost.-Announced in a letter to the editors of the Bibliothèque Universelle.

Geneva, June 29, 1819.

MM.-I have received information of the death of a relation

whom you will regret as much as I do. J. Benedict Prevost, born at Geneva, Aug. 7, 1755, died at Montauban, the 18th of June, 1819. From his earliest youth he evinced a decided taste for study. This taste was opposed by circumstances, and could

not be developed but at the time when he settled at Montauban. Intrusted with the education of the son of M. Delmas, a merchant of that town, he resolved to complete his own. He gave himself to the sciences with ardour, and succeeded in making friends, or rather true brothers, of his pupils, insomuch, that, having lived with them 40 years, he died in their arms. He was Professor of Philosophy to the Protestant Theological Faculty of Montauban, member of several learned societies, and known by his numerous memoirs in Natural Philosophy and Natural History, on the Rot in Corn, on Dew, &c. I have neither time nor opportunity to detail all his works, and still less to describe his amiable character, and talk of his virtues. These valuable details must be reserved to another time; I shall here only say that M. Ben. Prevost, happy in the family that had received him, and cherished by those who had given him an asylum, sought not to form new connexions. He has left his friends in sorrow, but I feel happy in being the first to pay to his memory this slight tribute of affection and grief.

P. PREVOST.

13. Death of M. Faujas de Saint Fond.-Science has lately lost M. Faujas de Saint Fond, a distinguished mineralogist and geologist. He was born at Montelimart in 1750, and died last July (1819,) at Soriel, near Valence. He was Professor of Geology to the Museum of Natural History, from the time of its establishment; he has enriched its collections by a vast number of curious objects, the results of his researches and travels; and France owes to him the discovery of one of its richest iron mines M. Faujas has published many works on mineralogy and geology, as well as numerous memoirs in the Annales du Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle. He has left a collection of minerals, shells, and alluvial fossils, among which are many extremely rare specimens, and of which the selection announces a professor who desired to rest upon facts to the utmost possible.