viewer) are not worth quoting.'-Art. 8. On the discovery of vaccination. We must extract this morceau entire.

The French are a queer people. We have discovered, and propagated the cow-pock for more than twenty years, and as long as it was a matter of problem, whether it would or would not succeed, the French continued to ridicule the idea, and strongly opposed the truth advanced by Jenner and his friends. But all doubts are now removed; the cause of humanity triumphs; mankind has received at the hands of an Englishman, one of the greatest blessings that could be bestowed upon them, and our nation seems to derive additional lustre from it; a Frenchman now starts up and tells us that the discovery belongs to France, and that we became possessed of it by a certain talent, inherent in us, of appropriating to ourselves every thing, that has been done by others, without saying "thank you;" hence, by means of this talent, we have robbed Mons. Pascal of the hydraulic press; M. Dalenne of the steam engine; M. Lebon of his thermolamp; M. Montalembert of his sea-carronades; M. Morveau of his fumigations; Mons. Curaudau of his theory of chlorine, and even poor Moliere of two of his comedies. The story of the Vaccine is very pleasant; and considering, that it comes immediately from M. Chaptal, who communicated it to the Société d'Encouragement, we know not whether to laugh or to be angry. It appears then, that a M. Irland of Bristol fell sick, and took it into his head to travel thence to Montpellier. M. Irland took with him a M. Pew, a surgeon. M. Pew met and spoke to a M. Rabaud, protestant minister of Montpellier; M. Rabaud mentioned to M. Pew that there was a disease of the cows at Montpellier, called the picotte, and asked whether it might not be used as an antivariolous remedy. This picotte remained in M. Pew's head till his return to England; there he saw Dr. Jenner, to whom he imparted the picotte. Jenner sood found the picotte in Gloucestershire, and imparted it to little children who had not had the small-pox; and hence the discovery of the vaccine, the honour of which does not belong to England, but to Montpellier, and by ricochet to M. Rabaud. This is really too bad!' Let them fight.

Art. 9 will be noticed in another place.-Art. 10 is a continuation of the review of Biot's Traite de Physique.-Art. 11 is an Essay, by M. Decandolle; who attempts to establishwhat was long ago attempted to be established-an analogy between the external forms and the internal qualities of plants. Art. 12 a note by M. Planche, in which he says he has discovered a book written in 1679, by a Dr. Pielat, a Dutchman, giving an account of the process for obtaining artificial sal ammoniac from bones. Geoffroy, the reputed discoverer, did not publish till 1719.--Art. 13 is upon hospitals.

Art. 1 (of the July No.) Some inconclusive experiments, by Mr. Laubert, upon the bark of cinchona condaminea.-Art. 2

is an extract from a thesis upon mercury, by M. Guibout; and will be further noticed when the article shall have been finnished.—Art. 3. A memoir giving an enumeration of no less than one hundred and fifty plants whose porphylactic and therapeutic virtues are known and employed by the aborigines of Guiana.-Art. 4. Geoponical researches, by Cadet de Gassicourt; of which the reviewer thinks of saying something hereafter.--Art. 5. A letter from Dr. Rein to M. Gilbert; in which we have an account of the alcornok, an unknown tree used by the Indians for the cure of certain diseases.—Art. 6. News in science.-Art. 7. Notice to subscribers.

Bulletin de la Societe Philomathique de Paris, for July, 1816.-Art. 1. A continuation of the quarrel between M. Gay Lussac and Dr. Thomson about the combinations of azote with oxygen.-Art. 2. New proofs (by M. Biot) of the unequal quickness with which a voltaic pile recharges itself when it has once been discharged. The reviewer mentions, as the result of his own experience, that after the first ignition of a platina wire by a voltaic battery, he never could obtain a repetition of it with the same battery, though the trials succeeded each other rapidly.-Art. 3. From an English journal.-Arts. 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 contain nothing worth notice.-Art. 9. A sketch, by M. de Blainville, of a new arrangement in zoology.

Art. 1. (of the August No.) is a continuation of de Blainville's sketch.-Art. 2 is by M. Biot; in which he gives an account of some experiments to prove, that substances similarly constituted—such as the common sugar, and the beetroot sugar-exert a similar action on polarised light.-Art. 3. By M. H. Cassini; who endeavours to show, that the tarchonanthus camphoratus belongs to the family synantheræ.-Art. 4 is referred to the proceedings of the Institute.--Art. 5. See above, Art. 6. Ans. de Chem.--Art. 6. M. Cauchy demonstrates the theorem,--that if after having arranged in their progressive order the irreducible fractions, the denominator of which does not exceed a whole given number, we take at pleasure from amongst a series just formed, two consecutive fractions, their denominator will be first between them, and their difference will be a new fraction whose numerator is unity.'-Art. 7. J. Pelletier has obtained from the gum of the olive-tree a distinct substance, which he calls olivine.

The reviewer proposes to notice in the next number the journals, published in Switzerland, and then passes on to an analysis of those that are published in Italy.--Biblioteca Italiana; or a Journal of Science and the Arts. By a society of literati. First year; January, February, and March, 1816. Milan. This work is under the immediate protection of go

vernment; and is intended to be a general repository of Italian science and literature. Giuseppe Acerbi is its editor; and Vicenzo Monti, Scipione Breislak, and Pietro Giordani his three assistants. Every sovereign sees at last (it is said in the prospectus) how important and necessary it is, for their own glory and the public welfare, that errors should every where be extirpated, sound doctrines taught, and the knowledge of truth strenuously and generally promoted.' The reviewer promises to give a more particular account of it in a subsequent number.

Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences of the Royal Institute of France, from the 5th of August to the 16th of September, 1816.

THE only thing worthy of mention in the first sitting is a memoir, read by M. Cuvier, upon a new species of serpents found in Martinique and St. Lucie. From the conformation of the head it has been called, by Opper, trigonocephalus; and from a particularity in that of the tongue the natives have given it the name of vipere fer de lance. It belongs to Lacepede's first genus: is very prolific--very venemous--and always upon the offensive. "The most extraordinary circumstance connected with this animal (we use the words of the journalist, and wish we had room for the whole article) is the power it possesses of climbing large trees, to coil itself up in a rising spiral of four circles, and then to leap to a considerable distance, plunging suddenly on its victim. At other times it erects itself perpendicularly on its tail, reaching the height of six feet or more, and in this position will stand a long while, agitating fiercely its triangular head and darting its sharp tongue in various directions.' Fortunately, however, nature has placed by the side of this tremendous reptile, another animal, of the genus Boha, which is perfectly innocuous to man,--but terribly hostile to the vipere fer de lance.--Nothing of much importance was transacted during the sessions of the 12th, 19th, and 26th of August.

'September 2nd, 1816. Mons. Girard read a report on the agrarian measures of the Egyptians, and the relation they bear to the modern decimal system of mensuration. The duodecimal division was introduced into Egypt by the Greeks; and before that epoch, their agrarian measure was a canne or measure of seven cubits, each subdivided into seven palms. The cubit was subdivided into seven palms from the manner of marking the cubits on the cane. The person charged to divide the latter, placed his elbow on a table or other support, the forearm being extended and vertical. The cane was applied to it, and at the point where it corresponded to the tip of the middle finger, it was grasped with the right hand, and brought down to the elbow again, which was then ap

plied to the lateral and superior part of the grasping hand, in order to measure the second cubit, and so on in progression. Thus the cubit being naturally six palms, had seven on the Egyptian measure from their mode of marking it.'

After some unimportant papers by other persons, M. Biot read a memoir on a new instrument of his own invention, by which we may be enabled to trace exactly and distinctly all the primitive and compound colours; so as to ascertain the precise intensity of a given colour by comparing it with a similar one produced by the instrument. It is called colorigrade; and it may, by a simple modification, be turned into a cyanometer.— September 9th. A model of an apparatus intended to effect the passage of boats through locks without the assistance of water. It is called hydrobascule; and consists of a sort of lever, connected with two parallel wheels. We find nothing else worthy of mention.

Art. XXI.-Discourse of the honourable T. S. Raffles.

Account

of the Sunda Islands and Japan. THIS is a very interesting paper; but we are afraid we shall not find room for all it contains.-Perhaps there is no little spot on the face of the whole globe, which contains more curiosities than the single island of Java. Not only is she superior to all the neighbouring islands in the variety of her natural productions; but she exhibits, more perhaps than any other oriental country, the traces of high antiquity-of foreign commerce-and of national greatness. Captain Baker, who has been actively engaged in investigating her antiquities, speaks in the following terms of the Chandi Sewo, or Thousand Temples, which lie in ruins in one part of the island. Never (says he) have I met with such stupendous, laborious, and finished specimens of human labour, and of the polished, refined taste of ages long since forgot, and crowded together in so small a compass.' Of the ancient civilization of Java, indeed, there is abundance of unequivocal proof;-none more so, however, than the perfection which its language has preserved even to the present day. Its superiority in all other respects to the neighbouring islands may unquestionably, be, in a great measure, attributed to the superior fertility of its soil. Sumatra and Banca have evident marks of being a mere continuation of the Asiatic mountains: whereas Java is quite as evidently the creature of a volcano. It differs from the others, not only in its geological structure,-but in its longitudinal direction: that of Sumatra being from north-west to south-east,-while that of Java is directly east and west.

Japan is another interesting country. The inhabitants are generally confounded with those of China; though, according to

Dr. Ainslie, who resided on the island four months, no supposition is more unfounded; and nothing, indeed, is so offensive to the Japanese themselves as to be compared, in any way, with their neighbours on the continent. The Chinese are inert and stationary; while the slightest impulse seems sufficient to set the people of Japan in motion. The latter are said to have a strong inclination for foreign intercourse-notwithstanding the restrictive system which they have adopted; and it is adduced, too, as proof of their energy and decision, that a people who had once been adventurous navigators and had communicated with all Polynesia, should now be able to exclude the whole world from their harbours and wrap themselves up in their own habits and institutions.

Art. XXII.—A Geological Account of the Lead Mine of Dufton, in Westmoreland. By T. Allan, &c. &c. In a Letter to the

Editor.

Art. XXIII.-On the Mode of Ventilating and Warming the Infirmary at Derby. In a Letter to the Editor.

THE building here spoken of is a cubical edifice, three stories in height; the patients being exclusively confined to the highest. Their apartments are warmed and ventilated at the same time, by a current of air which is admitted through a subterraneous passage, and thrown into a chamber containing a sort of stove; whence it is conveyed by proper funnels to the various parts of the attic story.

Art. XXIV.-Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. THE only thing worth mentioning under this head is a discovery by sir Everard Home,-that the colchicum autumnale produces the same effects upon the system, whether it be injected into the veins or conveyed into the stomach.

Art. XXV.-Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. REV. DR. FLEMING of Flisk gave an account of some experiments he had made to prove, that when the wave of the tide obstructs the motion of a river, so as to make it either stationary, or retrograde, the effect is produced by the salt water presenting to the fresh an inclined plane, the apex of which separates the latter from the channel, and holds it buoyant on the surface. A few specimens of words, manufactured in relief, for James Mitchell, the blind and deaf young man, were exhibited to the society by Dr. Henry Dewar. And this is about all the society either saw or did which seems to be worth our notice.

Art. XXVI.-Miscellaneous Intelligence.-Extract of a Letter from John Davy, M. D. F. R. S. to Sir H. Davy, dated at Cape Town.

DR. DAVY made many experiments upon sea water during his