elegance of ftyle, a nice and acute difcernment of characters and literary merit, and a happy talent at fhading imperfections and throwing a pleafing light upon eminent virtues. The eloquence of the noble Secretary is eafy, mild, chafte, and abundant; his reflexions, when moft ingenious, are natural and unaffected. They fometimes, however, deviate from their ufual and pleafing fimplicity; and this happens, when his literary heroes (as is frequently the cafe) exhibit in their characters ftriking lines of piety and devotion. Thefe lines he indeed places in his portrait; but he draws them with a touch that announces embarraffment and constraint. This latter circumftance ftruck us more forcibly in the eulogy of M. Du Hamel, and especially in the obfcure and uncouth reflections that follow M. CONDorCET's account of the religious propenfities of that eminent man. Thefe reflexions (which the reader will find at the 152d page of this volume) turn upon the diftinctive tendency of botanical fcience to lead an obferver to the acknowledgment of a first caufe, as the vegetable world difcovers an arrangement and a unity of defign, which can lefs be attributed to the necessary effect of mechanical caufes, and is lefs productive of direct and inevitable evil to us, than the fyftem of animated beings. His elucidation of this ftrange affertion is thick darkness: at least, if he underftood himself, we understand him not. For the reftwhen obfcurity comes from the clear head, and the happy pen of this ready writer, we have fome reafon to apprehend that it is not the covering of truth.

A'R T. IV.

Nouveaux Memoires de l'Academie de Dijon, &c. i. e. New Memoirs of the Academy of Dijon, relative to the Arts and Sciences, Part II*. of the Year 1784. 8vo. Dijon and Paris. 1785.

Memoir I. ON the contagious Quality of fome Kinds of Fluxions on the Breaft. By M. MARET. We cannot

enumerate all the obfervations, by which this ingenious physician has been perfuaded of the real exiftence of a contagious quality, in certain defluxions of the breaft. He had long fufpected fuch a quality, from feveral circumftances and appearances that occurred to him, in the course of his practice; but he suspended his judgment until repeated and multiplied obfervations had convinced him of the fact. Defluxions of the putrid kind are such as have the unhappy quality of being communicated by a noxious temperature of the atmosphere, to healthy persons who attend on patients labouring under this diforder: but it is only at the period when the crifis is completed, that the infection takes place. Our Author farther obferves, that the air is not charged with the miafmata, or noxious particles of this diforder, or,

For Part I. fee Rev. vol. lxxiii. p. 487.

at

at leaft, does not carry them to any confiderable diftance, and that precautions may be used, which will be prefervatives against the infection. These are, to avoid taking in, directly, the breath of the patients, or fwallowing our fpittle, while we are near them, or eating in their apartment. We were much alarmed when we began to read this memoir: but these plain and easy prefervatives make us again pluck up our spirits.

Mem. II. Concerning a new Method of multiplying foreign Trees. By M. DURANDE. It is not eafy to procure feed in full maturity from foreign trees tranfplanted among us; and all other means, fays this Academician, hitherto known and employed for the reproduction of fome of these trees, have proved unfuc cefsful. At length a very simple one has been contrived, which has been attended with fuccefs; it confifts merely in cutting a root and placing it in a frame in a good hot-bed, where it produces a ftalk. By this method M. DURANDE has multiplied the Chinese acacia, the bean-tree, the gleditfia triacanthos, and the guilandina dioica.

Mem. III, On the Cure of a bilious Cholic complicated with the Sciatica. By the Same. This cure was performed by a mixture of ether with the spirit of turpentine, employed as diffolvents of biliary ftones.

Mem. IV. On the Noftoch. By Father VERNISY. The noftoch is a kind of vegetable fubftance, of a greenish colour, which trembles at the touch, in the manner of a jelly, but does not melt when held in the hand. It cannot well be called à plant, fince it has neither roots, veins, nor fibres. It feems either to fall on a fudden from the clouds, or to be the immediate production of the earth, whence fome have called it the flower of earth, others the flower of heaven, and the alchymifts, who are used to make rare work with things which have an obfcure origin, have supposed that it contains an universal spirit, capable of converting other metals into gold. The reverend Author of this memoir, endeavours to illuftrate the origin and production of this fubftance, by the following process of dame Nature: The green fcum, fays he, which is found in great abundance on the furface of ftagnant waters, is nothing more than a decompofition of feveral aquatic plants, which have been long macerated and reduced to a froth, or a kind of pap. The moft fubtile parts of this froth may be carried up into the atmosphere by the action of the folar rays; a part thereof may fall down again with the rain in a watery or liquid ftate, while the remainder, by its mixture with heterogeneous fubftances, may be coagulated in different parts of the clouds, and be formed there into flakes, more or lefs confiderable in fize, but ftill light enough to float for fome time, till they defcend with rain under that form of jelly, which ftill retains both its greenish colour and the vegetable favour, though fomewhat al

tered,

tered, which it had before its afcent. This is our Author's nealogy of the Noftoch! the Tremella Noftoc of Linnæus !

ge

Mem. V. On the remarkable Mift that happened in June and July, in 1783. By the Secretary of the Academy, M. MARET. Several obfervers were of opinion that this uncommon phenomenon had a phyfical connexion with the earthquakes of Sicily and Calabria; but our Academician proves the contrary, we think, with full evidence, by a series of comparative experiments which he made at the time with atmospherical air charged with the vapours of this mift, and taken in four different places. It appeared, from thefe experiments, that this mifty air contained no mephitic acid, no acid of any other kind, no difengaged phlogiston, and that it fcarcely differed at all from common atmospherical air. Whence then this extraordinary mift? It owed its origin, says our Author, to the moisture of the earth, which, at the time of its appearance, was covered with a kind of cruft, extremely dry, from the temperature of the air, which was fo arid that it ceafed to be a conductor of the electrical fluid, and from the intenfity of the heat which multiplied the exhalations from the earth. These exhalations, principally composed of water and electrical matter, being reftrained by the aridity of the exterior cruft in their efforts to rife into the atmosphere, were violently divided and attenuated in their afcent: their aqueous molecules extremely rarified by the heat, combined with a large portion of electrical matter, of which the air, become non-conductor, could not deprive them, formed veficles, and, growing light, rose to a certain height above the earth: where they remained fufpended, offufcated the tranf parence of the aerial fluid, and thus produced the mift in queftion. Our Academician accounts ingenioufly, and yet with great fimplicity, upon optical principles, for the reddish colour that covered the difk of the fun and of the moon during this mift.

Mem. VI. On the Methods employed to defroy the Chrysalis of Silk-worms. By M. CHAUSSIER. To deftroy the chryfalis without hurting the quality of the filk, has always been found exceedingly difficult. The vapours of camphor have been lately employed for this purpose, and with more fuccefs than the methods formerly ufed. In the place of thefe, however, as not answering the purpofe completely, our Author fubftitutes oil of turpentine, and shews how it must be employed, in a circumftantial detail, for which we refer those whom it may concern to the memoir itself.

Mem. VII. Botanical and medical Reflections on the Nature and Properties of the Agaric of Oak. By M. WILLEMET. The agaric is here confidered as the fuperabundance of a vegetable juice that exifts in the tree, or as a morbid matter which is in a

ftate

ftate of depuration; in which cafe it must be excluded, as a fungus, from the fexual fyftem of plants. Its great efficacy, and the manner in which it acts in the ftopping of hemorrhages, when it can be applied to the blood veffels, is alfo celebrated. Mem. VIII. Anatomical Effay on the Structure and Ufe of the Epiploon. By M. CHAUSSIER. Some new and curious ob

fervations are to be found in this memoir.

Mem. IX. On the following Question: Is Gold really diffolved in the nitrous Acid? By M. MORVEAU. This eminent chemift, in oppofition to M. Tillet, who held that the gold is attacked, but not diffolved, neither wholly nor in part, in the nitrous acid, affirms that a small portion of it is really diffolved."

Mem. X. Analyfis of the Water of the Lake of Cherchiaio, near Monte Rotondo in Tuscany. By M. MARET. This water, as appears by the refult of the analyfis, contains acid of borax, fulphur, clay, a large portion of pure air, and a little lime.

Mem. XI. Concerning the Ice that affumes, at the Surface of the Earth, the Form of Needles or perpendicular Filaments. By M. RiBOUD. The Academician accounts for this phenomenon by the rarified vapours, or igneous emanations, which carry along with them aqueous vapours, and meet with a fudden cold as they rife out of the ground. They are cryftalized in feparate fila ments, because they efcape in filaments through the pores of the earth; and pyramidal needles are obferved, because it is in this form that the congelation of water commences. Accordingly, M. RIBOUD perceived a number of small holes in the ground; and each of these was the base of a needle or filament of ice.

Mem. XII. Concerning the Origin of the Bodies of Ice that are carried down great Rivers in the Times of hard Froft. By M. GODART. We have here various obfervations which feem to prove that in running waters, congelation does not begin at the bottom, but that the ice is precipitated there, either by the motion or by the weight of the fand and pebbles or Aints, that are carried along with the current. Hence M. GODART concludes, that the icy cruft is produced at the surface of a river, but never at its bottom; that it is the element both of the compact and fpungy ice; that it forms the compact ice at the furface, when the waters are in a state of rest, and the fpungy ice at the bottom, in proportion to their weight, and the force of the cur

rents.

Mem. XIII. Obfervations on a Cataract, accompanied with a Diffolution of the vitreous Humour. By M. CHAUSSIER. The intenfe pain fuffered by the patient in this diforder determined the operator to extract the cataract but after having made an incifion in the cornea, the vitreous humour being as fluid as water, escaped almost entirely, fo that the cryftalline funk

into the eye-ball, and was carried behind the iris. Upon this M. CHAUSSIER fufpended his attempt to extract the lens, and only dreffed the wound. The next day he found the eye-ball reftored to its plenitude, and the cryftalline on the borders of the incifion; fo that he extracted it with the greateft facility. This fact has induced the Author to think, that in this operation there may be cafes in which it would be expedient to let fome time intervene between the incifion of the cornea, and the extraction of the cryftalline.

The meteoro-nofological hiftory of the fix laft months of the year 1784 terminates this volume.

Recherches Phyfiologiques et Philofophiques fur la Senfibilité, ou la Vie animale, i. e. Phyfiological and Philofophical Inquiries concerning Senfibility, or animal Life. By M. DE SEZE, M. D. Member of the Academy of Sciences at Bourdeaux. 8vo. Paris.

E have often heard theological doctors (who had cor

Wrupted the fimplicity, and clouded the perfpicuity of

religious truth, by mixing with its pure and primitive luftre, the fallacious lights of ill-employed erudition and metaphyfical theories) wifely admonished to return to their bibles, and to draw thofe truths that reftore or confirm the health of the foul, from their original and genuine fources. A fimilar admonition, with refpect to the fcience that has for its object the health of the body, is addreffed to his medical brethren by the ingenious Author of these Inquiries. When we read the preliminary difcourse that is prefixed to this volume, we think we hear him addreffing himself to the faculty in the following manner. "Sons of Hygeia! in what labyrinths have you involved yourfelves by departing from the fimplicity of nature and of truth, seduced by fallacious analogies, ingenious fancies, ill-judged coalitions of fciences that have no real relation to each other, the bewitching charms of novelty, and the towering pride of fyftem? Come back to Hippocrates-come back to the oracle of Cos-who expofed, in their true colours and characters, the diseases to which humanity is fubject, pointed out the irregular motions they produce, and the more or less happy efforts employed by nature to repel or cure them. Return to Hippocrates, who, in his immortal works, has told us, not what he had fancied, but what he had feen. Woe unto you, who, feduced by the dubious principle of a great modern* (that all the sciences are but branches proceeding from one common trunk), have fubjected the animal body to the laws that are followed by inanimate fubftances, and explained its functions by the laws of

*Boerhaave.

mechanics,