The mother, who was thirty years of age, had three children, all naturally formed; and her fourth child was the fubject of the prefent Paper. Mr. Dent endeavoured to difcover whether any imaginary caufe had been affigned by the parents for the unnatural formation of the child; but the mother declared, that no circumstance whatever, of an uncommon nature, had occurred: fhe had no fright, met with no accident, and went through the period of her pregnancy exactly in the fame way as he had done with her other children.

The body of the child was uncommonly thin, appearing emaciated from want of due nourishment.

The neck of the fuperior head was about four inches long; and the upper part of it terminated in a hard, round, griftly tu mour, nearly four inches in diameter.

The front teeth had cut the gums, in the upper and under jaws of both heads.

When the child cried, the features of the fuperior head were not always affected; and, when it smiled, the features of the fuperior head did not sympathize in that action.

In preparing the skull, which unpleasant operation Mr. Dent was obliged, from the prejudices of his fervants, to fuperintend, he found that the dura mater belonging to each brain was continued across, at the part where the two fkulls joined, fo that each brain was invefted, in the ufual way, by its own proper coverings; but the dura mater, which covered the cerebrum of the upper brain, adhered firmly to the dura mater of the lower brain: the two brains were therefore feparate and diftinct, having a complete partition between them, formed by an union of the duræ matres.

When the contents of the double fkull were taken out, and this union of the duræ matres more particularly examined, a number of large arteries and veins were feen paffing through it, making a free communication between the blood veffels of the two brains. This is a fact of confiderable importance, as it explains the mode in which the upper brain received its nourishment.' P. 29.

V. Obfervations on the Manners, Habits, and Natural Hiftory, of the Elephant. By John Corfe, Efq. Communicated by the Right Hon. Sir Jofeph Banks, Bart. K. B. P. R. S.'

This is an interefting paper. The ufual height of the elephant has, we find, been exaggerated. The male is commonly from eight to ten feet, one inftance only occurring where the animal appeared to exceed the latter height by fix inches. The young one, at its birth, is thirty-five inches. One of thefe animals grew eleven inches in the first year; eight, fix, and five, in the three fucceeding years. The elephant attains its full growth at about nineteen years, and the female produces her offspring before the has completed her

fize, generally growing feveral (in one inftance eighteen) inches after the birth of the first young one.

Elephants that have escaped from confinement may be again caught, their fagacity (contrary to what has been fuppofed) not leading them to avoid the fnare; and it is equally certain that they will breed in confinement. The period of pregnancy exceeds twenty months: after about three months the appearances of pregnancy are obvious.

The young of the elephant, at least all thofe I have feen, begin to nibble and fuck the breast soon after birth; preffing it with the trunk, which, by natural instinct, they know will make the milk flow more readily into the mouth, while fucking. Elephants never lie down to give their young ones fuck; and it often happens, when the dam is tall, that the is obliged, for fome time, to bend her body towards her young, to enable him to reach the nipple with his mouth; confequently, if ever the trunk was used to lay hold of the nipple, it would be at this period, when he is making laborious efforts to reach it with his mouth, but which he could always easily do with his trunk, if it answered the purpose. In fucking, the young elephant always grafps the nipple (which projects horizontally from the breaft) with the fide of his mouth.

I have very often observed this; and fo fenfible are the attendants of it, that, with them, it is a common practice to raise a fmall mound of earth, about fix or eight inches high, for the young one to stand on, and thus fave the mother the trouble of bending her body every time the gives fuck, which he cannot readily do when tied to her picket.

Tame elephants are never fuffered to remain loose; as instances occur of the mother leaving even her young, and escaping into the woods.

• Another circumstance deferves notice: if a wild elephant happens to be separated from her young, for only two days, though giving fuck, the never afterwards recognizes or acknowledges it. This feparation fometimes happened unavoidably, when they were enticed feparately into the outlet of the keddah. I have been much mortified at fuch unnatural conduct in the mother; particularly when it was evident the young elephant knew its dam, and, by its plaintive cries and fubmiffive approaches, folicited her af fiftance.' P. 49.

Having mentioned a fufficient number of inftances, to prove the ability, as well as the inclination of the elephant, to propagate his fpecies in a domeftic ftate, and that without any figns of modefty, and having afcertained the period of geftation to be twenty months and eighteen days, it may be neceffary to obferve, that it is a difficult matter to bring a male, which has been taken about the prime of life, into good condition to act as a stallion; for, being naturally bolder, and of a more ungovernable difpofition, than

the female, he is not in general easily tamed, till reduced very low; and it requires confiderable time, as well as much expence and attention, before he can be brought into fuch high order as is requifite. He muft aifo be of a gentle, temper, and difpofed to put confidence in his keeper; for he will not readily have connexion with a female, whilft under the influence of fear or diftrust. Of this I have feen many inftances; nor do I recollect one male elephant in ten, which had been taken after having attained his full growth, much difpofed to have connexion with a female. This is a moft convincing proof, that thofe males which are taken early in life, and have been domefticated for many years, more readily procreate their species than elephants taken at a later period. In their wild ftate, however, they fhow no reluctance; for, befides all the males that are entrapped, from their defire to have connexion with the trained females which, though not in heat, are carried out to feduce them, feveral inftances have occurred, of wild elephants covering, immediately after being taken, in the keddah. P. 53.

VI. On the Decompofition of the Acid of Borax or fedative Salt. By Lawrence de Crell, M. D. F. R. S. Lond. and Edinb. and M. R. I. A. Tranflated from the German.'

Thefe experiments are not completed. M. de Crell, confidering the fuppofed acid of borax as a compound, attempted to decompofe it, though with little fuccefs. He, however, obtained from it fome inflammable matter, which feems to us to have been produced in the proceffes.

VII. A Method of finding the Latitude of a Place, by Means of two Altitudes of the Sun and the Time elapfed betwixt the Obfervations. By the Rev. W. Lax, A. M. Lowndes's Profeffor of Aftronomy in the University of Cambridge.'

VIII. A fourth Catalogue of the comparative Brightness of the Stars. By William Herschel, LL. D. F. R. S.' Thefe are valuable articles, but admit not analysis or extract.

IX. On a fubmarine Foreft, on the Eaft Coast of England. By Jofeph Correa de Serra, LL.D. F. R. S. and A. S.'

The whole eaftern coaft of this ifland prefents perplexing phænomena. From the earlieft authentic records, it appears to have been in a state refembling the prefent; but those do not extend more than two thoufand years. Long before that era, France and Britain were probably united, and the ftrait of Dover did not exist. The water, whofe momentum opened itself a paffage, muft have covered a great part of our flat fhores on the eastern coaft; and we have a proof of this, in finding a vaft accumulation of marine remains over the natural ftrata, and over the fprings; an accumulation

which depreffes the fprings fo much, that, when reached by an auger, they very foon rife above the prefent level. Before this event, the fame ground feems to have been fertile; and the remains of this fertility are difcoverable in the fubmarine foreft which is the fubject of the prefent paper. Some convulfion, perhaps the fubmerfion of a large ifland, feems to have fuffered the German ocean to pour its waters fouthward. Finding a resistance from the folid ftrata, once uniting Dover and Calais, it expanded over the flat coafts of Lincolnshire and the neighbouring counties, covering the fertile plains, destroying the forefts, and raifing the low ground by calcareous and clayey accumulations. When, after having undermined the oppofing ftrata, or acquired additional bulk and force, this fea burst through the straits, the flat hores were again forsaken; and, in the direction of the current, the accumulations were washed off, and the forefts fo long covered were disclosed.

The islands discoverable at some distance from the coast of Lincolnshire, at the loweft ebbs, chiefly confift of roots, trunks, and branches of trees, intermixed with fome leaves of aquatic plants. The bark and roots are fresh, but the timber is foft, except at the knots. Oak, birch, and fir, are ftill diftinguifhable. The trunks and branches are confiderably flattened, but we do not find that the fibrous ftrata are horizontal, like thofe of Bovey. Leaves of the ilex aquifolium and the willow, and roots of the arundo phragmites, may be diftinguifhed. Thefe iflets extend about twelve miles in length, and a mile in breadth, oppofite to Sutton fhore. The channels between them are from about four to twelve feet in depth. The ftrata around afford fimilar appearances of decayed vegetables.. Gravel and water, near this coaft, are found at 140 feet below the present surface.

'Little doubt can be entertained of the moory iflets of Sutton being a part of this extenfive fubterraneous ftratum, which, by fome inroad of the fea, has been there ftripped of its covering of foil. The identity of the levels; that of the fpecies of trees; the roots of these affixed, in both, to the foil where they grew; and, above all, the flattened shape of the trunks, branches, and roots, found in the inlets (which can only be accounted for by the heavy preffure of a fuperinduced ftratum), are fuflicient reafons for this opinion.

• Such a wide-spread affemblage of vegetable ruins, lying almost in the fame level, and that level generally under the common mark of low water, muft naturally ftrike the obferver, and give birth to the following questions.

1. What is the epoch of this deftruction?

2. By what agency was it effected?

In answer to thefe queftions, I will venture to fubmit the following reflections.

• The foffil remains of vegetables hitherto dug up in fo many parts of the globe, are, on a close inspection, found to belong to two very different states of our planet. The parts of vegetables, and their impreffions, found in mountains of a cotaceous, fchiftous, or even sometimes of a calcareous nature, are chiefly of plants now exifting between the tropics, which could neither have grown in the latitudes in which they are dug up, nor have been carried and depofited there by any of the acting forces under the prefent conftitution of nature. The formation, indeed, of the very mountains in which they are buried, and the nature and difpofition of the materials which compofe them, are fuch as we cannot account for by any of the actions and re-actions which, in the actual state of things, take place on the furface of the earth. We must neceffarily recur to that period in the hiftory of our planet, when the furface of the ocean was at least so much above its prefent level, as to cover even the fummits of these secondary mountains which contain the remains of tropical plants. The changes which these vegetables have fuffered in their fubftance, is almost total; they commonly retain only the external configuration of what they originally were. Such is the state in which they have been found in England, by Llwyd; in France, by Jufieu; in the Netherlands, by Burtin; not to mention inftances in more diftant countries. Some of the impreffions or remains of plants found in foils of this nature, which were, by more ancient and less enlightened oryЄtologifts, fupposed to belong to plants actually growing in temperate and cold climates, feem, on accurate investigation, to have been parts of exotic vegetables. In fact, whether we fuppofe them to have grown near the fpot where they are found, or to have been carried thither from different parts, by the force of an impelling flood, it is equally difficult to conceive, how organized beings, which, in order to live, require fuch a vast difference in temperature and in feafons, could live on the fame spot, or how their remains could (from climates fo widely diftant) be brought together to the fame place, by one common diflocating cause. To this ancient order of foffil vegetables belong whatever retains a vegetable fhape, found in or near coal-mines, and (to judge from the places where they have been found) the greater part of the agatized woods. But, from the fpecies and prefent ftate of the trees which are the fubject of this Memoir, and from the fituation and nature of the foil in which they are found, it feems very clear that they do not belong to this primeval order of vegetable ruins.

• The second order of foffil vegetables comprehends those which are found in ftrata of clay or fand; materials which are the refult of flow depofitions of the fea or of rivers, agents still at work under the prefent conftitution of our planet. Thefe vegetable remains are found in fuch flat countries as may be confidered to be of a new formation. Their vegetable organization ftill fubfifts, at least in part; and their vegetable fubftance has fuffered a change