pure before it is rectified.The copperifh flowers obferved by M. DE LASSONE, are cauftic in a very high degree, and may be confidered as a violent poifon.

MEMOIR II. Researches concerning the Compofition of Flint-Glafs, and the Means of giving it a bigber Degree of Perfection. By M. MACQUER.

This ingenious Academician perceiving, that the difficulty of making flint-glafs, abfolutely difengaged from filaments, proceeded from the difficulty of blending together the two fubftances (calx of lead and fund) of which it is compofed, recommends the two following methods, as adapted to facilitate the union of these two fubftances.-First, to deprive the calx of lead, as far as is poffible, of the phlogifton, which adheres fo tenaciously to it for this inflammable principle, according to our Author, is the chief obftacle to the perfect union of this calx with fand; the fecond is, to give to the two fubftances, that are to be united in the compofition of the flint-glafs, the greatest poffible degrees of fluidity and mobility.-M. MACQUER thinks, that the first of these may be effectuated by combining the vitriolic acid with minium or red lead, and then expofing this composition to the operation of fire to difengage from it the acid; and as to the fecond method, it is to be executed by mixing with the compofition a confiderable quantity of folvents. For the detail of the experiments that illuftrate this fubject, we must refer our Readers to the memoir itself.

MEMOIR III. Concerning fome New and fingular Phenomena produced by different Saline Mixts. By M. DE LASSONE.

This memoir contains the obfervation of a very fingular fubftance, a faline mixt, which is liquid and transparent, when cold-affumes a folid confiftence, when fpeedily exposed to a lively heat-is liquified anew in proportion as it cools-and pafles repeatedly through thefe alternatives, without being fubject to any alteration. This fubftance may be obtained, by mixing a folution of Epfom falt with lime-water, and every combination of calx, fixed alkali, and cream of tartar, has the fame property.

BOTANY.

MEMOIR I. Concerning the natural Classifications, or Families of Plants, and more especially that of the Ranunculus. By M. A. L. DE JUSSIEU.

MEMOIR II. Concerning the Acacia of the Ancients, and fome other Trees in Senegal, which yield the reddish Gum, commonly called Gum-Arabic. By M. ADAMSON.

ASTRONOMY.

MEMOIR I. New Analytical Methods for calculating Eclipfes of the Sun, the Occultations of the fixed Stars and Planets "by the Moon, &c. XI. Memoir, in which the Equations demonftrated

in the preceding Ones, are applied to the Solution of feveral Aftro nomical Problems. By M. DIONIS DU SEJOUR.

This laborious Academician goes on, indefatigably, in the execution of his immenfe plan, which is defigned to change the whole face of aftronomical fcience, and to render it more me thodical, accurate, and eafy, by fubftituting analytical in the place of graphical methods.

MEMOIR II. Concerning the Diminution of the Length of the Year. By M. BAILLI.

This truly learned and ingenious man is often expatiating in the regions of conjecture:-which may be, and undoubtedly is, one of the refpectable inconveniencies of extenfive genius.. We could, however, wish to fee fuch genius keeping more fre quently in company with evidence. The diminution of the duration of the year is a knotty point, in phyfical astronomy.

Does the year really diminifh-fo that, at laft, the earth muft be united (reunited would Mr. Buffon fay) with the fun? Or is not the year rather fubject to alternative augmentation and diminution, fo that, at the term of a long period, the earth begins anew the fame motions? Or, finally, in cafe the year diminishes, what is the law, which this diminution follows? These are questions, the folution of which requires a longer feries of obfervations, and a more improved theory than we can yet pretend to, and which is, therefore, referved for future generations. It is impoffible to come to any determination upon the fubject of this memoir, that is not merely conjectural: M. BAILLI does not, indeed, undertake to give us any thing but conjectures, attended with fome degree of probability. His conjectures, however, produce nothing but uncertainty and doubts, not only with refpect to the quantity of the diminution of the year, but even with refpect to the very existence of that diminution. He would be glad to fend the earth back to the fun, in order to make us believe the more eafily, that it was dafhed originally from thence, according to the romantic hypothefis of Buffon, The Hiftorian of the academy, in the account he gives of M. Bailli's memoir, expofes its emptinefs and nullity, with learning, judgment, and modefty.

III. and IV. Two MEMOIRS of Meffrs. CASSINI and LE MONNIER, defigned to determine the Variations in the Obliquity of the Ecliptic, contain aftronomical obfervations, tending to prove, that these variations, if they exift, do not amount to near a minute in a hundred years: fuch, at leaft, is the refult of the obfervations made by M. Le Monnier, with the gnomon of Saint-Sulpice.

MEMOIR V. Concerning Horizontal Refractions at Sun-fetting.
By M. LE MONNIER.
K k

APP. Rev. Vol, lxi.

MEMOIR

MEMOIR VI. Containing a direct Method of determining Refractions, jo as to know, whether they are of equal Quantity in the Northern and Southern Parts of our Hemisphere at the jame Height, and whether the Variations, which they undergo, are uniform. By M. CASSINI DE THURY. Five Memoirs, on Lunar Eclipfes-One on a Horizontal Eclipfe of the Sun. By M. MESSIER.-One on the Occultation of a Star in Cancer by the Moon, the 10th of February, 1773, by the fame.- One on the Conjunction of Jupiter with the Moon. By M. CASSINI DE THURY. Remarks on the Tables of Halley, on occafion of the laft Oppofition of Saturn. By M. LE MONNIER.

Obfervation of the Dif appearances of Saturn's Ring, made at Ife Adam By M. CASSINI DE THURY.Obfervation of Saturn's Ring, and its Dif-appearances. By M. Lɛ MONNIER.Memoir concerning the Appearances of Saturn's Ring in the Years 1773 and 1774. By M. DE LA LANDE.

These three menoirs, more efpecially the two first, treat of an object of great importance in aftronomy, as it may tend to improve the theory of that famous ring, which is yet fo imperfect; and more especially, to inform us, whether its fituation is changed by the attraction of the Sun, that of Jupiter, or even by the attraction of Saturn's fatellites.

MEMOIR XIV. Concerning Comets. By M. DE LA LANDE: who threw the beaux and belles of Paris into a panic, by obferving, that these bodies may fometimes come near the earth's orbit,

MEMOIR XV. Containing the Obfervations of two Comets, that appeared in the Year 1766. By M. MESSIER. MEMOIR XVI. Containing the Operations and Obfervations made on board the King's Frigate, the Flora, and in feveral Parts in Europe, Africa, and America, to afcertain the Accuracy of the Inftruments and Methods employed to determine the Longitudes at Sea, and to illuftrate other Points relative to Navigation, By Meffrs. DE BORDA, PINGRE, and DE VERDUN.

This important and curious memoir, which is not susceptible of abridgement, deferves, in a very fingular manner, the attention of all those who have at heart the improvement of navigation and aftronomy. We fee, in this interefting piece, how far the art of navigation has been perfected, and how greatly the progress of aftronomy and natural philofophy has contributed to its improvement: but we fee here, at the fame time, its imperfections and defects, and the neceffity of a farther progress in thefe fciences in order to their removal.

MINERALOGY.

MEMOIR I. Concerning the Bafaltes, Part III. in which the Author (M. DESMAREST) treats of the Bafaltes of the Ancients,

and

and in which the Natural History of the different Kinds of Stones to which the Name of Bafaltes has been given, at different Times, is expofed and illuftrated.

We learn from Pliny, that the Egyptians found in Ethiopia a ftone, which they called Bafa'tes, from its having the colour and hardness of iron,-that the ftatue of Memnon was of the fame ftone, and that à coloffal ftatue of the Nile, placed in the temple of Peace at Rome, was the largest mafs of bafaltes, then known. M. DESMAREST proves, that it is from thele indications alone, that we must proceed in our refearches concerning the bafaltes of the ancients. If the ftatues above-mentioned were to be found, the question would foon be decided. Father Hardouin tells us, that the ftatue of the Nile was ftill in the capitol, when he wrote;-but he mistook this ftatue for a copy of it, done in marble of Carrara. Our Academician, however, after an attentive examination of feveral ancient remains, found two ftones, which might both be confidered as the bafaltes of the ancients-the one a kind of black fchorl, or cockle, called gabbro in Italy; a blackish, hard ftone, cryftallized in plates, and fometimes mixed with veins of granit, quartz, and felt fpar;the other of a greenish grey colour, refembling the bafalteslava, which M. DESMAREST has demonftrated to be the production of Volcanos. He does not determine whether the ancients confounded together thefe two ftones: and nothing but a voyage into Egypt can decide this matter.

After these researches, we meet with fomething of more importance. Our Academician gives a hiftory of the foreign fubftances that are met with in the productions of Volcanos: thefe fubftances have been carried along with the lava, fometimes in their natural state, sometimes with more or less alterations. The void fpaces in the lava are often obferved to be filled by infiltrations, which fometimes, alfo, change the fubftance of the lava itfelf. Our Academician defcribes these different fubftances, which are found in the lava, and all their various properties and characters.-He ranges them into four claffes, of which the quartz and the gabbro form the two first; the two laft confift of calcareous fubftances, and the fragments of zeolite and alum earths, that are contained in the lava. All that relates to the qualities of thefe fubftances, is treated here in the moft circumftantial detail, in the compass of fifty pages.

M. DESMAREST maintains, that all these fubftances derive their origin from the first or primitive bodies, whofe fusion formed the lava, or which were carried along with it. If this be true,

* The reader will pardon this term, which is expreffive and wanted.

it follows, of confequence, that when the productions of a Volcano, taken from a current of lava, contain gabbro, quartz, zeolite or calcareous fubftances, the matter, which furnished this lava, must contain them likewife: and this M. DESMAREST has obferved to be always the cafe. In the granits of Auvergne, there is a mixture of gabbro, and the fame mixture is found in the currents of lava of the volcano there.-In another district, the granits are without gabbro, and fo alfo are the currents of lava there. The ancient lavas of Vefuvius contain foreign fubftances, which are not obfervable in the modern ones, because the modern lava is, according to our Academician, only the product of the fufion of the ancient. The historical account of his obfervations in France and Italy, relative to the nature and origin of the fubftances contained in the lava, fills near forty pages of this ample memoir, and is worthy of the attention of the connoiffeurs in natural history.

The clafs of ANALYSIS contains a memoir concerning partial differences;-that of GEOGRAPHY two memoirs, one on the longitude and latitude of Pondicherry, and another on the map of Mefopotamia;-that of MECHANICS, a memoir on the arching of bridges, and one on the spinning of filk. The eulogies of Meffrs. Morand and Heriffant, two very eminent men in chirurgery and phyfic, are prefixed to the memoirs of this volume.

ART. IV.

L'EZOUR VEDAM, ou Ancien Commentaire du Vedam, contenant l'Expofition des Opinions Religieufes et Philofophiques des Indiens, &c. i. e. The EzOUR VEDAM, or an Ancient Commentary on the Vedam, containing the Religious and Philofophical Opinions of the Indians, tranflated from the Samfcretam, or Hanfkritt. By a Brahmin. Revifed and publifhed with Preliminary Remarks, Notes, and 11luftrations. 2 Vols. 12mo. Paris, and Yverdun. 1779.

A

S the Indians are not communicative, nor the Europeans, who frequent their country, eagerly bent on any purfuits of a literary kind, we know little of the philofophical and religious opinions of thefe Afiatics. The relations of Rogers, however interefting, have only for their object the popular religion of India: the accounts of Dow and Holwell contain, indeed, the moft ingenious explications of the Indian tables, which they allegorize into a pure and rational feries of theolo gical doctrines; but thefe explications are deftitute of fufficient authority they feem to have been the inventions of certain

What is here called Samfcretam, is the language of the Vedam, which is known to the Brahmins alone, and which our Authors call the Samfkortam, Samfroutam, Sankrit, and Hanskrit-all these different manners of writing the fame word,

Brahmins,