information of still greater consequence may be derived from faithful and minute registers of the various diseases most fatal to mankind at different ages, and in different situations, accompanying these registers of mortality. Various causes have influence in bringing on diseases and shortening the duration of life, such as particular employments, irregularities, and intemperance in living, and a careless inattention to sudden vicissitudes of heat and cold and changes in the atmosphere common to every situation, but I doubt not it may be made to appear that the influence of different airs and different situations on the human constitution, and the probability of living longer, especially in the early part of life, in one place than in another, is vastly greater than is generally imagined. Few are aware of the danger arising from unwholesome air, and the constant use of water impregnated with foreign bodies, frequently met with in particular situations, and which are very common causes of diseases. Neither air nor water are often so replenished with noxious qualities as to produce such immediate violent effects as to put people on their guard against them. But their less perceptible influence may render them more generally hurtful to mankind.

An ingenious writer, Dr. Alexander, has indeed called in question the baneful effects of vapor arising from stagnant waters, and affirmed that nothing is to be apprehended from the neighborhood of putrid marshes. But Dr. Priestly has proved, by repeated experiments, that this opinion is illfounded and dangerous, and that putrid water is in an high degree noxious. And Dr. Price has found the assertions of Dr. Priestly to be fully confirmed, by comparing tables exhibiting the rates of mortality in upward of eighty small country parishes in Switzerland, in all the different situations, from marshy ground to that of the Alps. The difference of the probability of life between the high and low land is very remarkable. In the mountains, one-half that are born live to the age of 47. In marshy ground, one-half live only to the age of 25. In the hills, one in 20 of all that are born, live to 80. In a marshy situation, only one in 52 reaches this

age.

The cold springs that usually surround the edges of fenny,

swampy land, as well as putrid exhalations, render particular situations very unhealthy, from the changes they produce in the air, occasioning, in the night, cold damps and close, heavy fogs, especially after a sultry day. This cold, damp air most sensibly affects our feelings, if we descend in the night-time from high, clear land to the springy borders of open swamps. and meadows. The sickly state of several families who have lived in a certain house in this place appears to me a striking demonstration of the baneful effects of cold springs and putrid exhalations. Since this house has been inhabited, which is upward of sixty years, it has been observed that there has been no considerable space of time that all the family have been in health. For a considerable number of years, which the present owner lived in it, some of the family were almost continually complaining or confined with acute or chronic disorders, but, removing with his family, ten or fifteen years ago, near the sea, they soon recovered, and have since enjoyed very good health. Two young, healthy families have since occupied it in succession, but were soon affected with similar disorders, which were principally of the throat, breast, and viscera. The situation of the house very evidently points out the cause of the remarkable unhealthiness of its inhabitants. It stands on the north side and very near the foot of a considerably high hill, nearly covered on the top and north part with tall wood, the northern declivity moist and springy. North and west of the house is a small plain of forty or fifty yards extent, bounded by low, springy, and swampy land. On the east a low swamp extends from very near the house to a pond of stagnant water, at a small distance. The current of air in the lowland is much obstructed and confined by the neighboring hills and woodland.

But the surprising effects which a luxuriant vegetation may produce on putrid and noxious air may contribute much in rendering particular situations the more healthy. The quantity of moist exhalations may indeed be increased, but, if the free passage of the air be not obstructed, the situation may become more wholesome. Dr. Priestly, you are sensible, has proved, by a number of experiments, that air rendered noxions by the breath of animals, or by putrefaction, is re

utmost care and attention. Our greatest deficiency seems to be in essays upon observations and experiments on the natural productions of this Country. Improvements in the various branches of Agriculture, and those useful arts which will advance our internal wealth and the happiness of our citizens, will be of greater public utility than matters of mere science, and ought, doubtless, to be the first objects of our attention.

We have a report that a gentleman in Philadelphia has discovered a vegetable production that effectually cures cancers, which have long been the opprobrium of the medical art, and that this remedy has received the approbation of the physicians of the first character in that city. If this be fact, and a description of the plant can be obtained, though the method of preparing and applying it in this particular case should be kept a secret, it may prove a valuable acquisition. Botanical descriptions, likewise, of any rare or valuable vegetable productions, will be considered of importance.

Your letter, with the sentiments of your friend on the growth of plants, communicated by the Hon. General Warren, affords me great pleasure. The principles of vegetation seem still to remain among the arcana of science, but hypotheses that can be supported by observation and experiment may lead us to a more certain knowledge of the operations of nature in the vegetable kingdom than has ever yet been ascertained. I could wish we might be favored with further communications from that very ingenious gentleman. I should consider it a favor, if there be no impropriety, to be informed of his name and place of abode.

Such communications as you shall judge of importance, I doubt not, you will readily make, before the collection for this volume is closed.

I have the honor to be, with sentiments of the highest esteem, sir,

Your most obedient and humble servant,

M. CUTLER.

HON. BENJ. LINCOLN, ESQ.

P. S.-I am desired to ask the favor of

whether the Philosophical Society at Philadelpha propose soon to publish another Volume of Transactions.

[From General Lincoln.]

PHILADELPHIA, June 12, 1783. been honored with the receipt of

Reverend Sir:-I have your favor of the 18th ult. I should have had the pleasure of answering it before, had I not been prevented by an absence from the city.

I am fully in opinion with you that the literary character of the State of Massachusetts abroad will be greatly concerned. in the first publication of the American Academy, and that papers for this volume ought to be selected with the utmost care and attention. I wish, therefore, a greater length of time had been given for the collection of facts and the arrangeof them before we entered seriously on a publication. I think this might have been done without incurring even a suspicion. of inattention, or the least want of that spirit of research from which alone great discoveries may be expected, as we have, from the establishment of the Society, been involved in a war destructive of that repose essential to those useful investigations, the promotion of which was the laudable design of the institution.

I find, by the articles agreed on the 25th March, that the committees are to examine the several communications belonging to their respective departments, and select therefrom such as they may approve of for publication.

The task assigned the committee is arduous. I feel the embarrassments I should be under in executing the trust, were I placed in their situation, and although I might enter on the business with good intentions, yet I should be disposed to swell the volume, lest a too partial publication should discourage people from making further communications, as they might feel themselves hurt by the omission; and I might also be led to it by considering in too favorable a light the communications of those gentlemen whose characters I greatly revere, and for whom I have contracted the highest esteem and affec

I have seen Dr. Martin, the gentleman who has discovered

the vegetable production which effectually cures cancers. He says that at present he can not, in justice to himself, communicate his knowledge in this matter. I think it will not be obtained, unless the States should think the discovery so essential to the good and happiness of mankind as to be induced thereby to offer him a sum of money for it which would make it unnecessary for him longer to attend to business. This, probably, and this only, I suppose, would draw it from him. I wish the public would take up the matter, for it can not be doubted but that his knowledge herein is important.

I am informed that the Philosophical Society here are preparing to publish another volume.

Mr. Matlock, the late Secretary of this State, was the author of those observations on the principles of vegetation which, through General Warren, I communicated to the Academy. This gentleman is absent. I can not, therefore, now obtain any further information from him.

The question which has been so long and so often agitated, whether the plant is fed from the atmosphere or earth, or whether it receives its nourishment solely from the one or the other, or whether jointly from both, is yet involved in doubt and uncertainty, and perhaps it will so continue, and prove to be one of those subjects of inquiry in which we may not find the most explicit and direct evidence by which we may at once determine on which side the truth lies. But, as it is of importance to ascertain the principles of vegetation as fully as possible, we may with propriety have recourse to the various circumstances which offer themselves to our consideration, which, being collected, and the whole contrasted, may, and probably will, leave the mind at last pretty fully, if not perfectly, satisfied.

Under these ideas of the matter I will offer to your consideration a circumstance which I think will operate in support of the opinion that the plant is fed from the atmosphere rather than from the earth. Though of itself it may prove little, yet, with others, it will have its weight and be important.

A writer in recording his travels through South America says: "That in the forest grows a tree called properly Malapole, i. e., hill timber. It is of itself a weak tree, but grow