which iffues from the fmall holes in its furface is very acrid; when put upon the tongue, one feels as it were a kind of fear at the part which it touched. This milk, which is confidered as an excellent fubstance for taking off hair, has fome refemblance to that which diftils from nofe plants called. efula and euphorbium. When the falamander is crushed, or when it is only preffed, it exhales abad smell, which is peculiar to it. Land falamanders are fond of cold damp places, thick fhades, tufted woods, or high mountains, and the banks of ftreams that run through mea dows; they fometimes retire in great numbers to hollow trees, hedges, and below old rotten ftumps; and they pafs the winter in places of high lati-: tude, in a kind of borrows, where they are found collected, feveral of them being joined and twifted toge ther. The falamander being deftitute of claws, having only four toes on each of the fore feet, and no advantage of conformation making up its deficiencies, its manner of living muft, as is indeed the cafe, be very different from that of other lizards. It walks very flowly; far from being able to climb trees with rapidity, it often appears to drag itself with great difficulty along the furface of the earth. It feldom goes far from the place of shelter which it has fixed on; it paffes its life under the earth, often at the bottom of old walls during fummer; it dreads the heat of the fun, which would dry it, and it is commonly only when rain is about to fall, that it comes forth from its fecret afylum, as if by a kind of neceffity, to bathe itself, and to imbibe an element to which it is analogous. Perhaps it finds then with greatest facility those infects upon which it feeds. It lives upon flies, beetles, fnails, and earth worms; when it repofes, it rolls up its body in feveral folds like ferpents. It can remain fome time in the water without danVOL. IX. No 50. ger, and it cafts a very thin pellicle It has been remarked, that every time a land falamander is plunged into the water, it attempts to raise its noftrils above the furface, as if to feek for air, which is a new proof of the need that all Griparous quadrupeds have to breathe, during the time they are not in a state of torpor. The land falamander has apparently no ears, and in this it refembles ferpents. It has even been pretended, that it does not hear, and on this account, it has got the name of fourd, in fome provinces of France. This is very proba ble, as it has never been heard to utter any cry, and filence in general is coupled with deafness, Having then perhaps one sense less than other animals, and being deprived of the faculty of communicating its fenfations to thofe of the fame fpecies, even by imperfect founds, it must be reduced to a much inferior of instinct; it is therefore very ftupid, and not bold, as has been reported; it does not brave danger, as is pretended, but it does not perceive it. Whatever geftures one makes to frighten it, it always advances without turning afide; however, as no animal is deprived of that fentiment neceffary for its prefervation, it fuddenly compreffes its fkin, as is faid, when tormented, and fpurts forth upon those who attack it that corrofive milk which is under it. If beat, it begins to raise its tail afterwards it becomes motionless, as if ftunned by a kind of paralytic ftroke, for we must not, with fome naturalifts, afcribe to an animal fo devoid of inftinct, fo much art and cunning as to counterfeit death. In short, it is difficult to kill it; but when dipped in vinegar, or furrounded with falt reduced to powder, it expires M ; in in convulfions, as is the cafe with feveral other lizards and worms. . It seems one cannot allow a being a chimerical quality, without refufing. it at the fame time a real property. The cold falamander has been confidered as an animal endued with the miraculous power of refifting and even of extinguishing fire, but at the fame time it has been debafed as much as elerated by this fingular property. It has been made the most fatal of animals; the ents, and even Pliny, have devoted it to a kind of anathe ma by affirming that its poifon is the moft dangerous of all. They have written that infecting with its poifon almost all the vegetables of a large country, it might cause the deftruction. of whole nations. The moderns alfo for a long time believed the falamander to be very poisonous; they have faid, that its bite is mortal, like that of the viper; they have fought out and prefcribed remedies for it; but they have at length had recourfe to obfervations, by which they ought to have begun. The famous Bacon: wished naturalists would endeavour to afcertain the truth refpecting the poifon of the falamander. Gefner provved by experiments, that it did not bite, whatever means were used to irritate it, and Wurf bainus fhewed that it might fafely be touched, and that one might without danger drink the water of those wells which it inhabited. Mr De Maupertuis ftudied also the nature of this lizard. In making researches to discover what might be its pretended poifon, he demonftrated experimentally, that fire acted, upon the falamander in the fame manner as upon all other animals. He remarked that it was scarcely upon the fire, when it appeared to be covered with the drops of its milk, which rarified by the heat, iffued through all the pores of its skin, but in greater quantity from the head and dugs, and that it immediately became hard. It Mr de Maupertuis, in the course of his experiments, in vain irritated several Salamanders, none of them ever opened its mouth; he was obliged to open it by force. As the teeth of this lizard are very fmall, it was very difficult to find an animal with a fkin fufficiently fide to be penetrated by them; he tried without fuccefs to force them into the fiefh of a chicken ftripped of its feathers; he in vain preffed them against the skin, they were difplaced, but they could' not enter. He, however, made a falamander bite the thigh of a chicken, after he had taken off a fmall part of the skin. He made falamanders newly caught, bite alfa the tongue and lips: of a dog, as well as the tongue of a turkey, but none of these animals re ceived the leaft injury, Mr De Maupertuis afterwards made a dog and a a turkey fwallow falamanders whole, or cut into pieces, and yet neither of them appeared to be fenfible of the least uneafinefs. Mr Laurenti fince made experiments with the fame view; he forced grey lizards to fwallow the milk proceeding from the falamander, and they died very fuddenly. The milk, therefore, of the falamander taken internally, may hurt, and even be fatal to certain animals, especially those which are fmall, but it does not appear to be hurtful to large animals. It was long believed that the falamander was of no fex, and that each individual had the power of engendering its like, as feveral fpecies of worms, This is not the most abfurd fable, which has been imagined with refpect to the falamander; but if the manner in which they come into the world is not fo marvellous as has been written, it is remarkable in this that it differs from that in which all other lizards are brought forth, as it is analogous to that in which the chalcide and the feps, as well as vipers, and feveral kinds of ferpents, are produced. On this account the falamander merits the attention of naturalists, much more than on account of the falfe and brilliant reputation which it has fo long enjoyed. Mr De Maupertuis, having opened fome falamanders, found eggs in them, and at the fame time, fome young perfectly formed; the eggs were divided into two long bunches like grapes, and the young were enclosed in two tranfparent bags; they were equally well formed as the old ones, and much more active. The falamander, therefore, brings forth young from an egg hatched in its belly, as the viper. But fome have written, that, like the aquatic falamander, it lays elliptic eggs, from which are hatched young falamanders, under the form of tadpoles. We have often verified the first fact, which has been well known for fome time, but we have not had an opportunity of proving the fecond. It would be matter of fome importance to ascertain that the fame quadrupede produces its young in fome measure two different ways; that there are eggs which the female lays, and others, the foetus of which comes forth in the belly of the falamander, to remain afterwards enalofed with other fœtufes in a kind of transparent membrane, until the moment in which it is brought into the world. Were this the cafe, it would be neceffary to diffect falamanders at different periods very near one another, from the time of their coupling, until that when they bring forth their young; one might carefully trace the fucceffive increase of the young till they were perfectly formed, and compare them with the growth of those which are hatched from the egg, out of the mother's belly, &c. However this may be, the female falamander brings forth young perfectly formed, and her fecundity is very great; naturalifts have long written, that he has forty or fifty at one time, and Mr De Maupertuis found 42 young ones in the body of a female falamander, and 54 in another. The young falamanders are generally of a black colour, almost without fpots, and this colour they preferve fometin:es during their whole lives in certain countries, where they have been taken for a distinct fpecies, as we have faid. Mr Tumberg has given, in the memoirs of the Academy of Sweden, the defcription of a lizard, which he calls the Japanese lizard, and which appears not to differ from our falamander, but in the arrangement of its colours. This animal is almoft black, with feveral whitish and irregular fpots, both on the upper part of the body, and below the paws; on the back there is a strip of dirty white, which becomes narrower to the point of the tail. This whitish stripe is interfperfed with very small specks which form the diftinguishing characteristic of our land falamander. We are of opinion therefore, that we may confider this Japanese lizard, defcribed by Mr Tumberg, as a variety of the fpecies of our land falamander, modified a little, perhaps, by the climate of Japan. It is in the largest island of that empire, named Niphon, that this variety is found. It inhabits the mountains there and rocky places, which indicates that its nature is like that of our land falamander, and confirms our conjectures refpecting the identity of the fpecies of these two animals. The Japanese attribute to it the fame properties with which the fcinque has been long thought to be endowed, and which in Europe have been attributed alfo to the flat-tailed falamander; they confider it as a powerful ftimulant, and a very active remedy, and on this account, in the neighbourhood of Jedo, a number of thefe Japanese falamanders may be feen dried, hanging from the ceiling of the shops. Ma An An account of a new Journey to the Top of the Alps: By Mr De Sauffure. P HILOSOPHERS and Naturalifts who propose to vifit the tops of high mountains, generally take their measures in fuch a manner as to arrive there about the middle of the day, and *when they have reached the intended fpot, are in too great haste to make their obfervations, that they may be able to defcend before night. Hence it happens that they always vifit great eninences almost about the fame hours, and on that account cannot form a just idea of the state of the atmosphere at other times of the day, and especially during the night. It appeared to me, therefore, a matter of importance to fupply this deficiency in ouratmospherical knowledge, by remaining long enough upon fome great eminence to determine the daily variation of meteorological inftruments; the barometer, thermometer, hygrometer, electrometer, &c. and to wait for proper opportunities of obferving the origin of different meteors, fuch as rain, wind, and ftorms. This defire was encreafed by that of attempting various experiments, which I had refolved to make upon Mount Blanc; but want of time, and the uneafinefs I felt from the rarity of the air, prevented me from accomplishing this part of my defign, The difficulty was to find a convenient fituation. I was defirous that it might have eighteen hundred toifes of elevation, and that it might be open on all fides, in order that the wind, and all other meteors, might act in full liberty. I might eafily have found fome fummit covered with fnow in which all these properties would have been united; but it would not have been practicable to raise a durable place of shelter upon the fnow, and to make proper obfervations, both on account of the inftability of the inftruments, and of the cold and moiftnefs of the atmosphere. It was very difficult to find upon the Alps, at fo great a height, a rock free from fnow, acceffible at the fame time, and large enough to contain a kind of habitation. Mr Exchaquet, whom I confulted upon this defign, told me, that upon the route newly difcovered, which conducts from Chamouni to Couemayeur, in paffing the Tacul, I would find rocks fuch as I wifhed for. Trufting to his information, I began, last spring, to make preparation for this expedition; and in the beginning of June I went with my fon to Chamouni, to wait for fine weather, and to take advantage of the moment when it fhould appear. I carried with me two fmall tents; but I was defirous to have befides thefe a fmall hut conftructed of ftone. Several feparate places of fhelter were requifite, not only for ourselves and our guides, but becaufe it was neceffary to keep the magnetometer and the variation compafs apart one from the other, that they might not reciprocally influence each other's variation.. I therefore fent people before to erect a hut of that kind, and when it was finished, and the weather appeared to be fettled and fine, we departed from Chamouni. The first night, July the 2d, we flept at Tacul, which is a plain covered with turf, upon the brink of a fmall lake, contained between the extremity of the glacier, called the glacier des bois, and the bottom of a rock, known by the name of the mountain of Tacul. Next morning we departed thence, at half after five, and arrived at our hut about half an hour after twelve. To this place Igave the name of the Giant's Neck, because it is really at the entrance of the neck that one begins to defcend towards Courmayeur, and because the most remarkable mountain in the neighbourhood, and that which hangs over this neck, is called the Giant, a high and steep fummit which can can be diftinguished very plainly from the banks of our lake. In going from Tacul towards the Giant's Neck, we could not pafs by the glacier of Trelaporte, which our guides had croffed the year before. As the clefts of this glacier were quite open and free from fnow, fo as to render it entirely inacceffible, we were under the neceffity of purfuing our route by the foot of a lofty fummit, called la Noire, paffing along the edges of very fteep sheets of fnow, on the borders of which were many fiffures. Our guides affured us, that this paffage is much more dangerous than that by which they had gone the year before; I however, truft very little to affertions of this kind, because the prefest danger always appears greater than that which is paft, and becaufe thefe people think to flatter ftrangers, by telling them that they have efcaped great perils. It is, however, certain, that this paffage of la Noire is very dangerous, and as it froze during the night, it would have been impoffible to pafs hard steep fheets of fnow, had not our people gone and marked out a path the evening before, while the fnow was foftened by the heat of the fun. We were expofed afterwards, as at Mount Blanc, to the danger of fiffures concealed by a very thin covering of fnow; thefe fiffures became fmaller and lefs frequent towards the top of the mountain, and we were flattering ourfelves with the hopes of getting clear of them, when all of a fudden we heard fome one cry out, ropes, ropes. These were indeed wanted to draw up from the bottom of the glacier, Alexis Balmar, one of the people who carried our baggage, and who being about an hundred paces before us, had fuddenly disappeared from amidft his companions, having fallen into a large fiffure about fixty feet deep. Very luckily he was stopped about half way down, that is to fay, at the depth of thirty feet, by a large mafs of fnow which stuck in the fiffure. As he fell upon the fnow, he received no injury, but a few fcratches in the face. His beft friend, P. J. Favret, immediately made himself fast to a rope, by which he was let down, and having first fent up the load, the two men were drawn up afterwards. Balmar, when he got out, appeared to be a little pale, but he fhewed no figns of emotion; he took upon his fhoulder our matraffes, which compofed his load, and purfued his way, as if nothing had happened. The moment of our arrival at the end of our journey was not, as is ufually the cafe, a moment of fatisfaction. I foon faw, and not without fome degree of chagrin, on comparing the fituation of our hut, with other eminences which I knew, that its elevation was not eighteen hundred toifes as I expected. I found it alfo to be too fmall, it was only fix feet fquare; it was fo low that one could fcarcely ftand upright in it, and the stones of which it was conftructed, were fo badly joined that the fnow found a paffage between them, and had even half filled it. The ridge of rocks upon which we were to erect our tents, and upon the angular point of which stood our hut, was enclofed by two glaciers extremely narrow and unequal, and bordered upon every fide with fteep fheets of fnow, which one might almost call precipices. For a habitation of feveral days, this fituation prefented nothing agreeable; but the profpect from it was truly magnificent. Towards Italy, we had an immenfe extent of horizon, composed of feveral chains of mountains, partly covered with fnow, between which, however, we difcovered fome forefts and cultivated valleys. Towards Savoy, Mount Blanc, the Giant, and the intermediate fummits exhibited a moft noble view, equally variegated and interesting. The people who had carried our baggage and inftruments, fet out immediately to return to Chamouni; but I kept, befides my own fervant, four of the best guides to affift us in our operations, |