conqueft. The noble families of Hay, Mr. Pennant obferves, derive their descent from this ruftic hero, and, in memory of the action, bear for their arms the inftrument of their victory, with the allufive motto of fub jugo. Tradition relates, that the monarch gave this deliverer of his country, in reward, as much land as a greyhound would run over in a certain time, or a falcon would furround in its flight; and the story says that he chose the last.

Over this tract are fcattered numbers of tumuli, in which are frequently found bones and entire skeletons, fome lodged in rude coffins, formed of ftones, difpofed in that form; and others depofited only in the earth of the barrow. In one place is a stone standing upright, fuppofed to mark the place of fepulture of the Danish leader. The prefent names of two places on this plain, fays Mr. Pennant, certainly allude to the action and to the vanquished enemy. Turn-again-Hillock points out the place the Scots rallied, and a spot near eight tumuli, called Danemerk, may defign the place of greatest flaughter.

The traveller continues his route through a fine plain, rich in corn; the crops of wheat excellent. The noble Tay winds boldly on the left; the eastern borders are decorated with the woods of Scone. The fine bridge now completed, the city of Perth, and the hills and rifing woods beyond, form a most beautiful finishing of the prospect.'

After giving a distinct hiftorical account of Perth, Mr. Pennant favours us with a detail of its exports, from which it appears that its trade is very confiderable.

Of white and brown linens, about feventy-five thousand pounds worth are annually fent to London, befides a very great quantity that is difpofed of to Edinburgh and Glasgow and London, Manchester and Glasgow take about ten thousand pounds worth of linen yarn.

:

Se

• Lintfeed oil forms a confiderable article of commerce. ven water-mills belonging to this place are in full employ, and make, on a medium, near 300 tuns of oil, which is chiefly fent to London, and brings in from eight to nine thousand pounds. The exports of wheat and barley are from twenty-four to thirty thousand bolls.

• Confiderable quantities of tallow, bees wax, dreffed sheepskins, dreffed and raw calve-skins, and raw goat-skins are shipped from this place.

The exports of falmon to London and the Mediterranean brings in from twelve to fourteen thousand pounds. That fish is taken here in great abundance. Three thousand have been caught in one morning, weighing, one with another, fixteen. pounds a-piece; the whole capture being forty-eight thousand

pounds.

pounds. The fishery begins at St. Andrew's day, and ends Auguft 26th, old ftyle. The rents of the fisheries amount to

three thousand pounds a year.'

[ To be continued. 1

Medical Refearches: being an Enquiry into the Nature and Origin of Hyfterics in the Female Conftitution, and into the Diftinction between that Difeafe and Hypochondriac or Nervous Disorders. By Andrew Wilfon, M. D. 8vo. 55. boards. Hooper.

THE

HE enquiry with which this volume commences, is in tended to ascertain a difference between the hysteric difease, and that which is termed the hypochondriac, an indif criminate idea of those two maladies being, in the author's opinion, of extreme bad confequence in practice. In order to elucidate this diverfity, Dr. Wilfon enters into an investigation of what is common to the conftitution of both fexes, as diftinguished from what is peculiar to the nature and confti-. tution of females; and he treats, in feparate chapters, of the following fubjects; namely, the identity of the general nature of the fexes; the fexual degree of bodily constitution belonging to females; the fidereal part of the conftitution of all terrene bodies, and of the human frame in particular; of the refinement of the animal principles of the female conftitution; the casualties and incidents to which the female conftitution is exposed; with the characteristic of the female nature and conftitution. That we may not run the hazard of mifrepresenting the author's fentiments on the fubject laft mentioned, it is neceffary that we should lay them before our readers in his own words.

There is as certain a correfpondence between the mind or imagination of the mother, and the form of the infant in the womb, as there is between an object, and its image in a mirror. The medium of this communication with the infant, must be the fame with the medium of its nourishment.

This reflection of the female mind, or of the form of life. there, upon the feat of coalefcence between the mother and the child, is, in my opinion, that very thing in which the female character confifts; and is the primary cause of that coalefcence itfelf between the mother and the embryo. The one is thereby formed and qualified for irradiating, what the other is formed for drawing and taking in. It is this which opens the

fources of the mother's vital fluids, to the demands of infant nature: juft as the breafts, which were empty immediately before, are well known to fill and flow, when the mother's tendernefs begins to glow on the immediate profpect of laying the

infant to her bofom, that she has been for some time abfent from.

There are fome doctrines, and this is one of them, that demand illustration, rather than confirmation: in other words, illuftration is the most fatisfactory confirmation that can be given of them. This I fhall attempt.

There is the fame reafon for faying that a child in the womb lives communicatively, as that it is nourished communicatively. Though present phyfiologifts have not determined what life is; they all agree that it is a principle distinct from the known materials, and fenfible mechanifm, of our compofition; but while we live, I fuppofe they will admit, it is every where a concomitant of our fubftance.

As the existence of this principle is known to ourselves, and to one another, by the confcious operations of our minds; we have as good reafon to call the feat of thefe operations, the fountain of life hedding itself through every particle of our frame, as we have to call the heart, the fountain of our fluids.

Though we think consciously, it does not follow, that we are confcious of all that is performed in this fountain of life, or that consciousness attends all its inceffant functions. When we will the motion of our eye, or of our toe, we are inconfcious of either the reality, or of the manner of the will's addreffing itself to those parts, At the fame time, we are as certain, as neceffary confequences can make us, that the will could ne ver reach thefe members, unlefs in the feat of its action it found fomething that correfponded with them.

Can we have any ftronger rational demonftration, that there is an active, living, material image of the whole frame, in the fountain of life, with which the confcious mind correfponds at pleasure? But though we feel this principle fubfervient to our confciousness in actuating our frame, it does not follow, that this is all the office it has to perform. On the contrary, we muft conclude, that the fame principle muft infenfibly to ourfelves perform all its vital functions by the fame kind of energy.

We have many other circumftances to fatisfy us, that it lives in neceffary and uninterrupted influencing correfpondence with every part; infomuch, that it would appear, if any part of that image was to be obliterated in the fountain of life, or its communication with any part interrupted or broken off, that part would cease to live inftantaneously, though the access of our fluids to it was ever fo free.

That this living, modulation of our whole frame, fupported by the re-action of every living part, or by the re-action of life in every part, upon the fountain of life in our compofition, has neceffarily the fame inftantaneous and permanent re-action on every part, is, in my opinion, a neceffary confequence and that it is fo in fact, we have demonftration from the momentary effects difplayed through the whole fyftem of our conftitution, whenever this model of ourselves in the fountain of vitality, is

agitated

agitated in any specific manner by our confcious paffions of love, anger, fear, fhame, joy, &c.

When this is evidently the cafe, can it be any wonder, or in any measure unfuppofable, that a particular part of the human conftitution may be fo formed as to be fufceptible of an impreffion or regeneration of this intire image delineated and preserved in it for tranfmiffion to new beings, when they come to be prefented and annexed to it? This I have no manner of doubt is matter of fact, in regard to the organ and feat of conception in the female fex.

This image of the whole frame of every animal in the centre and fountain of life, which fheds its irradiations into every part it is the reprefentative of, I cannot by fimilitude give a clearer and more diftinct idea of, than by comparing it to the action of light in a focus, which contains, as it were in a point, all that is delineated beyond it in an extended landscape.

Though I look upon this as a very near fimilitude to the idea I would convey of what must be a matter of fact, however it is explained, yet when on this fubject I ufe the term Image, or any other fimilar to it, I would not be understood optically or literally. I mean a potential image, if I may ufe the phrase; where there is, without the leaft confufion of parts, as diftinct a concentration of the powers of life, as there is of forms in the focus of a perspective glass.

Though an infant in the womb has all the members and organs, and the fame connections eftablished among them, which one that is born has, yet certain it is, that none of them act officially, until they receive a proper uterine complection. They have nothing perfonal in their fenfes, motions or fecretions; these all follow the habit of the mother, and are affected by her feelings and fenfations both of body and mind. They are fhocked, influenced, and affected through her. Their life, as well as their fluids and folids, are her's: the whole is common to both the life of the infant in that ftate is totally derivative.,

• That wonderful elaboratory of human nature, the organ of conception in the female fex, must have a capacity in itself, by fome difplay of Wisdom in its ftructure or contexture, of regenerating in itself that whole form, and all thofe powers of life rendezvoufed there, in fuch a manner as to be tranfmitted and diftributed entire, and without confufion to every correfpondent part and member of the vegetative infant, according to the fimilarities of the different crafis and conftruction of each.'

A theory that is entirely hypothetical, and not obviously connected with confequential facts, can hardly be a proper fubject for any critical obfervation; we fhall therefore pafs to the next chapter, where the author, after remarking that a characteristic difeafe muft originate from fome criterion of diftinction between the fexes, afcribes the fource of the hyfte

rical diforder to the principles mentioned in the preceding quotation, affirming it to be a difeafe of the principle of life itself. In the fubfequent chapter, however, he diftributes hysterical affections into two claffes: firft, fuch as are produced by confent or fympathy of parts; and fecondly, fuch as are an immediate re-action upon the principle of life as its fountain.

The ninth and tenth chapters contain fome arguments in favour of the author's opinion refpe&ting the cause of the dif ease; after which he confiders the effects of the abuse of fugar, particularly in regard to infants: treating afterwards in fucceeding chapters, Of the Caufe of the encreased Frequency of Infant Mortality; Of the immediate Source and Seat of Animal heat; Of the Nature and conftituent Parts of the Blood; Of Irritability, Spafm, and Life.

In the feventeenth chapter Dr. Wilfon quits the field of hypothefis, for that of practice, where he confiders the indications of cure in hysterical disorders. Of this fubject, however, he treats very briefly, his principal design having been to communicate the phyfiological fpeculations which we have already cited, relative to the cause of the disease.

The eighteenth chapter contains a few remarks on the dif tinction between hysterical and nervous, or hypochondriaca! diforders; after which we meet with an enquiry into the moving powers employed in the circulation of the blood: but of this production we formerly gave an account *.

The volume concludes with Four Letters addreffed to Sir Hildebrand Jacob, bart. on the Materiality, Denfity, and Activity of Light; and on Air. For the author's opinion on these subjects we refer our readers to the work.

FOREIGN

ARTICLES.

Hiftoire de l' Aftronomie Ancienne depuis fon Origine jusqu'à l'Etabliffement de l'Ecole d'Alexandrie: par M. Bailly, Garde des Tableaux du Roi, de l'Acad. Roy. des Sciences, &c. 4to. Paris. MR. Bailly has prefixed to his work a preliminary discourse on the Object of Aftronomy, the Nature of its Progrefs, of Aftronomical Obfervations, and their refult; on the Ufefulness and Theory of that Science; and divided his performance into Nine Books.

In the first book, he treats of the Origin and Inventors of Aftronomy, and endeavours to fhew that this fcience has been cultivated more than 1500 years before the Deluge, or more than 7000 years before our prefent times. According to him, the first known aftropomers were Uranus and Atlas, whom he takes to have been real

See Crit. Rev. vol. xxxviii. p. 6Ị.

per.