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painted by the late Mr. Barry, is now engraving by Mr. Anker Smith, and to be published by Mr. Mauson. This being painted when he was much younger, may be fairly presumed to be a more characteristic resemblance, than any of those which have preceded it.

Mr. Desenfans' very fine Collection of Pictures is selling by private contract. Many of the most capital works in this collection are said to have been a short time since the property of a recently created Peer.

In the Summer of 1804, a number of ancient, allegorical, historical, and legendary paintings in fresco, were discovered on the walls of the chapel of the Holy Trinity, at Stratford-upon-Avon, in Warwickshire. Drawings were made from them at the time, by Mr. Thomas Fisher, who proposes to publish seventeen of them by subscription, with views and sections, illustrating the architecture of the chapel. The greater number of these paintings represent various

incidents, relating to the finding, recovering, and at length placing the Holy Cross at the Gate of Jerusalem. They exhibit specimens of the art of painting in two distinct ages, but both prior to the Reformation, and were brought to light by the accidental removal of whitewash, during the repair of the chapel in 1804. The subsequent destruction of the originals, suggests the propriety of now offering copies of them to the public. As specimens of the arts of painting and design in the 13th and 15th centu ries, they will be found curious, especi ally to those who are fond of comparing the progressive advancement of this divine art from the rude beginnings of uninformed genius, to the perfection of modern times. Descriptions of the Paintings, and an Account of the probable Periods of their Execution will be annexed. The size will be super-royal folio, and the publication will be in three parts, at two guineas each.

PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES.

NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE.

REPORT of the TRANSACTIONS of the Puy-
SICAL and MATHEMATICAL CLASS of
the NATIONAL INSTITUTE in 1806.
By M. CUVIER, SECRETARY to the

SOCIETY.

AMONG the botanical we res, 1.

lished during the present year, M. Cuvier notices, in a very distinguished manner, the continuation of the Flora of New Holland, by M. de la Billardiere; the splendid Description of Malmaison, by M. Ventenat; the Flora of Owarree and Benin, by M. Beauvois; and the Rural Botanist, by M. Dumont. We like wise learn from this Report, that Courset, a corresponding member of the Academy, and M. de Lamark have given, conjointly with M. Decandolle, a third and enlarged edition of the French Flora.

M. Billardiere has, in his valuable work above mentioned, made known to us, in particular, six new genera of plants of New Holland. The three first are naturally arranged among the myrtles, which form a very numerous family in New Holland, and from which medicine and the arts may derive much advantage, as the trees and shrubs belonging to it furnish aromatic oils.

The first genus, denominated pilcanthus, is very remarkable by an envelope of a single piece inclosing each flower; the petals

are five in number, and the calyx is divided into equal segments; the fruit, which is inferior and unilocular, contains several seeds.

The second is called calothamnus, from

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upon a large stamens of which stand upon a large fila ment, divided into two at each extremity, while the other are sterile. The fruit resembles, in every respect, the metrosideros.

The third, called calytrir, is known by its tubulated calyx, placed above the germen, and divided into five parts; each of which is terminated by a long awn or bristle. The capsule contains only one seed.

The fourth has received the name of capnalotus, and belongs to the family of the rosacea. The species termed follicularia, is perhaps still more remarkable than the sarracenia, and the nepenthes, by the form of some of the leaves, which represents very nearly a purse, surmounted by an operculum, and bordered with hooks, directed towards its inner side.

The fifth is named actinotus, and has all the appearance of a plant belonging to the corymbiform tribe, though in fact, it belongs to the umbellare. The two stigmas, which swell towards the apex, are surmounted, on the internal side, by

a bristle

a bristle, resembling the feelers, or antennæ of insects, as in the lagoecia. It contains only one seed.

The sixth, called prostanthera, belongs to the lubiute tribe. The calyx is composed of two complete divisions, the largest of which proceeds towards the other, and covers it, as soon as the corol has dropt off. A filiform appendix proceeds from underneath each of the anthers. The fruit is, in every respect, similar to that of the genus prasium; but one thing very remarkable in this family of plants is, that the embryo, or corcle, is enclosed in a thick and fleshy albumen, whilst in the other labiate plants, hitherto observed, it is naked.

M. Beauvois having investigated certain mushrooms, in all the various stages of their growth, found, that their forms became so much changed, at different periods, that several botanists had thence been led to place them in different genera, according to the age at which they examined them: thus, according to this author, the rizomorpha of Persoon is only a mushroom in the second stage of its growth, and becomes a boletus at the third; the dematrium bombycinum of the same author becomes, at the termination of some time, his mesenterica argentea. It then thickens, acquires a cellular texture, so as to resemble a morel, and, like the rizomorpha, at length becomes a boleThis plant, however, requires

tus.

farther investigation.

The researches into natural history, we learn from this Report, though less numerous, during the present year, than those made in botany, are yet far from being uninteresting.

M. de Beauvois has begun to publish an account of the insects which he .collected, during his travels in Africa and America. Two numbers of this work have already made their appearance. M. Cuvier intimates to the academy that he himself continues to pursue the researches, in which he has been engaged for several years, on the animals without vertebræ, and on the fossil bones of quadrupeds.

In the continuation of the first great division of his work, he has given, during the present year, the anatomy of seven genera; the scyllea, glaucus, colides colimucia, limax, Linnea, and planorbus. Even the external appearance of the two first was little known, and the reporter has rectified several mistakes, into which naturalists had fallen concerning them.

In the continuation of the second part,

he treats of the fossil bones of the bear, rhinoceros, and elephant. The bones of two species of bears, at present unknown, are found buried with those of the tiger, hyena, and other carnivorous animals, in a great number of caverns, in the mountains of Hungary and Germany.

Bones of the rhinoceros and elephant are found in abundance in every part of our globe.

Accounts have been transmitted to the author, from which it appears, that clephants' bones have been dug up in more than six hundred places of the two continents. Still more recently have the jawbones and tusks of these animals been found in the forest of Boudy, in digging the canal, intended to bring the waters of the river Ourgue to Paris. The farther we proceed towards the north, these bones are found in a still more perfect state of preservation. An island, situated in the Frozen Sea, is almost entirely composed of them. These facts were previously known; but the results of a comparison made by M. Cuvier between these fossil bones of the rhinoceros and elephant, with those of the same kind of animals existing in Africa at the present day, clearly prove that the former were of a different species from the latter.

Exclusive of the different structure of the muzzle, the fossil rhinoceros appears to have had much shorter legs, a larger and more elongated head, then the rhinoceros now known. The jawbones of the fossil elephant, as well as the head, and particularly the alveola of the tusks, appear also to have been of a different structure from the same parts belonging to the present species; the proboscis also differs in its proportions.

On the whole, the author thinks there is reason to conclude that these two species are now extinct, as well as many others whose bones he has examined, and of which ten or twelve species, deemed non-descripts by most naturalists, have been found with their bones encrusted in the plaster-quarries near Parts, He also thinks, there is reason to suppose, that these species have lived in the places where their bones are found, and that they have not been transported thi ther by an inundation, as is generally supposed; since these bones are not in the least worn down by friction. We should acquire a very superficial knowledge of natural bodies, continues the re porter, and attain very imperfect ideas of the different phenomena they present, if we confined ourselves merely to the de

scription

scription of their external parts, and did not endeavour to obtain a more intimate knowledge of their structure, by means of anatomy and chemistry.

M. Fourcroy has published a new and enlarged edition of his Philosophy of Chemistry, which M. Cuvier justly considers as the best elementary work on that science.

Attraction and repulsion. These two powerful agents in nature have, during the present year, as we learn from this Report, attracted the attention of philosophers.

It is well known, that ice is lighter than water, since it swims in it. On the other hand, hot water is, in general, lighter than that which is cold. But does not this fluid become uniformly condensed, in proportion as it is cooled, and expand suddenly at the moment of its congelation? This, however, is not the case; for water is at its maximum of density, when a few degrees above the freezing-point. This M. Febvre-Gineau proved by direct experiments, several years ago, by means of the thermometer and hydrostatical balance. Since that period, Count Rumford has, by well devised experiments, rendered the facts still more evident.*

M. Berthollet perseveres with indefatigable industry in his Chemical Researches, a continuation of which has appeared during the present year.

He therein proves that, by means of pressure, we may combine, with the three alkalies, a much greater quantity of carbonic acid than usual, and thus form neutral salts, as well as with the other acids. Fle restricts the use of the term carbonate to these combinations, while he gives to those usually formed with this acid and the alkalies, the name of sub-carbonates; and shews, that there are between these two many intermediate states.

The same holds equally true in the earthy carbonates, and many other salts. The phosphate of soda, for example, is crystallizable, both with an excess of acid, and an excess of basis. The partizans of the old doctrines suppose that, in such cases, no combination takes place, but, that the superabundant principle remains merely interposed in a free state, between the molecules of the two principles, comLined in the usual proportion. M. Ler

An account of these experiments will be found in vol. xxii, p. 474, of the Monthly Magazine.

thollet alleges, in reply to this opinion, that, if this were the case, the sulphuric acid poured on a sub-carbonate would immediately seize upon the uncombined alkaline molecules, previously to entering into union with those combined with the carbonic acid. Now, that is not the fact; for the smallest drop of the former acid instantaneously produces an effervescence, and extrication of the second. The acidulous sulphate of soda effloresces on exposure to the air; that is, it parts with its water of crystallization, which could not happen, were the sulphuric acid uncombined with it, since there is no substance that more greedily attracts the moisture of the air than this acid.

M. Berthollet has furnished us with

the means of estimating the degree of acidity of the different acids, and the alkalinity of the different bases, by the quantity which it is necessary to employ of each of these substances, completely to saturate or neutralize the other, so that no sign of any superabundant acid or alkali is perceivable in the combination.

He confirms this method by shewing, that the proportions of these quantities are uniform, and that if to one basis

twice more of one kind of acid be necessary to saturate it, than to saturate another basis, the first will also require twice more of any other kind of acid than

the second.

But the degree of resistance to heat does not correspond with this force, and it is more easy, for example, to decompose by fire the carbonate of magnesia than that of lime, though the affinity of these two earths for the acid be nearly equal: the reason of which is, that the former carbonate contains much more water; and other experiments shew, that water favours the disengagement of carbonic acid.

The consequences deducible from these facts, in every branch of chemistry, and particularly in the theory of analyses, are incalculable.

The tables of the affinities, and a great part of the analyses hitherto made; are invalidated by them, and experience, in fact, proves that these data require to be revised. For example, M. Kliproth, and afterwards M. Vauquelin, found a fifth of fluoric acid in the topaz, in which it was never before suspected to exist. This stone must, therefore, be

now transferred to the class of substances containing acids.

Another mineral, hitherto considered as a stone, is now found to be a metal,

It

It was formerly termed by Delamethieré oisante, and still more recently by M. Hauy anathase. M. Vauquelin has, however, found in it nothing but the 、 oxide of titanium, as in the other mineral denominated red schoerl.

This fact may be considered as important, since chemistry had not at that time been able to discover any essential difference in the composition of these two minerals, though their physical qualities and their crystallization were wholly different.

A similar example had formerly occurred in mineralogy. I here allude to the arragonite, in which chemistry discovers nothing but a carbonate of lime, though neither, in weight, hardness, fracture, nor crystallization, does it resemble calcareous spar, or common carbonate of lime.

A different example, but which establishes also a species of opposition between the physical and chemical characters of minerals, has occurred during the present year. It is an iron ore, known under the name of spathic iron. It uniformly exhibits the same crystalline appearance as carbonated lime, and, in like manner, contains a great proportion of it. M. Hauy had arranged it among the varieties of this species, considering the oxide of iron merely as accidentally mixed with it, during the crystallization of the line, nearly in the same manner as the sand, in the curious crystals of the hard grey stone, found in the forest of Fontainbleau.

It had been indeed long known, that the quantity of iron contained in it, is extremely variable; but Messrs. Drapier and Descotils have discovered, that the proportion of lime varies still more; that very frequently it scarcely contains any, and that the magnesia, and the oxide of manganese, are found in very different quantities in different specimens.

Such are the various combinations which occur under the same form.

These apparent oppositions, concludes M. Cuvier, between two branches of the same science, or between two modes of viewing the same objects, can only proceed from some imperfection in the principles of the one or the other of the two methods, and merit the attention of men of science.

The productions of nature are so intimately connected with, and so materially modified by, the climates, in which they are found, that no improvement can be made in any of the branches of Natural

2

History, without an exact acquaintance with geography. Hence it appears, that this knowledge is scarcely less necessary to the naturalist, than to the astronomes It is well known, how much we stand indebted to scientific travellers; and M. Olivier has furnished us with new proofs of this truth, in a Topographical Account of Persia, which he has just published. He describes the chains of the mountains, the course of the rivers, and explans the nature of the productions by that of the climate. By reason of the great drought which so generally prevails throughout this vast empire, not above a twentieth part of it is in a state of cultivation. There are many provinces in which not a single tree is to be seen, except such as have been planted and watered by the hand of man. This evil progressively augments by the destruction of the canals which conduct the waters from the mountains; and the lands being de serted become impregnated with salt, which renders them for ever sterile.

The labours of naturalists who, instead of exploring foreign countries, pursue their studies at home, may also prove useful to the improvement of geography, by suggesting lights calculated to assist the inquiries of travellers.

M. de Lacepede, after examining what is already known respecting Africa, comparing the size of the rivers which flow into the sea, with the extent of the country, on which the rains of the torrid zone fall, and with the probable quantity of water carried off by evaporation; forming, in short, a judgment respecting the number and direction of the mountainous chains in the interior, by those with which we are acquainted on the borders of this great division of the globe; from all these circumstances he has been led to conjectures respecting the physical disposition of the unknown regions in the center, and particularly in regard to the inland lakes and scas, which must, he thinks, exist therein. He has sketched out the routes which ought, in his opinion, to be pursued by travel lers, who intend to explore these yet un discovered countries.

There is also another kind of specelative geography, which endeavours to ascertain from the present appearance of countries, their state in past times.

M. Olivier has, we learn from the present report, investigated in this way, the probability of the communication, which was formerly supposed to exist between the Caspian and Black-Sea. He is of

opinion

opinion that this communication must have been to the north of Mount Caucasus, and that, at last, it was interrupted by the alluvial depositions of the Cuban, the Wolga, and the Don.

Since then, the Caspian no longer receives any rivers equivalent to the water carried off by evaporation, it has greatly sunk, and is now, at the present day, sixty feet below the level of the Euxine.

It is thus, that it has been separated from the sea of Aral, and left exposed the immense plains of sand, which lie to the north and east.

M. Dureau de la Malle, a son of oue of the meinbers of the Institute, has discovered in the Greek and Roman writers, numerous testimonies of the former extent of the Caspian Sea, and of its communications with the Euxine and Aral, and has collected them in a Memoir, which he has presented to this class, and to that of Ancient Natural History. The ancients ascribed the separation of the two former, and the great diminution of the Euxine itself, to a disruption of the Bosphorus, which they supposed was the cause of the flood of Deucalion, the Euxine being thrown with violence, by this opening, upon the Archipelago, and the shores of Greece, Some of them even imagined, that, at this epoch, the

Mediterranean, in consequence of being suddenly augmented by the same cause, had broken down the pillars of Hercules, and formed the strait, which now unites it with the ocean.

But M. Olivier conceives that, if the Euxine had ever been inore elevated than at present, it must have found a natural outlet by the plain of Nicca, and by other vallies which lead to the Propontis, and the Archipelago; that, in any other case, the narrow channel of the Bosphorus, could not furnish sufficient water to inundate the lofty mountains of Greece, which are more elevated than any other on the borders of the Euxine; and still less to produce any perceptible effect upon the vast expanse of the Mediterranean.

He is therefore of opinion, that the relations of the ancients on this subject, originated neither from observation nor tradition, but merely in conjectures, which the physical state of the countries entirely overthrows. It is equally true, that the part of the Bosphorus, nearest to the Euxine Sea, exhibits traces of volcanic revolutions, while the remaining part forms a natural valley. This holds equally true with regard to the Hellespont.

ALPHABETICAL LIST of BANKRUPTCIES and DIVIDENDS, announced between the 20th of May and the 20th of June, extracted from the London Gazettes.

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