Volume 7 / Part 1 — VI. Report upon the New or Rare Plants which flowered in the Garden of the Horticultural Society at Chiswick, between March, 1825, and March, 1826. Part 1. Tender Plants. By John Lindley, Esq. ◊ (continued 4)

The uses of coloured tests are explained and illustrated in the twelfth section. Of coloured liquids the author chiefly recommends the infusion of red cabbage; and as it is not only a very good test for private experiments but of excellent service to the public lecturer in rendering certain changes of composition visible to an audience, it may be worth while extracting the directions for preparing it.

“583. The only substance of the kind, perhaps, worth keeping in solution, is an acid infusion of red cabbage. For its preparation, one or more red cabbages should be cut into strips, and boiling water poured upon the pieces; a little dilute sulphuric acid is to be added, and the whole well stirred: it is then to be covered and kept hot as long as possible, or, if convenient, should be heated nearly to boiling, for an hour or two, in a copper or earthen vessel. The quantity of water to be added at first should be sufficient to cover the cabbage, and the sulphuric acid should be in the proportion of about half an ounce of strong oil of vitriol by measure to each good-sized plant. This being done, the fluid should be separated and drained off, and as much more hot water poured on as will cover the solid residue, adding a very little sulphuric acid. The whole is to be closed up, and suffered to stand until cold, and then the liquid poured off and added to the former infusion. The cabbage may now be thrown away. The infusion is to be evaporated to one half or one third its first bulk, poured into a jar, allowed to settle, and the clear red fluid decanted and preserved in bottles. The residue may have water added to it, the solid part be allowed to subside, the clear liquor drawn off, evaporated and added to the former, or it may be dismissed altogether. This solution will keep for a year. When [p279] required for use, the acid of a small portion of it should be neutralized by caustic potash, or soda, (not by ammonia,) when it will assume an intensely deep blue colour, and will, in most cases, require dilution with twelve or fourteen parts of water. The red liquor of pickle cabbage will, occasionally, answer the uses of the solution, and is, when required for service, to be neutralized in a similar manner.”

For test-papers, litmus and turmeric are the most essential, and several precautions in preparing and using them are here pointed out, which, though apparently trivial, are, in fact, extremely important in insuring correct conclusions. We transcribe a part of the account of the applications of these coloured papers, as a specimen of the clear minuteness with which the details of the work are given, and as a sample of the author’s general method and style, where subjects of much greater intricacy are to be explained.

“591. In using these test papers with a fluid suspected to contain free acid or alkali, or knowing that one of these substances is predominant, to ascertain which is so, all that is necessary is to moisten them with the liquid, and observe the change: if the fluid be acid, the blue colour of the litmus will immediately become red; if alkaline, the yellow colour of the turmeric will be changed to a brown. The moistening may be effected by dipping the paper into the liquid; but a better method is to touch the edge of the slip with a rod dipped in the fluid. In the latter case there is no risk of contamination to the fluid from the paper, and only a very minute quantity of the liquid is used at once.

“592. These trials must be made by day-light; artificial light not permitting that just estimation of the changes by which the presence of a small excess of acid or alkali is to be determined. As the proportion of free acid or alkali diminishes, the intensity of the new tint produced upon the paper is also diminished; and when in very small quantity, it requires considerable attention before a decision can be arrived at. The test paper should occasionally be touched with pure water in the immediate neighbourhood of the part where the solution has been applied, for any change in appearance that may have occurred, not due to mere moistening, is then readily perceived.

“593. Although acid is generally tested for by litmus paper, and alkali by turmeric paper, yet the former is sometimes used advantageously for the latter purpose, being first slightly reddened, either by exposure to the air, or by momentary contact with muriatic acid fumes. When the [p280] paper thus modified is used to detect a free alkali, instead of turmeric paper, that substance is indicated by the restoration of the original blue colour. Litmus paper is best slightly reddened for this use, by putting a drop or two of muriatic acid into a large jar, allowing it to stand a few minutes, and then bringing the paper towards the mouth of the jar, or carefully placing it within: so soon as the blue tint has become slightly reddened, the paper should be removed for use. If too much acid be imparted to the paper, the delicacy of its indications is injured, because of the greater quantity of alkali required to neutralize the acid, and restore the blue colour. For the same reason a paper free from alkali or carbonate of lime has been recommended for the preparation of these tests: for these impurities, combining with a minute portion of acid, neutralize it, and thus prevent that delicacy of indication which the test paper ought and may be made to possess.”

The mode of determining the value of alcaline substances, or “alcalimetry,” is described at length in this section. Our readers, however, will here recollect that there is an error respecting the specific gravity of the acid, which Mr. Faraday has corrected at page 221 of the present volume of this Journal. The thirteenth section is allotted to crucible operations, and the fourteenth to furnace tube operations. They are full of minute and admirable instructions, evidently deduced from long experience, and detailed with the same precision and clearness which we have already eulogised. The fifteenth section, which occupies nearly a hundred pages, relates to “pneumatic manipulation, or management of gases.” Every paragraph of the instructions here given will be found to contain something of importance to the student; it is, indeed, a valuable essay upon a difficult and nice department of chemical research.

Under the head “Tube Chemistry,” in the sixteenth section, a variety of means are pointed out, of working with and employing glass-tubes, as substitutes for more expensive and formal apparatus. Indeed, the young chemist cannot do better than practise the art of bending, drawing out, and sealing tubes, as here directed, (and in the nineteenth section,) by which he will soon gain the requisite dexterity in forming them into test tubes, retorts, and so on, and be enabled to furnish his laboratory with a quantity of very useful vessels and apparatus, at a very moderate expense.

The application of electricity to chemical purposes forms the subject of the seventeenth section, in which the [p281] management of electrical machines and apparatus is described, and the circumstances necessary to facilitate investigation and insure success are pointed out. To this succeed the management and composition of lutes, and a chapter on bending blowing, and cutting glass.

Cleanliness, order, and regularity are of the utmost importance in the laboratory; and though the appearance of the chemist himself is often such that he appears “to doat upon dirt,” the strictest nicety must generally be observed in the state of his utensils and apparatus. These matters must, indeed, generally engage his personal attention; and it is not sufficient that glasses and other vessels be merely washed and wiped in the usual way, but they are generally required to be free from the minutest portions of adhering matter. A section is accordingly appropriated to the subject of cleanliness and cleansing, in which, and in that which follows it, entitled “General Rules for young Experimenters,” much information is conveyed that will prove useful to those who are commencing the practice of experimental inquiries in chemistry, and also to such as, having made some progress, have indulged themselves in slovenly habits. Macquer’s observations on this subject, as quoted by our author, are so much to the purpose, and so well deserving the serious attention of the young chemist, that we shall stand excused for inserting them in this place. He says, “A persuasion must exist that arrangement, order, and cleanliness, are essentially necessary in a chemical laboratory. Every vessel and utensil ought to be well cleansed as often it is used, and put again into its place; labels ought to be attached to all the substances, mixtures, and products of operations which are preserved in bottles or otherwise; these should be examined and cleansed from time to time, and the labels renewed when required. These cares, although they seem to be trifling, are, notwithstanding, the most fatiguing and tedious, but the most important, and often the least observed. When a person is keenly engaged, experiments succeed each other quickly; some seem nearly to decide the matter, and others suggest new ideas; he cannot but proceed to them immediately, and he is led from one to another; he thinks he shall easily know again the products of his first experiments, and therefore he does not take time to put them in order; he prosecutes with eagerness the experiments which he has last thought of, and in the mean time the vessels employed, the glasses and bottles filled, so accumulate that he cannot any longer distinguish them; or at least he is [p282] uncertain concerning many of his former products. This evil is increased, if a new series of operations succeed, and occupy all the laboratory; or if he be obliged to quit the place for some time, every thing then goes into confusion. Hence it frequently happens that he loses the fruits of much labour, and that he must throw away almost all the products of his experiments.

“The only method of avoiding these inconveniences is to employ the cares and attentions, above mentioned. It is indeed unpleasant and very difficult continually to stop in the midst of the most interesting researches, and to employ much valuable time in cleaning and arranging vessels and attaching labels. These employments are capable of cooling and retarding the progress of genius, and are tedious and disgusting; but they are nevertheless necessary. Those persons whose fortunes enable them to have an assistant operator, on whose accuracy and intelligence they can depend, avoid many of these disagreeable circumstances; but they ought nevertheless to attend to the execution of these things. We cannot depend too much on ourselves in these matters, however minute, on account of their consequences. This becomes even indispensable when the experiments are to be kept secret, at least for a time, which is very common and often necessary in chemistry.

“When new researches and inquiries are made, the mixtures, results, and products of all the operations ought to be kept a long time well ticketed and noted. It frequently happens that at the end of some time these things present very singular phenomena, which would never have been suspected. There are many beautiful discoveries in chemistry which were made in this manner, and certainly a much greater number which have been lost, because the products have been thrown away too hastily, or because they could not be recognised after the changes which happened to them.”

The uses of equivalents, and the method of employing Dr. Wollaston’s scale, form the subject of the twenty-second section of Mr. Faraday’s book; and of the concluding sections, the twenty-third contains a quantity of miscellaneous remarks, and the twenty-fourth is appropriated to “a course of inductive and instructive practices;” that is, to a selection of minute instructions respecting the use of instruments, and the performance of operations.

Such is an outline of the contents of this volume, of which we have felt ourselves obliged to speak in terms unequivocally [p283] favourable; in fact, it contains, strictly speaking, nothing to criticise. It is minute, laborious, and very unpretending, and contains a body of instructions for the performance of experiments, and of descriptions of the modes of managing and applying apparatus, which is not to be had elsewhere, being manifestly derived from diligent research, extensive experience, and correct judgment. It is not a book for amateurs; for they will presently learn from it that there is no royal road to the science of which it treats; but the real student, who will seriously follow its laborious details, will discover in them an acceptable and sure guide through the crooked and intricate, as well as the straight paths of chemistry. Those, however, and those only, who are well versed in the business of the laboratory, both as experimentalists and teachers, can duly appreciate the weighty service which Mr. Faraday has here performed.

Statistical Notices suggested by the actual State of the British Empire, as exhibited in the last Population Census. Communicated by Mr. Merritt. ◊ [Read before the Literary and Philosophical Society of Liverpool.]

THE population returns of the decennial lustrum, or period of ten years, which ended in 1821, were delayed for a considerable time, on account of the difficulties which have always occurred in taking the population of Ireland. They have now, however, been some time completed, and from the data they afford, a few reflections naturally present themselves, which though sufficiently obvious, yet, from the extreme interest of the subject, may be thought deserving of being brought together, and exhibited in a connected form. They point out some peculiarities in the situation of this country, which distinguish it from almost every other nation that has yet existed in ancient or modern times.

From the notices which have been published respecting the different districts, it may be inferred, that the portion which may be termed the Urban population, has augmented in a much greater degree than the Rural. The general ratio of increase has, however, been very great, and, in the opinion of Mr. Malthus, still continues at the same rate. That eminent [p284] economist has lately given it as his opinion, before the Emigration Committee, that the present inhabitants of the British Islands do not amount to less than twenty-two millions and a half. This estimate is perhaps a little exaggerated; but as it may be assumed sufficiently near the truth for all the objects of general speculation, I shall proceed to point out a few of those leading peculiarities, to which I have just alluded. In the first place we may assert, I apprehend, on sufficient grounds, that Great Britain is the most populous nation which has existed since the Christian era. No other instance has occurred in which an extent of continuous surface of 93,000 square miles has sustained a population of twenty-two millions. Italy, which is not of much greater extent, has sometimes been rated at nearly the same amount, but this estimate has been formed in the absence of all actual enumeration and is now ascertained to be a considerable exaggeration. No other part of the world can enter into the competition, unless it be certain districts of China and Japan, but which, as our knowledge of them in this respect is quite uncertain, I shall leave wholly out of the question. How far some nations of the ancient world may have approached or gone beyond us in the race of population, is perhaps equally lost in uncertainty. There is reason to believe, as I have endeavoured to demonstrate on another occasion, that some districts of the old world exceeded, in this respect, any country of modern ages. Amongst them, perhaps, may be reckoned Egypt, Mesopotamia, the lesser Asia, and some parts of Persia: but certainly, neither in ancient nor modern times do we find any instance of a single, compact, distinct empire, exactly defined, identically governed, and peopled by twenty-two millions of souls on the same extent of soil; this is undoubtedly a peculiarity the most striking which can exist among nations.

In the second place, we may, I think, affirm with tolerable certainty, that no nation ever contained so many large cities. On this point Great Britain exhibits a splendid superiority. We have two cities of the first class, London and Dublin; the one with a population of more than a million, the other with little less than three hundred thousand. Of cities of the second class, or those which reach one hundred thousand inhabitants, [p285] or above that number, we have seven, viz., four in England, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Bristol; two in Scotland, Edinburgh and Glasgow; and one in Ireland, the city of Cork. These seven average considerably more than one hundred thousand each. We have fourteen towns of the third class, or those containing from thirty to fifty thousand or upwards of inhabitants, viz., ten in England: Portsmouth, Plymouth, Norwich, Leeds, Sheffield, Nottingham, Bath, Newcastle, Coventry, and Hull. Two in Scotland, Paisley and Dundee, and two in Ireland, Belfast and Limerick. Of towns of the fourth class, in which are usually reckoned those of from fifteen to thirty thousand inhabitants, we have at least thirty, and probably more. A slight glance at the principal nations of Europe, with this view, will show at once their immense inferiority.

To begin with France, the most populous of the great sovereignties. That empire possesses only one city of the first class, viz. Paris, which is inferior to London by one third. She has five of the second class, viz., Lyons, Bourdeaux, Marseilles, Lisle and Rouen; but, according to the latest information which I have been able to obtain, they will not reach, by a very considerable proportion, the average number of the seven English cities of the same class. France has also eight towns of the third class, viz., Amiens, Caen, Nantes, Brest, Toulouse, Toulon, Mentz, and Versailles. I am not quite sure, as no census has lately been taken, whether two or three of the following towns ought not to be included in this class, though I am inclined, on the whole, to a contrary opinion, viz., Melun, Montpelier, Nanci, Dijon, Tours, Rennes, and Troyes; they will not, however, I am persuaded, come near the average of the British third-rate towns. The same remark will hold as to the number and size of the inferior towns.

With respect to the rest in rank of the great monarchies, the Austrian Empire, a very few words will suffice, as it cannot pretend to come into any competition with us, on the point in question. Austria possesses only one city of the first class, and three of the second, viz., Vienna, Prague, Milan, Venice. The towns of the third rank are proportionably few. With Spain, Russia, and Prussia, it would be idle to enter into any comparison. [p286]

It must be confessed, however, that the present kingdom of the Netherlands, as established by the congress of Vienna contains, in proportion to its extent and population, more large towns than any single state which now exists, or perhaps has ever existed. With an extent of territory and number of inhabitants scarcely exceeding, one-fourth of the British dominions, that kingdom has one city the first class, Amsterdam; two of the second rank, Rotterdam and Brussels; and probably as many of the third class as Great Britain herself. But the Kingdom of the Netherlands is in itself too insignificant to enter into any competition with such a state as Great Britain for any objects of general comparison. The various states comprehended under the common geographical appellation of Italy, if that superb country was united under one head, is the only one of the European nations which, under the view we are now considering, could sustain any parallel with Great Britain. But this union, so desirable in many points of view, would probably diminish its pretensions as a nation of large cities. Many of these have reached their present grandeur and extent by having been long the seat of a court or a government, and would perhaps decline considerably if reduced to the rank of mean provincial capitals. But even under any circumstances of territorial union, Italy could not be held to comprize more than one city of the first class, viz., Naples, and six of the second, viz., Turin, Milan, Venice, Genoa, Florence, and Rome; whereas, as we have just seen, Britain has two of the first and seven of the second, and these superior in size and number of inhabitants.

The third peculiarity which I have to remark in the actual situation of the British dominions is, that no nation ever had so great an urban population, or so large a proportion of its inhabitants residing in towns. This peculiarity is intimately connected with that which I have just described; but it is nevertheless a very different characteristic. Great Britain is not only distinguished for the number and size of her large cities, but for having so great a number of them on so small a territory. By the census of 1811, it was found that nearly half our population resided in towns, and at present, I apprehend, the proportion will be found still greater. In this [p287] respect no nation has ever approached us. The French economists were of opinion that not more than one-fourth of the people of France lived in towns; and the later statists, who have alluded to the subject, contend that a still greater proportion of the population is rural. This will not appear exaggerated when it is recollected that all the lower classes of that country subsist principally on vegetable food, and that, consequently, the greater part of the soil being under tillage, a great number of hands is required for its cultivation. In Great Britain, on the other hand, the inhabitants of all classes consume a great quantity of animal food, and, of course, a great part of our lands, being in a pastoral state, require a small proportion of occupants. In the kingdom of the Netherlands, it is supposed about one-third of the inhabitants live in towns: in Italy about one-fifth: in Austria, Spain, and Russia, except the province of Siberia, where the abundance of manufactures congregates the people in masses, not more than one-fifth. In Russia, Sweden, and Norway, where, amongst the lower classes, nearly every family is its own manufacturer, not more than one-eighth or one-ninth.

The fourth and last of these peculiar characteristics which I shall remark, is, that no great nation ever employed so large a proportion of its people in trade and manufactures. In speaking thus, I leave out of the question the Italian and Flemish republics of the middle ages, and the Hanse Towns, free cities, and United Provinces of later times. I speak only of great and extensive countries. It will appear, I doubt not, by the present census, that at least half our whole population is employed in trade, commerce, or manufactures. This is a feature altogether singular; a circumstance to which no parallel can be found in the ancient or modern world.

From these premises, a few observations, in the way of corollaries, will naturally suggest themselves.

In the first place, such a state of things is indicative of great wealth and power. A country thus situated is, beyond any other, powerful for attack and strong for defence. A profusion of great cities can only be produced by extensive trade, and can only be maintained by a highly cultivated soil. The wealth acquired by the industry of the towns, reacts on the [p288] industry of the agriculturist, and it is in this that the real advantages of commerce primarily consist. In this way an extensive population is gradually generated, for no maxim or political economy is now more generally admitted, than that population is sure to follow close and to press hard against the means of subsistence. An affluence of inhabitants on a comparatively small territory, is, itself the primary ingredient of power, and this first requisite of strength is, in the case of Great Britain, essentially corroborated by our insular situation. Surrounded by dangerous coasts and tempestuous seas, we can only be approached at certain points and certain times; whilst, on the other hand, as this state of things supposes and supports a powerful navy, we are able in a great degree to choose our point of attack.

From a population such as we have described, of which only a very limited part is employed in creating the means of actual subsistence, a very considerable portion may always be abstracted for purposes of attack or defence. It is usually calculated, that one-fifth part of the inhabitants of every country is capable of bearing arms. On this calculation, Great Britain contains four millions of fighting men, of whom it is believed one million might be formed into an army without any very serious interruption to the essential operations of agriculture and commerce. This supposition may seem a little extravagant, but it must be recollected that, at one period during the late war, the number of men under arms was actually calculated at seven hundred and fifty thousand.

In the second place, such a state of things is favourable to public liberty. The congregation of men in great masses is found to give great force to the influence of public opinion; by the spirit of discussion which it generates; by the anxiety for intelligence which it diffuses; by the collisions of opinion which it engenders, and by the facility of union which it affords. Nations purely or principally agricultural are generally under a despotic government, especially large states, for the maxim of divide et impera is applicable as well to internal as to external politics. Ancient Persia and Assyria, and modern Russia and Poland, are instances in point. The fierce and demoralizing tyranny of the feudal system, which, after [p289] the destruction of the Roman monarchy, left scarcely any other division of the people than those of tyrant and vassal, could only be effectually broken by the rise of great towns. These communities were alone competent to resist the aristocratical and subordinate despotisms into which all the nations of Europe were subdivided, and which, as is well known, overawed the throne, whilst they enslaved the people. In confirmation of this, it may be remarked, that the free republics of antiquity, as well as those of the middle ages, derived the spirit which nurtured them almost entirely from the capital city; and though, in the former case, there was scarcely any commerce to excite the activity of the people, yet the mere congregation of a numerous body of men sustained the power of public opinion.

But the most important question remains behind. Is a civil community thus constituted favourable to individual virtue and happiness? This is assuredly the point which it most behoves us to ascertain, since no truism is more obvious than that power and opulence, and refinement and splendour, and even liberty itself, are only so far valuable as they tend to make men wiser, and better, and happier. Is it true, then, that Great Britain has anteceded other nations in these fundamental points, as much as in those we have just described? This question cannot be answered without some hesitation: for we may say, with Addison’s facetious Knight, “that a great deal may be urged on both sides.” On the one hand it is certain that our situation is eminently favourable to intellectual improvement. The increasing spread of instruction, and the rapid advancement of knowledge which are necessarily concurrent with our career of prosperity, must ultimately advance us in the scale of moral and rational agents. If knowledge be power, it is also happiness; for communities as well as individuals would all be happy if they knew how to be so. It is also certain that the incessant struggles of competition and the strenuous efforts for distinction which are always at work in an over-peopled and highly refined country are favourable to the active virtues. They operate amongst the higher classes to provide many objects of laudable ambition; and amongst the lower, afford perpetual facilities for bettering their condition, [p290] and furnish an incessant supply of occupation, the want of which is sure to open the door to the incursion of all the worst propensities and basest vices. They bring into action all the resources of human ingenuity; all the aids of fortitude and enterprise; all the trials of patience and perseverance; all the equanimity demanded by the constant mutations and rotations of fortune. It is not to be denied, moreover, that the first-rate virtues of beneficence, charity, and hospitality, take root and flourish with peculiar vigour in a commercial community. The fluctuations of condition to which almost every man knows himself liable, and the constant proximity of distress and opulence, offer perpetual excitements to the benevolent affections.

These, it must be confessed, are important ingredients in the composition of human happiness; but considerations not less momentous present themselves on the opposite side, for every thing in human affairs is on a system of compensations. It is not to be denied that a state of society, in which one-half of the population is congregated in towns, and nearly a moiety of this half crowded together in enormous factories, is highly unpropitious to virtue, to health, and to happiness. In these huge receptacles of human labour, it would be absurd to expect that the women should be distinguished for their modesty and propriety, or the men for their prudence, temperance, and regularity. It is an unhappy law of human nature, that the force of example is most prevalent on the side of vice. A few depraved characters scattered amongst a multitude are commonly found sufficient to corrupt the whole mass: hence we may always expect to find, in the seat of a great manufactory, all the worst ingredients of civilized society; all the base depravities of a luxurious and opulent community, combined with much of the grossness and rudeness of the savage state: in a word, all the corruptions of high civilization without any of its polish. Nor is this mode of life, generally speaking, more favourable to health and comfort than to good morals. The constitution of the young is impaired, and their growth retarded by excessive labour and close confinement. Those of maturer age are glad to seek relief from the depressing effects of a wearisome and monotonous labour, unwholesome air, and constant [p291] restraint, in intemperate indulgence; and all the long train of vices and miseries to which the poor are liable, follows of course. Nor are their prospects for the future often such as to encourage hope or stimulate exertion. The habitual improvidence of the poor is aggravated in their case by the dangerous fluctuation of their trade. Sometimes they are eagerly courted with high wages, and lavish promises; at others, no employment is to be had, and not enough can be earned, even by the most unnatural exertions, to sustain their families. Nothing can be imagined more fatal to order, regularity, and comfort, than these vicissitudes. Hence it commonly happens, that, in the decline of life, these poor creatures are driven to the sad resource of parish relief. It is moreover not one of the least evils of the manufacturing system, that it has a tendency, in prosperous times, to generate an excessive population, which, on any great reverse, is suddenly thrown on the community as a superfluous burden. The changes of a fashion, the caprice of public taste, or the sudden interruption of a foreign market, will reduce thousands to helpless and unexpected poverty.

It must, however, be admitted, that the picture of rural life has also its unfavourable aspect. Those who retire into the country are apt to find themselves somewhat disappointed in their expectations of rustic simplicity and pastoral innocence. In situations where every breath of air, and every feature of nature express nothing but peace and love, they are a little surprised to see the selfish and malignant passions at work in all their baneful activity; to find, as in the purlieus of a court, the symptoms of “envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness.” Still we shall find that instances of utter depravity and abandoned profligacy are of much rarer occurrence than in great towns. In a village, every individual is known, and the very consciousness of being conspicuous, creates a sense of shame which is highly salutary. It has often been observed, that men in a body will commit, and even justify, atrocities which no individual amongst them would be capable of attempting, if not screened by the shelter of a crowd. We find, accordingly, in the annals of Wesley and Whitfield, that the great scenes of their operations are in collieries, factories, [p292] mines, canals, and all the other appendages of a great commercial and manufacturing nation. It was there, according to Whitfield, that the “Arch Enemy” raised his triumphant standard; it was there, that the harvest of lost souls was ripe and abundant. But the most decisive proof of the comparative purity of the rural population above that of the manufacturing districts, is the fact that the single town of Manchester will furnish ten times more criminal prosecutions than two Welch counties which contain an equal number of inhabitants.

On the whole, I think we cannot escape the conclusion, that, though a certain degree of commercial and manufacturing property is necessary to stimulate the agriculture of a nation, and to call forth its utmost powers of production, yet that it is not desirable that this country should proceed much further in that dangerous career, or increase still further the disproportion between its urban and rural population. The late increase in our numbers is so rapid and alarming, that I am afraid some positive checks (to use Mr. Malthus’s language) of very terrible potency must soon be brought into action. The forcible lines of Goldsmith, though that great poet knew little enough of political economy, are applicable to the wise and benovolent statesmen of all times—

On the Modern Ornaments of Architecture, &c. ◊

IN no age since the Augustan era of Rome, perhaps, has decoration of the interior of dwellings been carried to greater excess than at present; nor, since the days of the florid style of Gothic architecture, has the exterior received more embellishment. Architectural ornaments have generally been copied from the antique, those especially which belong to the orders. Indeed there is a kind of classical standard, which governs the architect in the execution of public edifices, from which he cannot with propriety depart. National, and regal emblems, wherever suitable, should always be introduced in public buildings, and in those of a private or mixed character [p293] all legitimate ornaments may be displayed. Of this class the acanthus, vignette, the branches of the olive, and leaves of the palm, the crown of laurel, the chaplet of myrtle, and the wreath of roses, are all proper when judiciously introduced; and the rose and honeysuckle flowers, and the folicles, trefoils, cinquefoils, &c., which so often occur on sculpture and plaster work, are also proper, because they are imitations of nature.

But in our present style of decorative execution, from the most elaborate finishing of a regal palace, down to the pattern of a milk-maid’s gown, there is such latitude taken in the display of licentious fancy, that imagination itself is baffled to find anything in the infinite variety of nature’s works, to which their designs can be compared, or to which they bear the most distant resemblance!

It is really unaccountable, that the whole tribe of our artists, the ornamental statuary, scagliolist, paper-stainer, weaver, chintz and cotton printer, &c. should all be “straining their low thought to form unreal” forms and figures; and striking out the most intricate and complicated, to the utter neglect (except in very few instances) of those numberless simple though transcendently beautiful configurations, which everywhere appear in the works of nature.

This is surely a dereliction of all propriety, an exuberance of grovelling taste which no consideration can excuse, nor reason justify. In this age of refinement, good taste should be the guide in all things where invention is necessary, and design requisite; whatever is grotesque or fantastic, should be banished from our labours of art, and the elegant forms of vegetable or animal nature alone take their place.

If it be asked, how it happens that such obliquity of fancy (for it cannot be called taste) should so generally prevail, the answer is, were these pattern-mongers to copy from nature every body could judge of their ability as imitators, and, if unfaithful, would decry the artist; whereas, whilst bringing forth his nondescript and nondescribable forms of imaginary figures, he escapes the lash of the critic, which otherwise he would be subjected to. [p294]

It may be granted, that it is as ridiculous to form stone or plaster flowers, as those geometrical frets and fanciful nothings which are usually pourtrayed in architectural decoration: but it may be answered that if any ornament be necessary, that of a nondescript character is not more appropriate, as such, than natural forms would be; and these latter having a name, and many of them an emblematical character, may be often applied with a propriety which cannot belong to the other.

The old fashioned tapestry, notwithstanding its sombre appearance, was in its plan much more rational than the multifigurations of our modern paper hangings. The first represented some historical event or legendary tale, yielding some mental information, or it taught perhaps a moral lesson—the eye was amused while tracing the ideas of the ingenious sempstress; but in our ephemeral and gaudy ten-thousand-times repeated paper nothings, there is no design to interest, nor combination to amuse the eye longer than a transient glance. Even the Chinese, who, in all their decorative finishings shew rigidity itself, have escaped from tame mannerism in paper hangings, by imitating, from the edge of the carpet to the ceiling, all the gradations of turf, herbs, shrubs, and trees, upon a sky ground, enriched with figures or rather portraits of flowers and fruit, as well as beasts, birds and insects. This though it cannot deceive the spectator for one moment in mistaking a fictitious for a real scene, yet is certainly far superior to European paper-upholstery, as it at least may introduce a knowledge of natural history, which the latter has no pretension to, indeed seems studiously to discard, as beneath imitation.

All this vitiated taste, or fashion rather, is to be regretted; especially as it appears that those

are just as expensive, and difficult of execution, as the most elegant imitation of vegetable or animal configuration would be; and surely when such variety of forms are presented to the artist, they deserve to be copied as transcendently superior to the capricious fancies of the most celebrated decorator, or of [p295] the most splendid fashionable designs; either in the works of the sculptor, scagliolist, &c. or the more insignificant designers of figured paper or drapery. Indeed there can be no good reason why ox-heads and garlands (now the days of sacrifices are past) should not be banished from the frieze and entablature, to admit the far more appropriate figures of foliage, fruit, and flowers, aquatic as well as terrestrial, which every garden yields;—and for interior enrichments of cornices, mouldings, &c., the curious and elegant forms of the testacea, would afford beautiful copies for imitation.

In fine, if there be any merit or propriety in the adaptation of whatever is elegant in form, beautiful in outline, harmonious in tint and proportion, and congruous in combination, such may readily be found in the animal and vegetable kingdoms. Faithful representations of such objects, not only open a fine field for the exercise of individual ability, at this time, but also a source from which might be drawn a large share of public patronage, and consequent commensurate reward. Indeed it is now pretty evident that in many things, especially in the minor works of art, we have been too long and too rigidly impressed with a veneration for the works of antiquity, or what is equally benumbing, a passive following of tyrant fashion; and that many a bright genius has been “nipped in the bud,” and remained “twinkling in the socket” of Grecian and Roman rules, who, if venturous enough to have burst the shackles of professional thraldom, would have improved and elevated his art, as well as himself, by designs and works which would have advanced his profession and adorned his country.

But it is not yet too late; a knowledge and study of the genuine elements of taste, whether of art or nature, and a mind embued with rational perceptions of all that is beautiful and picturesque, and grand or sublime in either, will rise superior to all precedential fetters, as well as all modern mannerism, and will equally regard the excellencies of the ancients, as it will avoid the errors of some modern artists, who, in leaving the beaten track, have deviated far and widely from the point to which good sense and good taste would have led. [p296]

A list of plants, &c. which exemplify all that is elegant in form, beautiful in outline and graceful in position, should have accompanied the above imperfect remarks, but this must be deferred to another opportunity.

J. M.

De l’Influence des Agens Physiques sur la Vie. Par W. F. Edwards, D. M., &c. ◊ [Continued from the last Number.]

IN our last number we presented our readers with a general abstract of the first part of this valuable work. The second part refers to animals of the cold blood order, including fish and reptiles. The larvæ of the latter underwent some comparative experiments detailed in the first chapter, because they partake of the nature both of fish and reptiles, as to their respiratory function; the imperfection of their intermediate state and developement of organization not interfering with the objects in view, and the double mode of aërification being exercised unequally. The skin of these young animals furnishes them with the means of producing the requisite changes in the blood by absorption, as in the adult, while it lives in water; and the cutaneous respiration goes on through this medium at a temperature which the subsequent more perfect animal is unable to endure. The object entertained is the influence of physical agents upon the changes which these animals pass through in their form and structure.

An important condition of their advancement to maturity seems to be, that the nutriment suspended in the water should be in very small and limited proportions. Temperature also influences their constitutional changes.

Sometimes the larvæ pass through the winter in their primitive state; a fact not generally known. Some tadpoles were confined within wooden boxes submersed in the river Seine, in which holes were perforated to allow the stream to pass through, without the possibility of the animals rising to the surface of the water, and thus to inhale air. Others were placed in a large vessel of Seine water renewed at intervals, with power to rise above the surface. Ten in twelve of the first box underwent no transformation, the others having gone partially through their change. But [p297] those of the large vessel, and not submersed in the river, passed through their changes of form without the least appearance of the phenomenon being retarded. The running waters of the Seine probably contained nutritious matter, which the water periodically renewed was more deficient in.

Under circumstances of moderate nourishment and temperature, the tadpoles under water did not complete their changes but in a very partial and protracted manner, while the greater portion made no change. The great difference in the circumstances of the experiments seems to have been the access to the air of those which went through their transformations as usual. Exclusion from light made no difference in the results, and these were solely influenced by occasional renewal of air from pulmonary respiration.

These animals possessing a double respiration, cutaneous and pulmonic, that is, absorbing air from the water around them and inhaling it from the atmosphere on its surface, renders these facts highly curious. Fish possess only the means of aquatic respiration, and the influence of temperature was tried upon them submersed in water deprived of its air by previous boiling, the heat being varied from 0° to 40°. The fish died quicker under these circumstances than the frog species in the same situation; but their lives were prolonged more in the descent of the thermometer than during its elevation, as also occurred with the experiments on frogs and salamanders; and, in both cases, the younger the animal, the less it could resist the higher temperatures. At 40° the young animals only survived about two minutes, and the adults many more.

Fish were also submersed in closed vessels of aërated water, and, by varying the temperature and the quantities of water, the duration of their lives was augmented in proportion to the increased volume of the liquid, the temperature remaining the same; but when these experiments were conducted in open vessels, the contact with the atmosphere altered the phenomena. At 20°, a small fish expired in four hours; and when the temperature was lowered to 10° or 12°, the same sort of animal lived several days; and when the water was kept clean by being changed every twenty-four hours, the fish lived indefinitely.

It is known that fish rise periodically to the surface of the waters to respire; and Dr. Edwards discovered that they did so when they have reduced the properties of the air [p298] dissolved in the water to a lower standard than is requisite for the proper aërification of their blood; thus renewing their supply of oxygen.

The functions of this class of animals have always been obscure; and their phenomena are different from those of others. Different species of fish die at various periods when deprived of water, some in a few minutes, others in a few hours; and it appears that their dissolution arises not so much from incapability of atmospheric respiration (for the experiments of Sylvester prove that they can respire pure air), as from the different state of the air.

Some experiments on lizards, snakes, and turtles conclude the researches among cold-blooded animals. The skins of these, like those of the frogs and salamanders, received vivifying influence from the air, mainly acting, in conjunction with pulmonary respiration, to promote their existence. Snakes and turtle, their pulmonary respiration being insulated, from their skins being guarded from atmospheric influence, were found alive; but the lizards died in a few hours, when the vivifying contact of the air was removed from their bodies, and they breathed only by their mouths. Animals naturally defended by scales transpire much less than such as have their skins free. Thus frogs, toads, and salamanders yielded more by perspiration than lizards, snakes, and turtle, in a given time; and the porosity of the skin of course regulates the facility of transpiration in all cases.

With these experiments and remarks, Dr. Edwards concludes the second part of his researches. The third part includes animals of warm blood, in which will be found some curious and interesting remarks on the heat of young animals compared with that of adults.

Dr. Edwards refutes the common notion of young animals being necessarily hotter than adults. The heat of young puppies was very near that of the parent, or one or two degrees less, but this variation was not constant. Some new-born kittens and rabbits were also subjected to similar trials, and the results led to a conclusion that the temperature of young animals is less than that of adults.

According to these experiments, the power of resisting the cooling influence of the air acquires force as the animal grows up; and those examples related, in which artificial covering was adopted, show that nudity is not the only cause of the reduction of heat, which is, in fact, more referrible [p299] to their infantile constitution. At first the sucking animal shows little variation from the parent temperature; then this becomes more and more reduced, and about the fifteenth day it is a degree or two below the mother.

Birds, which are warmer than mammiferæ, were next made the objects of experimental inquiry, and the young recently hatched exhibited a lower temperature than the grown birds. After removal from the shelter of their nests into a mild atmosphere of 17°, in one hour they cooled down from 36° to 19°, thus losing 17° in an hour. At an elevation of 22° the same results were obtained, and they cooled down to within one degree of the surrounding air. The plumage of birds has little if any influence upon their temperature. The production of heat lies within, and not on the surface of the animal; and if it be strongly developed, the removal of natural coverings does not influence the heat produced; and if it be weak, their addition will not prevent cooling. Birds recently escaped from the shell cooled to within two degrees of the air, whereas the unplumed adult birds scarcely lost one degree.

The distinctive character of warm-blooded animals to preserve an uniformity of heat has no reference to bulk. The eagle maintains the same temperature as the wren or the tom-tit, taking them at the same age, and placing them under the same circumstances; but if cooling measures be adopted, the lesser body parts with its heat faster than the larger, though ultimately they arrive at the same point. The dimensions of animals are infinitely varied; but the giant reaches no higher standard than the dwarf, nor sinks to a lower temperature.

In estimating the temperature of young animals, it must be taken into account that they are born at different periods of organic developement. Some come earlier into the world than others, and some are more perfectly formed than others at their birth, and more capable of helping themselves. This variation produces a different standard of heat after birth, and especially creates a variety of temperature among birds when tested at the same epochs of their existence. The season in which animals are produced also modifies their temperature.

The influence of age in modifying temperature is common both to mammiferæ and birds. Young and healthy sucking pigs cooled faster than their parent, their generating means of heat being more feeble. Animals of warm blood possess [p300] the power of supplying heat at its maximum when first born; they then part with it by degrees, and, as they advance in age, their heat becomes gradually augmented again till it reaches the adult standard.

Dr. Edwards next proceeds to discuss the phenomena of animal temperature more exclusively regarding adults, and especially among those singular creatures of the mammiferæ which form an exception to the general law of nature respecting the uniformity of temperature as to warm-blooded animals. These beings are what are termed hybernants, such as the dormouse, the hedgehog, the bat, the marmot, &c., natives of Europe; which remain dormant during winter without any external signs of life and motion. The change which these undergo reduces them from the state of warm-blooded animals to that of cold. Unlike the rest of their class, the autumnal season lowers their temperature by degrees, till in winter it reaches so low as to be scarcely higher than the surrounding air. Their powers fail gradually, and their losses of heat are not repaired, till at length their respirations become slow and feeble, and the heart languidly urges the blood through the arteries. In this state there is an imperfect aërification of the blood, and a partial state of asphyxia, producing continued repose of the nervous and muscular system. But the temperature of these animals sinks no lower than the air, and remains sufficient to maintain a passive existence, till the returning spring raises their heat again, and they become lively and active till autumn; but even in spring these animals are characterised by producing less heat than others of their class.

If we seek to know the cause of this curious variety, we can only refer it to peculiarity of constitution, which is instituted by nature as adapted to animals placed in situations of rigorous cold, and where they cannot procure sustenance but in spring and summer.

Our author imitated the process of hybernation by artificial cold, and produced the same effects; and when he restored animation by gradual warmth, he found the animals as lively as before.

John Hunter and others have written on the natural history of hybernants, and Dr. Edwards regards only their temperature. The experiments on hybernants by artificial cold prove this fact, that hybernation is attributable to other causes than to the reduction and deprivation of nutriment; for the animals submitted to the ordeal of cold were well [p301] fed, and in the lively season of advanced spring. The deprivation of food seems to be a local consequence provided for by the phenomenon of hybernation, and not its exciting cause. Nor does there appear to be any change of organization in these cases, but a state of constitution exists which we are unable to account for further.

We have, in the next place, a series of experiments showing the influence of the seasons upon animal temperature with the warm-blooded; by which it seems that they produce a variety of results: and it is demonstrated that animals of warm blood in general undergo some constitutional changes with the periodical returns of the seasons. When, for example, the highest degree of temperature is attained, animals no longer produce heat; so that their temperature continues below that of the air in the hot season. And, in the cold season, if the cold be not too rigorous, the animal’s age offers a proportionate resistance to the cooling effects of the air as the approach to maturity is attained. An elevated and a depressed temperature thus produce contrary effects upon the internal powers of generating animal heat, a high temperature arresting them, and a low one promoting them. Thus we cannot fail to observe the beautiful adaptation of means to final causes.

Upon the subject of asphyxia in warm-blooded animals, Dr. Edwards found a great dependence between animal heat and the faculty of living without contact with the air, a state in which the blood is not aërated by respiration, and which is sustained by hybernants while in the dormant condition. Having submersed animals in water of various temperatures successively, so as to bring them under the influence of variable temperature, he found the descending scale of temperature the most hurtful. The ascending heat was that which prolonged life most. Between 20° and 10° the results were similar to those between 20° and 40°.

Animals, then, of warm blood in a state of asphyxia hold their existence on two principal conditions relative to heat; one regarding the different measures by which some develope their heat, and the other the degree of external temperature. The first is proper to animals naturally, the second fortuitous.

Upon the respiration of both young and adult animals the author arrives at a conclusion opposite to that of common opinion, which is founded on the notion of the heat in young animals being higher than that of the matured. Finding, [p302] however, as already noticed, that the parent exceeds the temperature of its offspring after birth, it is naturally concluded that its consumption of air is also greatest. This was experimentally confirmed, and is in unison with other facts. In the first part of this work the vertebratæ of cold blood were also found to consume least air in proportion to their diminution of temperature. Temperature seems to act uniformly with all the vertebratæ, and their consumption of air is in proportion. The mammiferæ have a lower temperature than birds, and they consume less air than the latter. Fish and reptiles consume less air than the warm-blooded, and possess a lower temperature.

The influence of the seasons upon respiration is considered in the sixth chapter. Many changes occur in the atmosphere during the revolutions of the seasons, varieties in the temperature, and the pressure and density of the air. Dr. Edwards shows that the faculty of producing heat with warm-blooded animals is greater in winter than in summer, the constitution of animals being adapted to their individual climates; and in reference to the relation of this faculty to the consumption of air, it is presumable, all other circumstances being alike, that the consumption ought to be increased with the faculty of developing heat, and the experiments justify the presumption.

Upon the subject of transpiration, it is shown that the air not only exercises a vivifying effect upon the constitution, but one little less important in removing a vaporous substance from the surface of the body, and which is separated from the fluids before its conversion into vapour, and known by the name of perspiration or sweat, which transpires from the skin. The variations in the temperature of the air possess great influence over this function. Experiments on this subject were detailed most fully in our last Number, relative to cold-blooded animals; and therefore these need not now be repeated in respect to the warm-blooded, for the results are exactly similar, as to transpiration in equal and successive periods, the comparative influence of dry and moist states of the air, and the effects of air in motion and in repose. Inspection of the table annexed to the work displays the similarity of the effects produced by the same physical agents upon cold and warm blooded animals, and this accordance serves to afford mutual support to the different investigations.

We are now arrived at the fourth and last part of this [p303] work. Much, however, of this part appertains to what has been already detailed upon other animals. But the modifications of heat in the human being, from the period of birth to maturity, will be found highly interesting. They accord precisely with the results obtained among the lower animals and mammiferæ; and present analogical proofs of the general application of principles laid down in the preceding portions of our notices.

While, however, we trace analogy throughout the animal kingdom, it must be remembered that there are infinite sources of variation arising from the extensive variety of species modifying those principles, which are governed by a general harmony of effect. Of all animals, man exhibits this variety the most, possessing, as he does, attributes above all the groups of his class, from his intellectual properties, speech, &c., rendering his race unique and superior to all others. Our curiosity cannot, therefore, be allowed to rest satisfied with the general application of principles, until we have observed their modifications in the human being as well as in brutes. It is highly interesting to inquire into the conditions of human phenomena, and examine the forces which man opposes in his intelligent character to the physical agents around him. He is equally liable to their influence, exists by their contact, and yields, like other members of the animal kingdom, to their destructive tendency. The essential distinctions appertaining to his economy are thus the more necessary to be understood. His organization affords him no shelter from the operations of physical laws beyond that of brutes; but the superiority of his nature may be supposed to modify their influence from causes referrible to his sensibility. These have formed the subject of Dr. Edwards’s inquiry.

Man’s state and condition, at his birth, place him in very different circumstances from those at which he subsequently arrives. Here, therefore, we see an extensive field of inquiry; and it is suggested whether, in the infantile state, man generates less heat than in more matured existence. Dr. Edwards has shown that the young of mammiferæ generally, being born at the period when their eyes are open, produce less heat than adults. It is, therefore, presumable that the generating powers of heat differ in the two states of existence which man goes through, the infantile and mature.

But the power of producing heat differs among adult animals, and it is desirable to know the limits of this faculty, [p304] Moreover, this power differs in different parts of the body; so that, when experiments are made, we should always apply the thermometer to the same part of the body. Among twenty adult persons, Dr. Edwards found the average temperature 36°.12: in infants from a few hours to two days old, 34°.75 was the average. Thus we perceive that the temperature of human infants is inferior to that of adults. In infants born previous to the usual period, two or three hours after birth their heat was at 32° of Reaumur’s scale. So far we perceive a similarity in man to the mammiferæ in general.

We have next a chapter on the effects of cold upon mortality at different ages. It is highly interesting to observe the care of animals towards their offspring, in protecting them against the effects of cold instinctively at a period before their own powers of generating heat enable them to resist its baneful tendency.

Dr. Edwards endeavours to investigate the subject of cold, so as to discover its limit of action. He examined the young of mammiferæ and birds, the former born with closed eyes, and the latter unfledged. He exposed them separately and apart to the air, so as to be independent of each other’s warmth, and they exhibited a temperature below their natural standard at the period of birth, even when a degree of artificial heat was applied beyond that of adult birds. The final result of these experiments was, that the application of heat may be conducive to their developement, but is not indispensable to their preservation. The author discovered, that the diminution of temperature is not equally injurious at all ages. The younger the animal, the less is the injury sustained by cold, because the faculty of producing heat is less powerful with the young than with the matured animal, the power increasing as the animal grows, and also with the increase of cold.

Still, however, this subject is open to inquiry, for the great variety of species, and other circumstances belonging to the animal creation, so modify the phenomena as to create an almost endless field of investigation. When warm-blooded animals are exposed by their parents to the atmospheric influence at an early age, they are better provided against the perils of cold, being born with an abundant source of heat. But, if the cold exceeds their powers of generating heat, the mortality is so much readier. Hence arises the danger of animals being born in the winter season. [p305] Two circumstances are distinguishable, the refrigeration of the body, and the temperature it is capable of sustaining. The cooling is so much less injurious with the young. If two young animals of the same species be cooled down equally, the youngest suffers the least. But, in order to lower to the same number of degrees the temperature of bodies of different ages, the external heat should be lowered in proportion to the advancement of the animal towards maturity, in order to compensate for the difference which the modification of age produces.

While it is true that the younger animals suffer least from cold, it is, at the same time, to be considered that they cool down more rapidly. On this principle depends the mortality of our domestic fowls and other animals, the management of which requires so much observation and experience in order to rear them. In regions where the temperature is liable to great alterations in the course of the year, man and other vertebrated animals of warm blood are liable to suffer in their health; for, though cold should produce the resistance derived from the necessary constitutional developement of heat, this increase of caloric, having its limits, often exposes the constitution to the effects of too great reduction of temperature, as is exemplified in the frozen regions of the North Pole, in Siberia, and in Russia.

The young of mammiferæ, in general, were found by Dr. Edwards to differ very materially in the duration of their lives, in a state of asphyxia, often being limited to from five to eleven minutes, according to their developement at birth, the most advanced in organization living the longest period. The author proved these facts by placing animals in a state of asphyxia under water; and it is remarkable that, in all his experiments, the voluntary motions were always first destroyed, the involuntary outliving them. With dogs, cats, and rabbits, sensibility existed only three or four minutes. A puppy showed automatic signs of life nearly half an hour. The best divers appear to be able to remain under water from three to four minutes.

When animals are entirely deprived of aërial contact, it may be inquired, what are the principal functions exercised? When the air circulates through the lungs, it imparts to the blood a peculiar quality, by which its colour becomes changed. Deprived of this influence from the air, the blood acquires a dark colour, and the nervous function is [p306] simultaneously affected. Among reptiles, Dr. Edwards found that life could be maintained by this dark blood; but it is questionable whether the circulation of venous or dark blood can promote life in animals of the warm-blooded kind. Temperature certainly modifies their capability of existence. Under 20°, they live longest; at 0°, their existence is shortest. The vitality of the nervous system seems to be thus directly influenced by temperature.

Of all the phenomena of animal life, those relative to the blood’s state in asphyxia are, perhaps, the most interesting and curious, from loss of consciousness, sensation, and voluntary motion attending its disoxygenated state. If, however, animals differ so materially under the influence of a deprivation of air, as to the duration of such existence, we may imagine a corresponding difference relative to their respirations modified by species, age, &c. Air, the pabulum vitæ, is not equally consumed by all, but in different proportions; at least, such is the presumption from the experiments upon animals of warm blood. The relative proportions of this difference are sought to be ascertained. Warm-blooded animals of equal size and age, at their liveliest period of age, were the objects of comparative inquiry. We must refer the reader to the table at the end of the work for the results. A marked difference is observable between the quantity of air consumed by the cold-blooded animals and that required for the support of the warm-blooded; and each has an organization appropriated to the individual distinctions. Thus the structure of the reptile and fish entails the lesser consumption of air, compared with that of the mammiferæ and birds. Fish consume least air, reptiles stand next, then the mammiferæ, and, lastly, birds consume most. The two last, however, very nearly approach each other; so do also the two first; and the distinction between the organization and the consumption of air is most strongly marked between the fish and reptiles on the one hand, and the mammiferæ and birds on the other, which, indeed, has caused their separation into two distinct groups, by the appellation of cold and warm blooded animals,—a distinction which clearly separates the whole of the vertebrated animals into two groups, bearing different physiological characters in their relations to animal heat and respiration.

The mere temperature of the blood in each group is insufficient for our knowledge of their distinctive characters. We [p307] further find them characterised by a consumption of air in union with their heat, so as to unite these two functions, and thus render them dependent upon the same organs. Dr. Edwards has further shown, that from birth to maturity the production of heat goes on increasing with the consumption of air. And thus age (as well as the seasons) has been shown to be a modifier of animal heat; for, as the hot season advances, the consumption of air becomes diminished, and when the cold sets in, it increases; and this decrease and increase are accompanied by corresponding developements of heat.

In cases of fainting, of hysteric and asthmatic fits, the principle here laid down, as to the balance between the air consumed and heat, is instinctively acted upon by the most ignorant persons, who open all the doors and windows to admit cold air, and dash cold water in the patient’s face. The addition or continuance of heat increases the affection. The application of cold produces instant relief. The state of asphyxia is relieved, the senses return, the pulse beats at the wrist, and the respiration goes on naturally. The cooling renders the air, unfit before, fitted for the purposes of life.

The effects of temperature upon the respiratory movements are indicated also in those constitutional changes which diminish the production of heat and the consumption of air. Organic affection of the heart or lungs may produce this change, which entails the necessity of a change of climate, or an alteration of temperature artificially, to restore the balance between the air and the animal heat.

A very elaborate and complete argument, and series of experiments, are devoted to the subject of transpiration, and the effect upon it of the influence derived from repose of the body and sleep, by the air’s motion or stillness, and by the pressure of the atmosphere.

We have, however, pursued the interesting points touched upon so far as to render it impossible to enter at present upon this portion of the work. The importance of the subject demands a fuller investigation and report than we have now room for; and we must, therefore, defer it to another opportunity. [p308]

Experiments on THOUGHT. By a Correspondent. ◊

THERE is a very common prejudice respecting the rapidity of thought, which is imagined by many to be almost unlimited: and the opinion is very worthily illustrated by a reference to the oriental tale of a man’s being bewitched into the belief that he had passed through a period of seven years duration, and full of the most striking vicissitudes; all in the time that he employed in dipping his head in a pail of water. Now there is no doubt that we often dream of a period of many years while we are only sleeping an hour; that is, we dream of an impression of a long continued existence, or perhaps of some detached fact scattered through such a period: but if any person will write down all that he can possibly recollect, of the separate imaginations that have passed through his mind in the dream, he will find that he will be able to read them over with ease in less than five minutes.

It is probable that there may be considerable diversity in the rapidity of thought in different persons, as there is in that of muscular motions: but there is no reason to think the diversity greater. A healthy young man can run a mile in five minutes: a good pedestrian in four; but no man ever ran a mile in three minutes; and perhaps no horse in two. There is reason to think the rapidity of thought does not differ more materially than this in different individuals.

The rapidity of thought seems, however, more intimately connected with that of muscular motion than by analogy only: for they appear in some cases to be absolutely identical.

I have often been able to count ten in a second, in audible English words; not distinctly, indeed, but so as to assure myself that I do hear the ten words in their proper order; and to repeat the sounds for several consecutive seconds. If I say the words to myself only, that is, if I think them over, I cannot repeat them ten times in less than about nine seconds: I can never, for example, keep pace with my pulse, though it sometimes beats as slowly as seventy in a minute: nor can I, by any effort, think over the numbers from one to twenty in two seconds.

If I say to myself the first lines of Milton or Virgil, or [p309] Homer, or any other lines that may be still more familiar to me, I cannot get through them much, if at all, more rapidly than I can pronounce them, even when I fix my undivided attention on them.

The rapidity of sensation is also intimately connected with that of memory and of muscular action. To cast the eye over a sentence, attending to every letter, is an operation which is capable of equal rapidity with the saying it over mentally: but it cannot be made much more rapid. It required four seconds to look over a sentence which occupied six in rapid reading.

The operations, which succeed each other with this limited rapidity, are not incompatible with a partial attention to other subjects: just as in running or walking, we may have our feelings very strongly interested by the sight of surrounding objects without interrupting the train of voluntary motions, which seems thus to be so linked together in a continued chain, as to become almost involuntary. And we may certainly be saying a thing over as rapidly as possible to ourselves, and may at the same time be seeing, and hearing, and even reasoning, so as to keep up what amounts very nearly, though not completely, to a continuity of attention to several distinct trains of ideas: in the same manner as the nerves of involuntary action are notoriously employed in several distinct trains of concatenated muscular motions and vascular actions, and as the ear of a musician is able to follow and retain a dozen different melodies in harmony with each other at the same time.

Dr. Darwin mentions an experiment which has a similar tendency to show the close connexion between thought and sensation. He says, that if we think intensely of a deep colour, for instance red, with the eyes closed, we shall see a tinge when we open them of the opposite colour, or green; just as if we had actually looked at a red colour instead of thinking of it. But I confess that I have never been able to satisfy myself completely of the success of the experiment.

These very hasty observations appear to me to be in great measure original; and the results of such experiments are certainly more calculated to illustrate the nature and powers of the human mind, than the fanciful hypothesis of the fashionable [p310] craniologists, with all their measurements of the heads of murderers, are likely to become.

ZMINIS.

London, 20 Oct. 1827.

POSTSCRIPT.—I find that some similar remarks have been made by the late Sir William Watson, in his Treatise on Time. He estimated, from some experiments made in company with his friend Herschel, the greatest possible velocity of sensation, such as to admit of about three hundred distinct impressions on the eye or the ear in a second. “It is true,” he observes, “that whoever attends to what passes in his imagination on particular occasions, will be struck at the apparent rapidity with which ideas appear to flow at times, and will be apt to suspect them far to exceed sensation in that respect. But it is probable that we are ourselves deceived in such cases.” P. 38. But there are no direct experiments to prove this opinion. On the other hand, a sound may be continuous, and yet consist of only about twenty vibrations, or still fewer, in a second.

HIEROGLYPHICAL Fragments, illustrative of Inscriptions preserved in the BRITISH MUSEUM, with some remarks on Mr. CHAMPOLLION’s opinions. In a Letter to the Cavaliere SAN QUINTINO. By a Correspondent. ◊

My dear Sir,

You will be glad to hear that I have made some little progress in study of the Enchorial inscriptions which I had lately the pleasure of showing you: my steps have, as usual, been guided by no system whatever: they have been wholly empirical, and though very slow, I trust they are so much the more sure: and I hope they will at least serve as an excuse for my reminding you of the expectations you kindly allowed me to entertain, that you would send me copies of any thing of the kind that you might find among the objects entrusted to your care at Turin. What I have lately done has only been to ascertain the dates of many of the tablets sent by Mr. Salt [p311] from Sacchara, all of them about the time of the last Cleopatra: to identify the Enchorial name of Ptolemy DIONYSUS, and to make out a passage relating to a donation of MUCH GOLD AND SILVER AND GEMS TO THE SANCTUARY OF THE GREAT GOD AT MEMPHIS. The different forms of the characters employed by the writers, in the same words, constitute also a valuable addition to be means of deciphering any new inscriptions of a similar nature, and I have already incorporated many of them with my little Enchorial Dictionary.

The 48th and 49th plates of the Hieroglyphics, already published, contain two tablets, apparently funerary, but without any dates of the reigns: the ages of the persons seem to be expressed in the hieroglyphical lines. In the 49th we find the name Berenice twice in the Enchorial letters, and once in hieroglyphics; followed here by Arsinoe, possibly as her mother.

This tablet, coarse as it is, abundantly shows that Horapollo and Champollion are both correct, independently, as it seems, of each other, in considering the rings, or cartouches, as chiefly confined to the names of royal personages; and that I inferred the contrary somewhat too hastily, from observing that the imitations of those rings were attached in the Enchorial inscription of Rosetta, to several names not royal, and from having found such rings in other hieroglyphical inscriptions, without the usual epithets of kings. I had, indeed, remarked, that a “mysterious” name was sometimes observable in the manuscripts without a ring, and I had pointed out the same group as a name in Lord Mountnorris’s manuscript, which Mr. Champollion considers as the true name: but I am perfectly ready to admit that Mr. Champollion has materially improved on this hint, as he has on many others.

The same line of hieroglyphics, however, contributes to add to my reluctance in admitting Mr. Champollion’s reading of P.T.H; a group which I considered as very probably representing these letters long before the date of his publications; though I had only fully identified the two first characters; it seems to me to agree better with PETEH than with PHTAH; and I am inclined to think it was the beginning of the names Petosiris, Peteharpocrates, and other similiar words, [p312] as it is here annexed to the names of two or three other deities. But I am by no means confident on the subject; and beg only to be allowed a few years more to collect further evidence, without being accused of resisting conviction.

I must also claim a similar indulgence for my opinion respecting the bird and the disc; which is so constantly found between two names, that I could not avoid supposing it to mean simply son; I confess that the arguments which Mr. Champollion has drawn from the application of this character to some of the Roman names, as well as those which Mr. Salt has deduced from the inscriptions which he has published, are at least sufficient to silence me; I had, indeed, long before observed that the first name of one pair of rings scarcely ever found as the second of another, though I fancied the Minervean obelisk might afford an exception. On the other hand, I cannot explain, upon Mr. Champollion’s theory, the order of the names in the tablet of Abydus, which might be supposed to have been purposely intended to perpetuate this discussion.

It is admitted that this tablet contains the names of a chronological series of kings, each characterized by one ring, containing what I have always considered as the true names of the persons in question. It is easy to grant to him that they are the praenomens only; as is common in all modern chronology. But how comes it that there is one exception to this, and that the reigning monarch is characterized by his second name only, where he first occurs, and where we should expect to find his father? This is precisely what would have been required if the document had been forged to support my opinion; though I should certainly have been very ungrateful for an argument, which is more calculated to increase the difficulty than to remove it.

An objection of a similar nature may be deduced from the tablet found between the legs of the sphinx, and copied by Mr. Salt, H. 80. The “Mesphres son of Thuthmosis” of the Article Egypt is represented naturally enough as doing homage to his deified father, under the form of an Androsphinx; had he been doing homage to himself, the names would scarcely have been so divided. They also occur repeatedly afterwards in the inscription, but never together. [p313]

The tablet represented in Plate 51, is remarkable for the confirmation which its date affords of the accuracy of our chronology of the Ptolemies. It has no pure hieroglyphics. It begins immediately with “The year 19, otherwise 4, of Cleopatra [Neotera], and Ptolemy surnamed Caesar: that is, the year 34 B. C.; and the same date is repeated in a form somewhat more distinct, four times, in the 10th, 11th, 12th, and 15th lines. In the last it is followed by the Queen gave to the Priests and High Priests . . then Ptolemy [Auletes?] . . Queen Cleopatra and King Ptolemy surnamed Caesar.

It has before been observed, that the word surnamed, as it occurs in these tablets, and in Mr. Grey’s manuscripts, comprehends the characters which answer to the NEO of Mr. Champollion’s NEOCAESARIS. The beginning of the group occurs elsewhere in the sense of called, and can scarcely be read “ETO,” whether we consider the sacred or the enchorial characters; nor do we find any thing nearer to this in Coptic than ETE, meaning “that is,” while the characters are more like TENE. Such are the uncertainties which continually beset us in the application of the best established alphabetical characters even to words of which we know the sounds: to investigate the unknown by them is at present almost hopeless.

There are two tablets, from the caverns at Sacchara, about to appear in Plates 70 to 74 of the Hieroglyphics, which Mr. Salt sent over with particular interest, as being likely to contain some useful materials for the comparison of the different kinds of characters with each other. In this point of view, however, his well-directed zeal has failed of its object: for the sacred characters relate almost entirely to the gods and priests of the temple, while the enchorial inscriptions below them contain dates and records of the successive donations made to those temples. And this seems to be equally true of the generality of double inscriptions, which are scarcely ever identical in this sense, although they may greatly tend to illustrate each other.

The first in order of these tablets (H 70, 71, 74 A) was marked number 50 by Mr. Salt; it has seven stars at the edge of the wings overshadowing the figures. It is first dated very distinctly In the year 6 of Cleopatra; which ought to have [p314] been 6 otherwise 2; but the second date was perhaps omitted after an interval of more than 20 years, which must have elapsed at the time of putting up the tablet, as the subsequent dates demonstrate. The queen seems to be styled Isis, but the name of the “younger goddess,” which is found on her medals, does not appear in these inscriptions. In the 4th line the word Memphis occurs, though less distinctly than elsewhere. It seems to be formed of characters meaning Temple, and Good, and might naturally be read PHE-NUF; which agrees sufficiently well with the NOPH of Jeremiah, translated Memphis by the Septuagint, as well as with the Coptic PANUF, said to have been Momemphis. It is possible that Phthah may have been meant by the Good god, NUF; but there is here no character at all resembling the Enchorial name of Phthah, which approaches to that of a figure of 4.

We next find a notice of the change of dynasty (Line 5) . . year 7: the Gods Phre and “Horus” and Phthah? gave the victory to AUTOCRATOR CAESARIS the Munificent. The number 7 is indistinct; if correct it must belong to the later of the double dates of Cleopatra’s reign, which terminated the 22nd or 7th, the year of the Battle of Actium, in which the victory was obtained by the Emperor Augustus Caesar. Then follows a date of the year 6, probably of Caesar: and the seven stars of the wings may possibly relate to the erection of the tablet in the subsequent year. We have also a donation of gold and silver gems.

The second tablet (H 72, 73, 74 B) has first the date of the year 19 of King Ptolemy [Auletes] the Defender of the sacred rites (L. 3) . . The year 4 of Cleopatra ‘Neotera? (4) . . many years . . (5) The year 7? the gods ‘Phre and Horus and Phthah? gave the victory to the Emperor Caesar, ‘and Phthah and Horus who loved him gave the dominion all men to? Caesar. (6) . . gold and gems and silver in abundance, gave them to the sanctuary of the great god in the temple of Memphis . . The year 7 of Caesar: ‘Mechir 18? gave to the sanctuary of the great god in . . (8) . . gold and gems and silver . . (9) Memphis.

We have here no subsequent year 19 to which the stars of the margin can refer: and it seems therefore most natural to [p315] suppose that they belong to the earliest date, with which the tablet commences: and perhaps the seven stars of the former may have been marked by mistake for six. The interpretation of the marginal stars will be easily brought to the test of future observations.

Plates 75 and 76 contain portions of a large tablet from Sacchara, very fairly written on chalk, of which the upper part is broken off, leaving only a few traces of a hieroglyphic inscription, which seems to have contained a date at the end, perhaps the 12th of Mechir.

(1) [In the . . year of Queen Cleopatra] and Ptolemy surnamed Caesaris; the divine king . . living for ever. (7) . . The year 9, Athyr or Mechir 9, of the great King Ptolemy the god ‘Brother of Apis ? DIONYSUS ‘the awful ? living for ever . . (19) . . the great King Ptolemy the god ‘Brother of Horus ? DIONYSUS . . . mighty as the sun ? . . . (20) . . . living for ever . . (21) In the year 7 Mechir the 14 . . The Queen Soter and King Ptolemy surnamed Caesaris living for ever . . gave . . (25) . . children, for ever. (28) . . ‘Written and engraved by ? . . .

In the 79th plate there are four enchorial lines very distinctly written, and beginning with a date, which must be either 24 or 28, and most probably the latter, as there are 28 stars in the margin: perhaps the 11th of the month, in the reign of Ptolemy the son of Ptolemy, may he live for ever. The rest is not intelligible.

In this manner, my dear Sir, I have been creeping, while others have been flying, though perhaps a little too near the sun. Possibly my friend Champollion, and your friend Seyffarth, would be able to decipher much more of these inscriptions; and it is probable that their versions might differ in almost every particular. In this case it is unnecessary for me to say which of the two explanations I should be inclined to prefer: for it is impossible to deny to Champollion the merit of great industry, and deep, as well as extensive research. I object only to his precipitation, and his love of system, which, I think, cause him to be led away by his own ingenuity, through a series of conclusions unsupported by sufficient evidence. [p316]

As an instance of a hasty and undemonstrated assertion, I shall mention his explanation of the group of characters which he considers (Système, p. 82) as “forming the third person plural of the future in all the verbs of the last nine lines of the hieroglyphical text of Rosetta, expressing the different dispositions of the decree, and answering to Greek verbs, which are always in the infinitive,” and which he naturally enough reads SNE.

There is nothing absolutely incorrect in this statement, but the reader naturally infers from it that the group in question occurs either exclusively or principally in these nine lines. The fact is, however, that in the first five lines, or rather half lines, the group is found ten times, and in the remaining nine, only eighteen, that is, about half as frequently, in proportion to the actual length of the lines: nor can I find any where a context that favours Mr. Champollion’s interpretation; though I have lately observed that an Enchorial group, resembling ´O, is found almost uniformly to answer to the Greek infinitive: being read perhaps MNR or MARE: but I cannot make these characters agree either with the hieroglyphics in question, or with the sounds SNE, which Mr. Champollion attributes to them.

So little is Mr. Champollion in the habit of distinguishing proofs from assertions in his own case, that it is the less surprising that he should sometimes confound them with respect to others. He says, for example, with respect to the nature of the Hieratic characters, which he explained to the Academy of Belles Lettres in 1821, “je me suis convaincu depuis que M. le Dr. Young avait publié avant moi ce même résultat, et de plus, que nous avions été PREVENUS de quelques années, l’un et l’autre, quant au principe de cette découverte et sa définition, par M. Tychsen de Goettingue.” (p. 20.) Professor Tychsen had asserted this agreement as a probable opinion: it was amply demonstrated in 1816; five years afterwards Mr. Champollion thinks he has a right to consider himself as a new inventor of the doctrine, because he chose to neglect what was done in a neighbouring country, and to undervalue the actual proof, in which he had been anticipated, by classing it with a bare assertion to be found in a German publication. [p317] Precisely in the same spirit he remarks, in the next page, that Barthélemy and Zoëga had pointed out the rings as containing proper names: they had, indeed, said that they might be proper names, or moral sentences, or something else; but the only question was, if it was worth questioning at all, to whom belonged the priority of the demonstration that they actually were proper names: which, before the publication of the Archaeologia for 1814, was no where to be found. This publication was the first great step after the discovery of the pillar of Rosetta: the second was the identification of the different kinds of characters, in 1816, by means of the Déscription de l’Egypte: the third, the application of that identification to the names of Ptolemy and Berenice: the fourth, perhaps, was Mr. Bankes’s discovery in Egypt, of the name of Cleopatra, which he sent to Paris: and on these grounds is certainly founded ALL that is at present known of Egyptian literature, for a very considerable proportion of which we are unquestionably indebted to Mr. Champollion.

The French translator of Mr. Browne’s ingenious articles which appeared in the Edinburgh Review, has certainly gone a good deal out of his way to find matter of accusation against Mr. Champollion. He quotes the text of a memoir published in 1821, and afterwards suppressed, in order to show that Mr. Champollion then continued to believe that the hieroglyphics were signs of things and not of sounds; and that he disagreed with those learned persons who had considered the hieratic writing as alphabetical. The date of this suppressed paper is indeed of some consequence, as determining the period at which Mr. Champollion made his rediscovery of what Dr. Young had published in 1816; that is, the fact of the essential identity of the two systems of writing. But the translator might have found in the beginning of the letter to Mr. Dacier, dated in 1822, the same opinion respecting these systems of writing; that is, the hieratic and demotic, which, he says, are not alphabetic, but “ideographic, like the hieroglyphics themselves,” expressing ideas and not sounds: and he adds, that he (!) has deduced from the demotic inscription of Rosetta a series of characters which have a “syllabico-alphabetic [p318] value,” by which foreign proper names were expressed. (p. 2.)

Nothing can possibly agree better than this with the opinions which Dr. Young had long before published; and which he has since confirmed in his octavo volume; and if Mr. Champollion’s ideas upon this subject have sometimes appeared to fluctuate, it has probably been more from a love of system, and a wish to establish originality, than from any new discoveries that he can have made respecting these two modes of writing in particular.

What precise forms of characters may be supposed to answer to the sense in which Mr. Champollion employs the word demotic, cannot very easily be ascertained. It is remarkable that his “SNE” is a group very commonly found in the manuscripts of the Déscription de l’Egypte, which Mr. Champollion might possibly call demotic; while it cannot be identified in the Enchorial Inscription of Rosetta. This is an instance of the difficulty of finding appropriate terms where we have not exact definitions. The difficulty is not avoided by the use of the word Enchorial, except that it may with perfect safety be applied to such inscriptions as are capable of having any of their words identified with the inscription so called on the pillar itself.

The verification of the chronology of Manetho must naturally be a work of time, even after the complete identification of the names of the kings, which cannot yet be admitted to be satisfactory. There is one discordance that it may be right slightly to point out, as it is presented by Plate 43 of the Hieroglyphics: we there find the 29th year of the Sesenchosis of Manetho; and Manetho allots but 21 years to this king, who was the first of his dynasty, and could not, therefore, like Philadelphus, have continued any era from an earlier period.

It is easy to observe, in comparing Mr. Cailliaud’s copy of the Tablet of Abydus, as published by Mr. Champollion, with those of our countrymen, Mr. Bankes and Mr. Wilkinson, contained in the 47th plate of the Hieroglyphics, or with the manuscript copy of Mr. Burton, how much more hastily the French traveller had executed his task than any one of the three Englishmen. [p319]