of Tronçois has every quality requisite to supersede the foreign; but that the Iron from the other forges is subject to cracks and flaws, which it is supposed may be removed by greater care in its manufacture

The experiments which have been made with the machine for navigating under water, have induced M. GUYTON to investigate more deeply than heretofore the subject of respiration. He has made accurate observations in the diving-bell, and has calculated from hour to hour the consumption of the respirable part of the air, and the formation of carbonic acid gas. These observations have led him to investigate the chemical means of ameliorating what remains of respirable air, and of absorbing the carbonic acid gas in an atmosphere already exhausted. For instance, the danger arising from animal exhalations may be prevented by opening a flask of oxygenated muriatic acid.

On the 19th of Feb., BEYER, Physician to the DEAF AND DUMB ACADEMY at Paris, made some experiments, for the purpose of ascertaining the degree of deafness, of some of the individuals, who compose this establishment. With a bow strongly pressed, and drawn upon plates of glass, with tubes of the same matter, and pieces of cloth, he obtained sounds very sharp and extraordinarily piercing. One of the pupils, named Massieux, experienced a very slight sensation, and a young girl appeared not to receive the smallest. The others manifested their astonishment; there were some who expressed great pleasure at hearing a sound, doubtless for the first time. But what is worthy of remark, is, that one, who could not hear the most piercing sounds, was transported when a small instrument was played on, which Beyer calls harmonico. This instrument could scarcely be heard by any one at the bottom of the room, yet the deaf child appeared transported, and heard it very well. It may, perhaps, be concluded from this, that the deafness of those who hear only the most piercing sounds, arises from the tym panum, or drum of the ear, being stretched too tight; and on the contrary, that this membrane is too relaxed, in those who can receive the impression of soft and tender sounds only; and finally, that this membrane is absolutely palsied, in those who cannot hear at all. It might be useful, were natural history and medicine to unite and repeat these experiments. Some sparks of light might perhaps be elicited; and possibly their hearing be restored to some of these individuals.

ITALY.

Literature has already felt the effects of the Peace in Italy. Many new works have been already published, and others resumed which had been interrupted by the War. Among the latter is the Literary Journal of Pisa, which was suspended in 1798, after having been published for 25 years. This Journal comprehends not only Ancient Literature and that of Italy, but the Literature also of England, France, Germany, and Spain.

The TURIN AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY has appointed a Commission to examine what manufactures best suit Piedmont, with the means of encouraging them, and the places best adapted for them; and proposes to establish and extend manufactories for spinning cotton, particularly in the different hospitals; and to give the preference, in all possible cases, to silk, hemp, and wool, the natural produce of the country, over foreign materials.

Dr. STACCO has shown, that the disease of the udders of cows, called the Cow Pox, is indigenous in Italy; and that human subjects, inoculated with this matter, have been fully protected from the Small Pox. He controverts the opinion of Dr. Jenner and others, that this disease of the udder arises originally from the grease in the heels of horses; stating, that all the cows in Lombardy are milked by women, who, in no case, handle horses heels. GERMANY.

In our last Number, p. 134, we noticed a Decree of the Austrian Government, prohibiting Dr. GALL from continuing to read his Lectures on Skulls. It appears, however, that he has since been permitted to proceed, under certain restrictions, and is obliged to send a list of his auditors to the Magistrates of Vienna. The following explanation of his Theory is given in some of the French Papers :

"The doctrines of the celebrated German Dr. Gall are not only curious, on account of the celebrity given to them by the prohibition against their being publicly taught in Vienna, but they are likewise remarkable for their results. As the brain is moulded by the skull, Dr. Gall, who thinks he has found in the conformation of the brain an explanation of the different moral and intellectual faculties of man, establishes the convexity of the skull as the rule from which he is to form his judg ment; and contends, that the more convex the skull, the greater the capacity of the individual, which he supports by the examples of the skulls of many celebrated men. This convexity is generally remarkable in every great man; but handsome men, whose heads are more round and gracefully formed, have seldom much genius. He likewise believes himself able to determine the place of each of our mental faculties in the brain; the faculty of observation, for instance, lies just behind the forehead. This part is very convex in children, who, as is well known, are remarkable for this faculty. This convexity diminishes insensibly, and even becomes a concave, unless in great observers; and Dr. Gall concludes that liberty and custom may induce great changes in this faculty in man. He is in possession of the skulls of many celebrated persons, particularly those of Blumaner, Alxinger, and Wurmser. In the brain of the latter he pretends to have discovered the organ of courage, which has its place about an inch above the ear.-The skulls of animals furnish him with important discoveries. has found in the skulls of singing birds, in those of celebrated Musicians, and, above all,

He

in that of Mozart, the organ of music Final ly, the wily brain of the fox and the cat, as well as those of men whom he had known remarkable for craft, point out to him the organ of cunning. It is but justice to say, that the doctrines of Gall are very curious; how far they are well founded is not for us to examine". Clef du Cabinet, and Journal du Soir." The German Papers say, that a traveller lately discovered in a private house at Wir. temberg, many sheets of Music, in the handwriting of LUTHER, and apparently of his own composition; who is known not only to have been a lover of music, but himself an admirable Musician and Composer. We have the authority of Handel, to attribute to him that sublime piece of Church music, known in England as accompanying the Hundredth Psalm; and the same great man acknowledges that he studied the compositions of Luther, and derived singular advantage from them.

M. LOSCHGE, near Nuremberg, has discovered a method of employing the bark of tan-yards, after it has served the purpose of the tanner, in the manufacture of wrappingpaper. The bark is washed, and put into a pounding mill; where two hours, or a sixth part of the time necessary for white paper, may serve for the trituration of the mass. It is then thrown together into reservoirs, while woollen rags are triturated in the mill for about half an hour, when the prepared tan is again thrown in, and triturated with these rags for a short time only, because the quality of the paper does not require a fine grain.

Mr. HILL, an ingenious Orientalist, of Halle, in Germany, has undertaken the publication of Hafiz, a celebrated Persian poet, and proposes to give the original text in a new Talik type, with a literal translation. Should this work be favourably received, Mr. Hill will extend his plan to the publication of several other Persian classics. His Prospectus, in Latin, has been sent to press.

Mr. KLAPROTH, likewise of Halle, who has devoted many years to the study of Chinese Literature, will shortly publish the first number of an Oriental Journal, under the title of "Museum für die Orientalische Litteratur;" in which work he is assisted by several ingenious friends. Mr. Klaproth has been for some time employed on a new Chinese Grammar and Vocabulary, of which a Prospectus, in Latin, may be soon expected.

HOLLAND.

M. VROLYK, Professor of Natural History at Amsterdam, has endeavoured to ascertain, by experiment, of what use the long stiff hairs, termed whiskers, which are placed near the mouth of certain quadrupeds, might be to them. Having disposed of a number of books, placed on their edges, upon the ground in his chamber, so as to form a kind of layrinth, he let loose a rabbit, with his eyes bound up, amongst them The animal succeeded in extricating himself from this labyrinth, without having overturned them; but when Mr. Vro

lyk had cut off his whiskers, the animal, having no longer these tentacula to direct him, ran against the books, and overturned them. Moreover it is known that the bulb, in which each of the whiskers is implanted, receive a small nervous filament, proceeding from the infra-orbilaty nerve.

A National Library has been formed at the Hague, for the use of the Dutch Legislators. VAN MARUM and Professor PFAFF have undertaken a large course of experiments to illustrate the nature of Galvanism. They have charged electrical batteries of 140 feet square, by a single contact with the pile of Volta; and they have clearly proved, that this pile is a true excitatory apparatus of Electricity, which surpasses, in some respects, the strongest electrical machines. They have melted, by the Electricity of this apparatus, to the amount of 12 inches of iron-wire, and even of wire of Platina.

SPAIN.

It

A model has been lately executed, by CAUPENNE-SAINT-PEE, of a floating fortification, which can neither be burnt nor sunk, intended for the defence of roads and harbours, &c is constructed like a raft, and in the form of a lozenge; and is composed of different gratings of timber, placed one over another, in the intervals of which cork is left to float. The uppermost grating, which serves as a platform, is covered with wood. Round this are parapets of cork, eight feet thick, and five feet eight inches high, which give the whole an appearance of a military fortification. In the centre of the raft are six twenty-four pounders, upon carriages of a peculiar construction. avoid the inconveniences occasioned by the common furnaces for heating balls, in the consumption of wood and the quantity of smoke, the furnace is made of iron, and is heated by eighteen lamps, the wicks of which are six inches broad, and are lighted in an instant, or as soon extinguished by cutting off the wicks, which fall into a vessel filled with water placed underneath.-Clef du Cabinet, No. 1819.

To

Messrs. Ruiz and PAVON, who returned lately from South America, are preparing to publish at Madrid, a complete Flora Peruviensis, or Catalogue and History of the Plants of Peru.

SWEDEN.

M. GUYTON has published at Paris a Memoir upon a Stove, constructed according to the principles of the Swedish Chimney, and which appears to carry the economy of fuel nearer to perfection than it has yet been. The winters in Sweden are, by many degrees, more rigorous than in our latitude and travellers have observed, that there is no country where the intemperance of the seasons is guarded against at less expense. Their whole secret consists in giving to the pipes which conduct the smoke the greatest number of circumvolutions possible, in order to obtain its entire heat. The third part of a billet of wood will, in these chimnies, communicate a heat for ten hours above the mean temperature.

EAST INDIES.

A kind of pulse grows in the Island of Ceylon, which is possessed of very valuable properties, and will be an article of import to Bengal. It is called bane, and might be rendered of great utility. The stem of this plant is from three feet and a half to four feet in length, and furnishes a flax, which is twisted into long ropes. From the extraordinary quality it possesses of not decaying or rotting in the water, it is particularly employed by fishermen

for their nets and lines. It appears, however, to be rather deficient in elasticity; but that is attributed to its never having been sufficiently steeped. Its strength appears, from some experiments, to be in the proportion of five to four of European cordage. The plant grows spontaneously in Ceylon, and many tons of it may be collected in Candy; but the natives are entirely ignorant of the proper method of manufacturing it.

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN THE EAST

INDIES.

(Concluded from p. 129.) THE REV. Mr. Paczold, in a letter dated at Vepery, the 10th of April, 1800, states his having been on Missionary concerns, visiting the Southern provinces of the Peninsula; particulars of which, as de. tailed in his Diary, he promises to transmit.

The Rev. Mr. Pohle, in a letter dated at Trichinapally, 17th of March, 1800, states, that in the course of the year 1799, he had baptized thirty-six infants, one adult, and four grown children of Roman Catholic parents. Two persons had been received from the Popish Communion. The communicants, in the course of the year, had been two hundred and six, marriages thirteen, and burials thirty. He had also privately administered the Sacrament to a few sick persons; and some German sol. diers had twice communicated in the Church.

The English school had increased, consisting of from thirty-nine to fiftyfour children; and in the Malabar school, there were about twenty. The Malabar and Portuguese people belonging to his Mission were in number two hun. dred and eighty-five.-The Chatechists and Schoolmasters were as before reported, excepting that a young man, Christ. Observ. No. 3.

whom Mr. Pohle had sent to Tanjore, had returned thence, and been success- / fully employed in the English School.All had regularly performed their respective duties, without interruption, excepting what had sometimes been occasioned by slight indispositions.-The Chatechists often made excursions into the country, to preach the Gospel to the heathens. The principles of Christianity many approve of, who nevertheless do not enter into the Church, being scandalized by the immoral lives of many Europeans, particularly in the circumstance of keeping women, without being lawfully married to them. It is proper, he observes, when these objections are made, to clear the Gospel of countenancing such immoralities; but this will not always satisfy those who contend that principle and practice ought to go together. He had recently built a new Malabar School House, appropriating the old one to the English Scholars, instead of continuing to teach them in the Church, which had thereby been materially injured. Mr. Pohle earnestly hopes, that a succession of faithful and pious Missionaries, whose principles and morals are correct, and who are true servants of Jesus Christ, may be perpetuated.

The Rev. Mr. Kolhoff, in a letter dat

ed at Tanjore, 31st of December, 1799, C 2

excuses himself for having too long omitted to write to the Society, alleging the weight of business that had been lying heavy on him, in consequence of the death of his ever honoured and dearly beloved godfather, the late Rev. Mr. Swartz, and the ill state of the Rev. Mr. Jænicke's health. He acknowledges, with gratitude and much satisfaction, the receipt of his salary and gratuity, and of letters from the Secretary, and promises by God's gracious assistance to fulfil, to the utmost of his power, the duties of his station. then details a number of particulars concerning the last days, and the death of Mr. Swartz, every account of whom serves only to increase the veneration entertained for his valuable and exemplary character.*

He

During the year 1797, Mr. Kolhoff had assisted Mr. Swartz in preaching on Sundays to the English and Tamulian congregations, and in performing the other duties of the Mission; in which course likewise he had been regularly occupied the year following. Till the second Sunday after Easter, 1798, the Rev. Mr. Jænicke had also preached occasionally at Tanjore, in the English and Tamulian Congregations, after which time his repeated attacks of illness altogether disabled him from so doing. Still however Mr. Jænicke continued to be of great service by his good instructions, and his attention to the Mission accounts.

In addition to his ordinary duties, Mr. Kolhoff had also been daily occupied in instructing the Rev. Mr. Holzberg, in the Tamulian language; wherein, besides preaching in English, he had lately delivered two Sermons, and administered the Lord's Supper.

In the year 1797, the number of the baptisms had been one hundred and nine; amongst which, thirty were infants, born in the Tamulian Congregation, thirty-two heathens, and forty-seven children of European parents. Three persons had also been received from the Popish Communion.

In the year 1798, the baptisms had been ninety-one; of which 38 were in fants born in the Tamulian Congrega

* See our Obituary for last Month.

tion, thirty-seven heathens, and sixteen children of European parents. The converts from Popery were fifteen.

And, in the year 1799, the baptized were one hundred and ninety; thirtyeight being infants of the Tamulian Congregation, one hundred and fortyfive heathens, and seven children of European parents. The converts from Popery this year were twenty-five; two hundred and nine persons of the Tamulian Congregation had received the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, nine couple had been married, and forty-nine corpses buried.

The English and Native Schools had been kept up as usual. In the English School, there were then only nine scholars: in the provincial Schools at Tanjore and Cumbagonam, about forty; and in the Tamulian School, consisting exclusively of children belonging to the Congregation, ninety-nine boys, amongst whom there were fourteen Seminarists trained to become Catechists, and thirtyfive were charity boys, maintained and clothed by the Mission. Two English School-masters instructed in the provincial and English schools; and four School-masters taught the children in the Tamulian School. Six Catechists were employed at Tanjore, in instructing the Catechumens, visiting the Christians, and conversing with Heathens and Papists.

Mr. Kolhoff states, that an event very favourable to the whole country, and to the Mission, had happened about the middle of the last year. Mr. Swartz's endeavours having been crowned with success, the adopted son of the late Tulja Maha Rajah, by order of the Court of Directors, had been placed on the throne, on the 30th of June, 1798. On his accession, Serfogee Maha Rajah had corrected several abuses, and endeavoured to make his subjects of every denomination happy, by a just and mild government; and he had been particularly beneficent by furnishing a large quantity of grain, for the support of the poor in their Congregation, which had been a very important and considerable relief, during a time of scarcity.

In the month of October, 1799, the Rajah had signed a treaty, by which he transferred to the Honourable Company,

the power of administering justice and collecting the revenues of the Tanjore country. By this treaty too, the two forts of Tanjore were to be entirely evacuated by the Company's troops, and his Excellency Serfogee Maha Rajah was at liberty to garrison them. The Company's troops had accordingly marched out to Villam, on the 29th of October, and an end was thereby put to the English divine service, performed on Sundays and Wednesday evenings, in the church of the little fort. Apprehensions had been entertained that the Tamulian divine service there would be discontinued, and the place appropriated to the Bramins; but these fears had not been well founded, for the Rajah had not only given them leave to perform the Tamulian service there, but also promised to protect them against all molestation.

The defeat of Tippo Sultan, and the reduction of the Mysore country, had opened a great door to make known the glad tidings of the Gospel to the inhabitants of an extensive country; and it was the fervent prayer of the Missionaries, that God might send faithful labourers into his vineyard, and cause the light of his glorious Gospel to shine amongst these poor Heathens, that they might be turned from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God. The Rev. Mr. Holzberg, in a letter dated at Tanjore, 11th of March, 1800, mentions that he continued to be statedly engaged in his Missionary labours, and had occasionally preached to the Malabar Congregation, and performed other offices in their language. The garrison having marched to Trichinapally, all the Europeans had left Tanjore, and their labours were consequently confined to the Tamulian Congregation, which was in an increasing state, and amongst whom, through the blessing of God, they did not labour in vain, many amongst them being anxious for the salvation of their immortal souls. In his first Sermon to them, in the Tamulian language, last year, he had mentioned the great benefits they were permitted to experience, by the Christian liberality of the society, in sending out teachers, and causing the Gospel of Christ to be preached to

them.

Mr. Kolhoff and he occasionally went out to confer with the Heathens; but the constant preparations of the candidates for baptism requiring much attention, there was but little time to spare for that duty.

The death of Mr. Jænicke has been

already mentioned. During his illness, he often expressed his hopes of soon entering into the joy of his Lord; and on the day of his death, after suffering much from fever, he was seized with convulsions, and between seven and eight in the evening, was delivered from all his sufferings, and introduced into that state of rest, which he had longed after with most ardent desires. His brethren and fellow-labourers observe, that from the time of his arrival in India, till seized with that dreadful sickness the Hill Fever, he had pursued his work in the Mission with fervour and delight. He was a great blessing to the congregation and school at Tanjore, and a happy instrument for the enlargement of the kingdom of Christ, in the countries to the southward, where he erected several Churches, established Schools, and had laboured with all his strength to instruct the ignorant, to awaken the careless, and to animate every one to walk worthy of his holy profession; and it is remarkable, they observe, that previously to his departure, he should have been enabled to visit all those places, where he had before preached the word of God, to warn and exhort the people who had been instructed and awakened by his ministry. The great endowments of his mind, the excellent disposition of his heart, and his zeal for the glory of God and the good of souls, had given them cause to lament his early death; and it was matter of especial sorrow to them that such an afflicting stroke should so soon have followed the severe loss, which they and the Mission had sustained by the lamented death of the venerable Mr. Swartz; but they knew it to be their duty to humble themselves before Him, who is the Lord and Head of his Church, and to submit to all his ways and dispensa tions, which, though unsearchable, are always holy, wise, and good. They pray that God may mercifully look