168

Memoirs of the PROGRESS of MANUFACTURES, CHEMISTRY, SCIENCE, and the FINE ARTS.

NE of the most remarkable facts in the history of geography, is communicated by letters conveyed in the last ships from the Cape of Good Hope. The island of Bossen, or Penguin, sometimes called Seal Island, at the western extremity of Table Bay, has entirely disappeared beneath the waters. An earthquake was felt at Cape Town, in December, only two leagues distant, of which a particular description will be given in a subsequent part of this number; and it is supposed that the convulsion extended to Bossen. The island was about two miles in length and one in breadth, and was, although flat, somewhat more elevated above the surface of the sea than the contiguous island of Elizabeth. The Dutch, when in possession of the Cape, kept a guard of twenty-four men on Bossen; and it was employed as a place of banishment for criminals, to the number of from seventy to a hundred, who dug lime-stone to supply materials for the buildings on the adjacent continent. No women were then permitted to reside here, not even the wife of the postmaster. It

was not allowed that strangers should visit it, since a Danish ship, which had lost great part of her crew, and was refused assistance at the Cape, sent a boat on shore, dispersed the guard, and received on board as many malefactors as were necessary to navigate her to Europe. At the southern extremity of the island, a flag was hoisted on the approach of any vessel. M. Vauquelin, in the name of the Committee of the Chemical Arts, has lately reported on a manufacture of tallow for candles, professed to be purified from all animal substances of an injurious nature, to be free from all moisture, and not at all discoloured. "The tallow," says he, " which I carefully examined, is demi-transparent, per v dry and so

norous. It is indeed so very dry that when a blade of iron is passed o ver it, only lightly touching it, it gives an extremely lively phosphoric light, occasioned, according to all appearance, by an electric motion; for when this tallow is recently melted, and the surrounding air is extremely dry, the mere passing of the hand on it is sufficient to produce sparks. The dryness of this tallow is still farther demonstrated by its perfect transparency when melted: at the temperature of boiling water, neither bubbles nor clouds are discernible. This tallow, it is affirmed, may be kept without any discoloration or rancidity for two years. The candles made of it are extremely white, their light is very pure, they emit little or no smoke, they do not gutter or run, and require snuffing less frequently than others.They are about five per cent. higher in price than those of common manufacture."

In the description of the new invented Stove, for conveying warmth by heated air, in our last Number, it ought to have been mentioned that it is Patent. The Stove may be seen at the Shop of Mr Adam Anderson, No. 51, South Bridge-Street, one of the Patentees. We may add, that it has been used, with much advantage, in a number of the churches in this city, as well as in private houses, on a smaller scale.

In the government of Simbitsk, in the circle of Korssun, four versts from the crown village Kassaur, there is a district where the earth has been burning for three years. No fire is seen; but much smoke, which issues at various places. The ground sinks insensibly; and on pressing it at the edges, flames burst out. The inhabitants of Kassaur say, that not far from that place, the earth had burned in the same manner twelve years ago, and had become extinguished of itself. Where the ground was dug into, a spring of water was found.

Memoirs

Memoirs of the late General MEL

VILLE.

(Concluded from p. 103.) HAVING finally closed his relations with the West Indies, as a governor and commander in chief of the forces, with entire satisfaction to all concerned at home and abroad, as well as to his own mind, (for in the seven years during which he discharged all the duties of Chancellor in his government, not one appeal from his decisions was brought home to the King in council,) General M. seized the earliest opportunity of turning his attention to what had always been his favourite study-military history, and antiquities. He had already visited Paris, Spa, &c. but the years 1774, 1775, and 1776, he devoted to a tour through France, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, the Low Countries, &c. daring which, besides the objects of the fine arts, in which he possessed a very delicate taste, with great sensibility of their beauties and defects, he examined the scenes of the most memorable battles, sieges, and other military exploits, recorded in antient or modern history, from the Portus Itius of Caesar, on the margin of the English Channel, to the Canne of Polybius, on the remote shores of the Adriatic; and from the fields of Ramillies, to those of Dettingen and Blen. heim. With Polybius and Cæsar in his hand, and referring to the most authentic narrations of modern warfare, he traced upon the ground the positions and operations of the most distinguished commanders of various periods, noting where their judgment, skill, and presence of mind, were the most conspicuous, and treasuring up for future use the evidences of the mistakes and errors, from which the most eminent were not exempted. Relying on the authority of Polybius, and guided by la raison de guerre, or com mon sense, applied to war, he traced the route to Italy pursued by Annibal,

March 1810.

from the point where probably he crossed the Rhone in the neighbourhood of Roquemaure, up the left bank of that river, nearly to Vienna, across Dauphiné, to the entrance of the mountains at Les Echelles, along the vale to Chamberry up the banks of the Isere, by Conflans and Moustier, over the gorge of the Alps, called the Little St. Bernard, and down their eastern slopes by Aosti, and Ivrea, to the plains of Piedmont, in the neighbourhood of Turin.

In tracing this route, which seems to have been strangely disregarded by commentators, historians, and antiquarians, of the greatest note, altho' certainly the most obvious for that illustrious Carthaginian to have followed, General M. found the nature of the country, the distances, the situations of the rivers, rocks, and mountains, most accurately to tally with the circumstances related by Polybius: nay, even the Leucopetron, that celebrated crux criticorum, he discovered still to subsist in its due position, and still to be known under the identical denomination of La Roche Blanche. Not satisfied however with the evidence arising from so many coincidences, General M. crossed and re-crossed the Alps in various other directions, pointed out for the track of Annibal's march: but of those not one could, without doing great violence indeed to the text of Polybius, be brought in any reasonable way to correspond to the narrative.

Newton is reported to have said, that if he possessed any peculiar advantage over his fellow-labourers in the field of science, it consisted merely in his allowing himself to consider matters more patiently and deliberately than the generality of man kind. It was General M.'s practice, in his researches into truth, first to collect all the information to be procured on the subject, next to weigh the authorities and evidences the one against the other, in order to ascertain those

to

pect or view. Mithan is the diminutive of Midh, or Mith, and has been formed, according to the English idiom, in the same manner as Aldie and Rossie, aforesaid.

The next object worth attention to the eastward is the Cearcac Head, erroneously written Caercock Head. Cearcac is the diminutive of Cearc, and signifies a little diver, or cormòrant. This same head has two other names, viz. 1mo, Cuithal, i. e. the entrenched rock.-2do, Prile Castle, probably so denominated from its then proprietor. Thus, in the different names of this head, we can in some measure trace its history. It was called Cearcac Head (head is evidently a translation of the Gaelic word corresponding to it,) when it had no other circumstance to distinguish it than its being frequented by a number of cormorants. It afterwards received the name of Cuith-Al, when it was secured on the land side by a fosse and rampart. And lastly, it was called Prile Castle, when the entrenchment received the addition of a castle. And it is not a little singular, that all these characteristics still remain. It is frequented by a number of cormorants, provincially called scarts. The fosse and rampart are very distinct, and the foundations of the castle can still be traced.

Next is the Red Head, the Promonterium Rubrum of Boethius, and the other Scottish historians, principally remarkable as the landing place of the Danes. On its summit is an entrenchment, but far inferior in point of strength to that on Cearcac Head.The only other head I notice is the

impracticable. All that they meant was, that they landed near it, and tradition points out the southern extremity of Lunan Bay as the actual landing place. This tradition is strongly corroborated by an artificial tumulus, which still retains the name of the Corbie Know. The Raven and Corbie are synonymus, and as the Raven was the Danish standard, it is more than probable this was the eminence on which they erected it, after their landing.

Having made this digression from the old line of road, it is necessary to return to Kinaldie, a little to the north of which is situated Cairnton, so denominated from a Cairn, which can still be traced, but whether of the Sepulchral or Druidical kind cannot be determined.

The next object worth attention is Chance Inn, built in the 17th century by the family of North Esk, only remarkable for the following ape propriate inscription, viz. Non nobis solum nati sumus.

You now reach the Keilor, which separates two farms, named Muckle and Little Inchock, so named from their being in a manner peninsulated by streamlets which nearly surround them. The original word is Inisac, the diminutive of Inis, i. e. A Peninsula or Inch. Inis is pronounced Inish, and Inisac, Inishac, so that the original pronunciation is nearly retained, though the orthography is considerably altered by writing it Inchoch. 21st Feb. 1810. (To be continued.)

·tory.

MILO.

When our historians inform us that the Danes landed at Red Head, the expression must not be literally understood, for a landing at Red Head was

March 1,-20. NOTHING remark

able in the natural history department occurs this month. The weather has not, upon the whole, been unfavourable for the operations