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accidentally coming to the place of her abode, it was at length discovered to be a peculiar provincial dialect, fhe had learnt in her childhood, but of which, in her wakeful hours, the could neither speak nor recollect half a dozen words.

Homer, it may be, with fome poetic licence, informs us, that Ulyffes was known by his dog on his return from Troy, although he had been abfent from him fourteen years.

It hath been an opinion, that when ideas are first received into the mind, certain correfpondent marks or characters were impreffed or infcribed upon the brain, which, by this mean, became the ftore-houfe of the intelleft: and that when thefe minute infcriptions were abraded by time, or other causes, the recollection of their correfpondent ideas became impoffible. It may be fufpected, that this fentiment was originally founded upon an attachment to materialism. It ought not, however, to be rejected folely on this account. But is it juft to conclude, becaufe the operations of the human mind have a certain temporary, that therefore they have alfo an effential dependence upon the body? Were this a truth, then by the paffage of the foul from its prefent habitation, corrupted and def troyed, to a regenerated vehicle how ever more exalted or excellent, it would be reduced, by an obliteration of all its ideas, into that pristine state in which it came from under the forming hand of its Creator.

Although from the prefent nature of our compound being, the foul may be circumftantially difenabled to exercife its various faculties in their native vigour, it would be irrational to infer from this, that it is effentially dependent, for the exercife of one of the most noble of thefe, upon that perishable material fyftem, to which it happens at prefent to be attached. A fteel fpring may be preffed down,

and rendered paffive, by a mass of inert clay; fire itfelf may be imprifoned and inactive; but the fhackle needs only to be removed, to discover the native elasticity of the one, or the expanfive energy of the other.

fis.

Facts are allo against this hypothe

It is one that no phyfiologist will difpute, that at least once in ten or twelve years, every part of the human body, even of the hardest bones, is changed or renovated; and yet, not only a continued consciousnefs of perfonal identity remains, but alfo the power of recollecting events more diftant than that period, notwithstanding they should never have been spoken of, or thought of, in the interim. This fact is alone fufficient to defeat the whole fyftem of the materialist.

Has then this intellectual faculty any effential limit whatever? Probably not; for it is difficult to conceive this of a mental power, which by exercile grows more active, even under all the unfavourable circumftances of its prefent connection with matter. It may however be thought uncertain and impoffible to determine. This however is certain, that if there is any thing in the abilract nature of our fpirit, which forms a natural boundary to it, this limit falls not within the prefent narrow boundaries of human life. Can any one fuppofe that the antedeluvians' were unable to recollect the affairs of their youth?

Is not the prefent limitation of memory owing to the union of the foul with a grofs mutable and perishable body? It is established by a variety of facts, that certain changes in the ftate of the material fyftem, deprive the mind of the exercife of this faculty, or fufpend its operations, or enable it again to evolve what once appeared to be wholly obliterated. It has been already remarked that fleep deprives us of voluntary memo

ry.

ry.

The cafe of the French lady above-mentioned, may be here allo referred to as in point. The effects of concuffion are well known, as are likewife the caufes of intoxication, delirium and madness. An inftance of catalepfy is recorded in medical hiftory, in which all thought was fo fuddenly and entirely fufpended, that after many weeks at the moment of as fudden a recovery, the patient finished the fentence he had began, and but half fpoken when he was taken with this illness. We are told of a celebrated Grecian poet, that he, after his recovery from a particular fickness, was, with great difficulty, perfuaded to believe himfelf the author of fome of his beft literary performances prior thereto. A gentleman, within the circle of my own acquaintance, was, by a fever, so deprived of every literary acquifition, as obliged him, although to appearance perfectly recovered, to recur once more to the rudiments of the languages. After fome time, however, he found his labour in this respect uselefs, by a fudden recovery of his memory of every thing it had lost.

Aftonishing inftances of the ftrength of this faculty are fometimes met with. The obfervations that have been made justify the fuppofition, that they depend upon a frame of body favourable to the exercife of this mental power; while they, at the fame time, ftrengthen the general argument of the foul's effential independency.

Xenophon relates that Cyrus could call by name every officer in his numerous army.

Muret declares that he dictated to a young Corfican, a prodigious number of unconnected Greek, Latin, and Barbarous words; and when he was tired, the lad repeated them all without the leaft mistake, reverfing the order and beginning at the last.

It is faid of Brindley, the celebrat ed mathematician, patronized by the Duke of Bridgewater, that having to folve the most difficult queftions in his art, his cuftom was to cover himfelf under his bedcloaths; and that in this fituation he was able to complete fuch intricate arithmetical operations as would require many hundred figures in the ordinary mode of calculation.

The following inftances are well authenticated:-The famous impofter Pfalmanazar, to favour his defigns, invented a complete language, which he spoke off hand with great fluency, and wrote in a new character, from the right to the left hand, in the eastern manner. He also gave a fictitious hiftory of the unknown ifland, from whence he pretended to come; and all this with fo much confiftency and retentivenefs, as for a long time impofed upon numbers of the most learned men in England and elfewhere.

Anthony Magliabechi became famous among the learned of his day, by his prodigious memory." He retained not only the fenfe of what he learned, but frequently all the words, and the very manner of fpelling. It is faid that a gentleman, to make trial of the force of his memory, lent hira a manufcript he was going to print. Some time after it was returned, the gentleman, coming to him with a melancholy countenance, requested Magliabechi to recollect what he remembered of it; upon which he wrote the whole without miffing a word.

Francis Crichton, at the age of twenty years, difputed in Paris, before 3000 auditors, with the moft celebrated profeffors there, upon every subject of literature or science which they chofe to propose to him. Upon the moft intricate queftions, he fpake equally well in any one of the ten

langua

languages, and this with an acutenefs that feemed fuperior to every diffienity, and with an erudition that New no bounds. These attainments, which can not be thought of without akanishinent, precluded not fofter ad more ufeful accomplishments. In

ft, a fentiment of terror mingled

with the admiration he excited.

"Doctores ecclefiæ quatuor redarguit," fays an author who was prefent at one of these scenes," fapientia comparandus nemini videbatur, pro

Antichrifto habitus eft."-This prodigy, this lamented youth, was murdered by a a prince, his pupil!—In him we indeed view an exception to the remark fo beautifully expreffed by Mr. Pope:

The folid power of understanding fails; Thus in the foul, while memory prevails, The mem'ry's foft figures melt away. Where beams of warm imagination play · (To be continued.)

Hiftory of the WHITE ANTS in India and Africa, called by Naturalifts, the FATALE. Published in the 71ft vol. of the Philofophical Tranfactions, by Mr. Henry Smeathman, of Clement's Inn.

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HE works of thefe infects fur- the nurféries, magazines of provifions,

Tpafs thofe of the bees, wafps, arched chambers and galleries, with

beavers, and other animals, as much at least as thofe of the moft polifhed European nations excel thofe of the leaft cultivated favages. And, even with regard to man, his greateft works, the boafted pyramids, fall comparatively far fhort, even in fize alone, of the ftructures raised by thefe infects. The labourers among them employed in this fervice are not a quarter of an inch in length; but the ftructures which they erect arife to 10 or 12 feet and upwards above the furface of the earth. Suppofing the height of a man to be fix feet, the author calculates, that the buildings of thefe infects may be confidered, relatively to their fize and that of a man, as being raifed to near five times the height of the greateft of the Egyptian pyramids; that is, correfponding with confiderably more than half a mile. We may add, that, with respect to the interior conftruction, and the various members and difpofitions of the parts of the building, they appear greatly to exceed that or any other work of human conftruction.

The moft ftriking parts of thefe ftructures are the royal apartments,

New-York Mag. Vol. II. No. 1.

their various communications; the ranges of Gothic-fhaped arches, projected, and not formed by mere excavation, fome of which are two or three feet high, but which diminish rapidly, like the arches of ailes in perfpectives; the various roads, floping ftair-cafes, and bridges, confifting of one vaft arch, and conftructed to fhorten the distance between the feveral parts of the building, which would otherwife communicate only by winding paffages. These aftonifhing ftructures are the works of an infect only a quarter of an inch long, and 25 of which weigh only one grain. But thefe, and many other curious inftances of the great fagacity and powers of these infects, cannot be understood without viewing the plates in which their feeble frames, and comparatively ftupendous works, are delineated.

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fects; next the foldiers, or fighting order, who do no kind of labour, and are about twice as long as the former, and equal in bulk to about fifteen of them; and laftly, the winged or perfect infects, who may be called the Robility or gentry of the ftate; for they neither labour nor fight, being fcarcely capable even of felf-defence. "Thefe only are capable of being elected kings or queens; and nature has fo ordered it, that they emigrate within a few weeks after they are ele. vated to this ftate, and either establish new kingdoms, or perifh within a day or two."

tinually running about on the furface
of the ground, and are elected kings
and queens of new states. Thofe
who are not fo elected and preserved,
certainly perifn, and most probably
in the courfe of the following day.
By thefe induftrious creatures the
king and queen elect are immediately
protected from their innumerable
enemies, by inclofing them in a
chamber of clay; where the bufiness
of propagation foon commences.
Their "voluntary fubjects” then bufy
themfelves in conftructing wooden
nurferies, or apartments entirely com-
pofed of wooden materials, feemingly
joined together with gums. Into
these they afterwards carry the eggs
produced from the queen-lodging
them there as fait as they can obtain
them from her. The author even
furnishes us with plaufible reasons to
believe, that they here form a kind
of garden for the cultivation of a
fpecies of microscopical mushroom,
which Mr. Konig (in an effay on the
Eaft-Indian termites, read before the
Society of Naturalifts of Berlin) con-
jectures to be the food of the young
infects.. But perhaps the most won-
derful, and at the same time best au-
thenticated part of the history of these
fingular infects, is that which relates
to the queen or mother of the com-
munity, in her pregnant state.

This laft mentioned order differs fo much from the other two, that they have not hitherto been fuppofed to belong to the fame community. In fact, they are not to be discovered in the neft till juft before the commencement of the rainy feafon; when they undergo the laft change, which is preparative to the formation of new colonies. They are equal in bulk to two foldiers and about 30 labourers; and are furnished with four wings, with which they are destined to roam about for a few hours; at the end of which time they lofe their wings, and become the prey of innumerable birds, reptiles, and infects: while probably not a pair out of many millions of this unhappy race get into a place After impregnation, a very extraof fafety, fulfil the first law of na- ordinary change begins to take place ture, and lay the foundation of a new in her perfon, or rather in her abdocommunity. In this ftate many fall men only. It gradually increases in into the neighbouring waters, and bulk, and at length becomes of fuch are eat with avidity by the Africans. an enormous fize as to exceed the The author found them delicate, bulk of the rest of her body 1500 or nourishing, and wholefome; with. 2000 times. She becomes 1000 times out fauce or other help from cookery, heavier than her confort, and exceeds than merely roasting them in the 20,000 or 30,000 times the bulk of manner of coffee. one of the labourers. In this ftate, the matrix has a conftant peristaltic or undulating motion; the confequence of which is (as the author has counted them) the protrufion of 80,000 eggs in 24 hours.

The few fortunate pairs who hap pen to furvive this annual maffacre and deftruction, are reprefented by the author as being cafually found by fome of the labourers, that are con

Thefe

Thefe eggs, fays the author, " are inftantly taken from her body by her attendants (of whom there always are, in the royal chamber and galleries adjacent, a fufficient number in waiting) and carried to the nurseries, which are fometimes four or five feet diftant in a straight line. Here, after they are hatched, the young are attended and provided with every thing neceffary, until they are able to fhift for themselves, and take their fhare of the labours of the community."

Many curious and ftriking particulars are related of the great devaftations committed by this powerful community; who conftruct roads, or rather covered ways, diverging in all directions from the neft, and leading to every object of plunder within their reach. Though the mifchiefs they commit are very great, fuch is the economy of nature, that it is probably counterbalanced by the good produced by them, in quickly deftroying dead trees and other fub ftances, which, as the author obferves, would, by a tedious decay, ferve only to encumber the face of the earth. Such is their alacrity and dispatch in this office, that the total deftruction of deserted towns is fo effectually accomplished, that in two or three years a thick wood fills the space, and not the leaft veftige of a house is to be discovered.

From the many fingular accounts here given of the police of thefe infects, we shall select and abridge only one-refpecting the different functions of the labourers and foldiers, or the civil and military establishments in this community, on an attempt to examine their neft or city.

On making a breach in any part of the structure with a hoe or pick-axe, a foldier immediately appears, and walks about the breach, as if to fee whether the enemy is gone, or to examine whence the attack proceeds. In a fhort time he is followed by two or

three others, and foon afterwards by a numerous body, who rush out as faft as the breach will permit them— their numbers increafing as long as any one continues to batter the building. During this time they are in the moft violent bustle and agitation, while feme of them are employed in beating with their forceps upon the building, fo as to make a noife that may be heard at three or four feet diftance. On ceafing to disturb them, the foldiers retire, and are fucceeded by the labourers, who haften in various directions towards the breach, cach with a burden of mortar in his mouth, ready tempered. Though there are millions of them, they never top or embarrass each other; and a wall gradually arifes that fills up the chafm. A foldier attends every 600 or 1000 of the labourers, feemingly as a director of the works, for he never touches the mortar, either to lift or carry it. One in particular places himself close to the wall which they are repairing, and frequently makes the noife above mentioned, which is conftantly anfwered by a loud hifs from all the labourers within the dome; and at every fuch fignal, they evidently redouble their pace, and work as faft again.

The work being completed, a renewal of the attack conftantly produces the fame effects. The foldiers again rush out, and then retreat, and are followed by the labourers, loaded with mortar, and as active and diligent as before. "Thus," fays the author," the pleasure of fecing them come out to fight or to work alternately, may be obtained as often as curiofity excites or time permits: and it will certainly be found, that the one order never attempts to fight, or the other to work, t the emergency be ever fo great." The obftinacy of the foldiers is remarkable. "They fight to the very laft, difputing every inch of ground fo well as often to

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