eious approbation of the plan a general meeting of the most distinguished characters in St. Petersburg was held early in the current year; Prince Galitzin was elected president, the vice-president and directors are of the highest distinction, excellence and interest; and the object of the institution, as we learn by a letter from Prince Galitzin to Lord Teignmouth, is "the distribution of the Old and New Testament throughout the Russian empire in all languages except the Slavonic, for which a particular privilege is preserved to the Holy Synod. When your lordship," continues his highness, "considers the number of European and Asiatic dialects which prevail in the several provinces of the Russian empire; above all, if a correct idea can be formed of the state of many of these provinces with regard to religious knowledge, then I am sure that your lordship will feel with me that no Bible Society yet formed on the continent of Europe can have objects in view more vast in extent and importance than those to be accomplished by the Bible Society in St. Petersburg."

We find also, from the same source, that oriental versions of the

bible are now printed wholly or in part, or prepared or preparing for printing, to the following extent. In Sanscrit, the whole of the New, and half the Old Testament printed, the former in circulation: in Chinese, the New Testament completed,, the Old to the 1 Sam. ch. 5: in Bengalee, a third edition of the New Testament completed; and a second edition of the Old to Leviticus; in Orissa, the New Testament completed, and nearly the whole of the Old in Mahratta, the former completed and in cireulation, the latter to the book of Numbers: in Hindu, a second edition of the former completed; and the latter as far as the Pentateuch inclusive: in Telinga Skikb, and the Asam, the former printing in Kurnata, Cashmire, Burman, and Pushtoo or Affghan, copy prepared or in hand. For the use of the native Christians of the Malabar coast one translation of the New Testament has been nearly finished in Malayalim or Malay, at Bengal, under the immediate sanction of the Syrian church ; while another from the Latin Vulgate is in hand for the use of the catholic Christiaus of the same country.

CHAPTER

T

HE labours of the Imperial Institute of France are, as usual, of great diversity of merit. The volumes for 1812 are the latest that have reached us. In botany and vegetable physiology, M. Mirbel appears to be sedulously pursuing his inquiries into the structure of the organs of fructification, zealously seconded by M. Schubert, a travelling professor from the school of Warsaw, for the purpose of opening a course of lectures on botany on his return home. M. Feburier, of Versailles, has written a paper to revive the old doctrine of two distinct saps, an ascending and descending; the former of which, in his opinion, contributes chiefly to the developement of the branches and buds, and the latter to that of the roots, and the multiplication of the flowers, and enlargement of the pericarp. M. Beavois has an instructive article on the pith of plants, which he regards as highly useful, not only during the first year, but through the whole duration of the plant. M. Lechnault de la Tour, one of the naturalists who sailed with Capt. Baudin, has given us some interesting details upon the trees, with the juice of which the natives of Java, Borneo, and Macassar poison their arrows, and which, under the name of upas, have made so much noise in the world. Of these poisons there are

are two kinds, the upas anthiara, and the upas thieute; the former belongs to the family of the nettles, the latter is a strychnos or sort of nux vomica.-In zoology and animal physiology we meet with a valuable paper from M. Lamarck, containing a new and more correct edition of his classification of invertebrated animals. M. Cuvier has, in like manner, given a table of the divisions under which he proposes to arrange the animal kingdom in his great work on comparative anatomy which he is now on the point of putting to press. The other writers on this subject are M. Humboldt, M. Geoffrey Saint Halaire, and M. Jacobson. In the department of chemistry M M. Clement and Desormes have followed up Mr. Leslie's ingenious experiment of producing extreme cold by absorption in an exhausted receiver: M. Duportal has given a description of a most useful process by which M. Edward Adam, distiller at Montpelier, has applied Count Rumford's plan of heating by vapour, to the production of spirit, and Count Rumford himself has presented several useful memoirs upon the properties of light.

From the school of medicine at Paris we have been furnished with various prize dissertations on the Croup, or Angina Trachealis; of these the two most interesting, and which appear to have been honoured with

the

the chief marks of approbation, are by M. G. Viesseux, M. D. 8vo. 8s. and by M. F. J. Double, Svo. 14s. both of which are imported by De Boffe. M. Viesseux appears to us the best practitioner, M. Double the most elaborate reader and writer. They agree that the first regular history of croup, as a distinct disease, is that published by Dr. Home, of Edinburgh in 1765. They agree also that many of its more prominent symptoms are to be traced in the writings of various earlier physicians; but they disagree as to the conclusion which ought to be drawn from this admitted fact: M. Double believing that the real disease is here described, though indistinctly, and confounded with other diseases; and consequently that it has been always as frequent as it is at present that it exists in all countries, and climates on the sea-coast, and in crowded cities: that it is never chronic, nor epidemic, nor çontagious; that there is no reason for believing it hereditary; and no clear case on record of its having attacked adults, being confined in its ravages to those of an earlier age. M. Viesseux, on the contrary, apprehends that the disease, which seems to have resembled the croup, was the cynanche trachealis, and parlicularly that described by Boerhaave and Sauvages: and he brings forward many documents to prove that it was little noticed in many cities and countries till within about half a century; and that it is now becoming more common in all situations. He conceives that its essence consists in an inflammation of the trachea; and lays down a line of distinction between this inflammatory state of the membrane, and that known by the name of cynanche laryngea, an inflammation of the larynx, or upper part of the

JS13.

trachea. In the process of cure he first attempts to procure a resolution of the inflammation; he thinks that when the peculiar membrane lining the trachea under this dis ease, is formed, the disease itself is irremediable; and hence that all attempts to dislodge it are useless. He endeavours, therefore, to subdue the inflammatory action by blood-letting, chiefly by leeches applied to the neck; by blisters, by emetics, and warm bathing; of which, however, the last two are of smaller importance: and rarely, though he admits very rarely, he has found service from opiates and antispasmodics. He discusses the merits of tracheotomy, and sensibly asserts that the operation can seldom, if ever, be advisable; because in the origin of the disease other more powerful, and less severe methods ought to be had recourse to, while it must be altogether useless towards its conclusion.

M.Guiseppi Jacobi, of Pavia, has directed his attention to the doctrine of the retrograde action of the lymphatics, first started by Dr. Charles Darwin, and afterwards interwoven into the hypothesis of his father; and has published a work upon the subject which is entitled to attention from its ingenuity, though we believe the question will still remain as it is at present.

M. Gräfe, a German army-surgeon, attached to the fourth corps of the allied army, under Count Taunzien, employed in the siege of Torgau, has been engaged in devising means for checking an epidemic disease which raged with great violence within the walls of that place, and for preventing its spreading beyond the walls. His work is entitled "Art of guarding against the contagion of Epidemic Discases, being a word of advice

2 D

from

from a Physician to the inhabitants of Torgau." The account communicated to us merely states the success of his regulations and practice, but unfortunately does not enter into a description of the system recommended.

66

Philosophie Zoologique," &c. "Zoological Philosophy, &c. By J. P. Lamarck. Paris," 3 vols. 8vo. There is a considerable degree of resemblance between the fanciful principles here laid down and those of our ingenious but visionary countryman, Dr. Darwin. Like the latter, M. Lamarck supposes life to have commenced in every tribe and order from some peculiarly simple origin; he supposes that that origin is the cellular texture, that which, even in the present advance of all animals towards perfection, possesses least animalization; he supposes that life commenced, in every instance, in an aqueous element; and that intelligence, under every modification, results from a material organization. Sensation, in his view of the subject, does not belong to the molluscous and infusorial tribes, but commences with insects, which last are, generally speaking, destitute of intellect. “ Agreeably to these principles," says M. Lamarck, “the faculty of performing acts of intellect scarcely begins earlier than with fishes, or, at most, cephalopode mollusca. In these stages, it exists in its greatest imperfection: it is somewhat gradually unfolded in reptiles, especially in those of the highest order; it has made great advances in birds; and in the mammiferous families of the higher orders it presents the utmost limits to which it can attain in the animal creation." The faculties common to all living bodies are, according to this hypothesis, those of production,

growth, regeneration, or the re-production of like kinds; the special or particular faculties of the higher classes are, digestion, respiration by an appropriate organ, muscular locomotion, feeling, sexual intercourse, circulation of essential fluids, different degrees of intelligence.

"Phisionomies Nationales," &c. "National Physiognomies; or a comparison of the Features of the Countenances of different Nations, with their manners and characters: with twenty-five engravings. Paris." 12mo. This tract is drawn up agree. ably to the system of M. Blumenbach, who, in truth, has derived his classification from Gemlin, with a mere variation of the names: for the five divisions under which the human species is enumerated by the former, we mean the Caucasian, Mongul, American, Ethiopian, and Malay, are only the white man, brown man, red man, black man, and tawny man of the latter. From a sort of modesty very uncommon in a Frenchman, the author has given no physiognomy of his own nation, assigning for it the following very curious reason, that the discrepancy of features afforded in different parts of the empire, renders it difficult, if not impossible, to lay hold of a national set: he observes, however, with some complacency, that by this combination of features and of faculties, the individuals to whom it applies are equally fitted for the study of science, the practice of the fine arts, or the pursuits of war and commerce. Under the Caucasian, European or white variety, he travels but a little northward for national examples, and hence has omitted the Poles, Swedes, and Danes, and has said but little of the Russians. Upon the whole, he ranks the English countenance above

the

the Dutch, German, or Spanish. "The English forehead,” he tells us, "is expressive of thought; the German of erudition. The Englishman creates ideas, the German refines and arranges them. The vast memory of the latter is denoted by breadth of forehead, and marks him as the man to undertake works of research and reference. The Dutchman has still less sensibility than the German; but his features announce a certain energy, approaching sometimes, indeed, to obstinacy, but characteristic of a man who goes straight forward to his purpose, and is determined to surmount every obstacle by dint of patience." The plates are plain and meagre productions; far better might have been obtained by copies from Daubenton on a diminished scale.

"Prolegomènes de l'Arithmetique de la Vie Humaine," &c. "Prolegomena of the Arithmetic of Human Life, containing a general classification of Talents, a Scale of the age of Man, and a formula for estimating all geographical Positions: the whole on an uniform system. By William Butte, Doctor in Philosophy, Counsellor of the King of Bavaria, and Professor of Statistics, &c. Paris." 8vo. A new, whimsical, and unintelligible hypothesis, rendered still more unintelligible by the coinage of new terms. The Bavarian sage appears to be as staunch a materialist as Spinosa, but as unfixed and fleeting as spirit. The order of nature, and the order of the world are with him two distinct things. Nature, so far from being the principle of life, as the vulgar error teaches," is the opposite of that principle, and her true name should be NON-EXISTENCE: while the world is the combination of parts presenting the primitive, continual, and

universal connection of finite and infinite.-The finite part is nature; the infinite is destiny; and the union of nature and destiny constitutes what we call life; and all life is a repetition, more or less perfect, of the system of the world.-The business of the naturalist is to follow in his researches the order of nature; while the speculative man follows the order of destiny, and the philosopher combines both." Talents allow of a classification, and among those who are admitted into its different divisions are, "men of competent property, rich, poor, and deranged persons." Genius allows, in like manner, of a classification and here we find, for some reason or other not specified, the poor and the deranged altogether excluded; but instead of the deranged we have an order of incomprehensibles; persons respecting whom, we are told, "there is no harmony in their composition; their productions are colossal; and every incomprehensible is a messenger extraordinary conmissioned by fate." Linnéus made a new order of amphibia, which he calls meantes, for the express purpose of including the siren, as he could find no other place in which to arrange it. We suspect M. the Doctor Butte, has, in like manner, formed this new order of incomprehensibles as an express gallery for Buonaparte, whom, to say the truth, he has actually placed in it, and our readers may, perhaps, by this time be of opinion, that the inventor may take his own stand in the same divi sion at no great distance. How far Plato and Charlemagne, whom he has introduced as companions to the French Emperor, ought to be placed in the same section, we have not time at present to examine. They certainly appear to have no more title 2 D2

than