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he very heavens. They diffused, they burnt, a very agreeable erfume. He farther remarks, that he best agaricum grows upon the irch, and that the arquebusires of is time made use of it for keeping p fire, and for making matches. Thus, nature, in crowning the ummit of cold and ferruginous nountains with those vast vege. able torches, has placed the match n their branches, the tinder at their foot, and the steel at their

Foots.

To the south, on the contrary, trees present, in their foliage, fans, umbrellas, parasols. The latanier carries each of its leaves plaited as a fan, attached to a long tail, and similar, when completely displayed, to a radiating sun of verdure. Two of those trees are to be seen in the royal-garden. The leaf of the ba. nana resembles a long and broad girdle, which, undoubtedly, procured for it the name of Adam's fig-free. The magnitude of the Icaves of several species of trees In feases in proportion as we ap. proach the Line. That of the cocoa-tree, with double fruit of the Sechelles Islands, is from twelve to fifteen feet long, and from seven to eight broad. A single one is suf ficient to cover a numerous family. One of these leaves is, likewise, to be seen in the Royal Cabinet of Natural History. That of the talipot of the Island of Ceylon is of nearly the same size.

The interesting and unfortunate Robert Knox, who has given the best account of Ceylon which I am acquainted with, tells us, that one of the leaves of the talipot is capable of covering from fifteen to twenty persons. When it is dry, continues he, it is at once strong

and pliant, so that you may fold and unfold it at pleasure, being naturally plaited like a fan. In this state it is not bigger than a man's arm, and extremely light. The natives cut it into triangles, though it is naturally round, and each of them carries one of those sections over his head, holding the angular part before, in his hand, to open for himself a passage through the bushes. The soldiers employ this leaf as a covering to their tents, He considers it, and with good reason, as one of the greatest blessings of Providence, in a country burnt up by the sun, and inundated by the rains, for six months of the year.

Nature has provided, in those cli mates, parasols for whole villages; for the fig-tree, denominated, in India, the fig-tree of the Banians, a drawing of which may be seen in Tavernier, and in several other travellers, grows on the very burn. ing sand of the sea-shore; throwing, from the extremity of its branches, a multitude of shoots, which drop to the ground, there Take root, and form, around the principal trunk, a great number of covered 'arcaties, whose shade is impervious to the rays of the sun.

In our temperate cli bates, we experience a similar benevolence on the part of nature. In the warm and thirsty seasons, she bestows upon us a variety of fruits, replenished with the most refreshing juices, such as cherries, peaches, melons; and as winter approaches, those which warm and comfort by their cils, such as the almond and the walnut. Certain naturalists have considered even the ligneous shells of these fruits, as a preservative against the cold of the gico

my

'my season; but these are, as we have seen, the means of floating and of navigating. Nature employs others with which we are not acquainted, for preserving the substances of fruits, from the impressions of the air. For example, she preserves, through the whole winter, many species of app es and pears, which have no other cover. ing than a pellicle so very thin, that it is impossible to determine how fine it is.

Nature has placed other vege. tables in humid and dry situations, the qualities of which are inexplicable on the principles of our phy. sics, but which admirably harmonize with the necessities of the men who inhabit those places. Along the water-side grow the plants and the trees which are the dryest, the lightest, and, consequently, the best adapted for the purpose of crossing the stream. Such are reeds, which are hollow, and rushes which are filled with an in. flammable marrow. It requires but a very moderate bundle of rushes to bear the weight of a heavy man upon the water. On the backs of the lakes of the north are produced those enormous birch. trees, the bark of a single one of which is sufficient to form a large canoe. This bark is similar to leather in pliancy, and so incorruptible by humidity, that, in Russia, I. have seen some of it extracted from under the earth which covered powder magazines, perfectly sound, though it had lain there from the time of Peter the Great.

very

decount of the Kainsi, a species of Gazelle or Antel pe. From le Vaillant's Second Journey into the Interior of Africa.

THE Kainsi has received from the Dutch its name of rock-jumper (klip-springer), merely on account of the nimbleness with which it hounds from rock to rock; and in f&t, of all the gazelle tribe it is the most active. It is the size of a roebuck of a year old, and has a coat of a yellowish gry; but its hair is singular in this respect, that instead of being round, supple, and solid, like that of most quadrupeds, it is flat, harsh, and so little ad. herent to the skin, that the least friction causes it to fall off. Hence nothing is more easy than to strip the animal of hair, dead or alive; friction, or even touching the skin, is sufficient for the purpose. Of. ten have I endeavoured to preserve the fur of those which I had killed, without being able to effect it: notwithstanding all my precautions in skinning them, the greatest part of the hair fell off. Another par. ticularity is the brittleness of the bair; which is such that, if a portion be taken between the fingers, and twisted with the other hand, the hairs break. This property, however, is common to several quadrupeds which live among rocks.

This gazelle also differs from the other species in the form of its hoof, which is not pointed like theirs, but rounded at the extre. mity; and as it is its custom, in leaping or walking, to pinch with the point of the hoof without bear. ing on the heel, it leaves a print distinguishable from those of all the African antelopes. Its flesh is exquisite, and much in request, es pecially among the hunters. The panthers and leopards are equally fond of it. I have heard the Hot. tentots relate that these animals unite to hunt the kainsi; and that

when

when the latter has taken refuge on the point of some steep rock, one of them will go below to wait for the rey, while the rest advance and try to force it to precipitate itself.

I do not, however, give credit to these pretended associations of animals of the tyger kind.

The chace of the kainsi is very amasing. It can scarcely, indeed, be. forced by dogs, from whom it soon escapes by its inconceivable agility, and gets out of their reach on the point of some insulated rock; on which it remains for hours together, sale from all pursuit, ard suspended, as it were, over the abyss but in this po. sition it seems to offer the best mark to the ball or the arrows, and if the hunter cannot always masily get at it after he has killed it, he may almost constantly, shoot it. Many times have I been witness of the extreme nimbleness of the animal: but one day I saw an instance of it which astonished me. I was hunting one, and from the nature of the place it was suddenly so pressed by my dog, that it seemed to have no poss nility of escape. Before it, was an immense perpendicular crag, which stopped it short but on this wat, which I thought vertical, was a little ledge project ng two inches at most, which the kainsi had per. ceived. He leaped on it, and to my great surprise held fast. thought at least he would soon he precipitated; and my dogs them selves so much expected it, that they ran betow-to seize hem when the should fa. the stones at him to endeav om ke han lose his balm. had divined my

I

, as it he

The co

lected all his force, sprang to my
side, flew over my head, and then,
alighting some paces from me,
escaped like lightning. I might
stil easily have shot him, but his
leap had so surprised and pleased
My
me that I gave him his life.
dogs only were taken in, who, con-
fused at his escape, did not return
to me without a kind of shame.

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Reflections of certain effects of Heat
sand Cold on the living System. By
From
Thomas Beado:s, M. D.

Medicul Fats and Ovsérvations.

I know not, whether it has been observed that the inflamma tins, p. rticularly those of the eyes, which are so frequent in hot climates, where it is the custom to sleep during the suminerin the, open air, are to be referred to the succession of heat to cold. Travellers, especially those into Egypt, have variously attempt. ed to account for this phenomenon. Hasselquist imputes it to certain miasmata arising from the almost empty reservoirs in which the water of the Nile is preserved from inundation to inundation. This is, however, a mere hypothesis, un. confirmed by any strict analogy; nor is the supposed cause in any way brought home to the effect. As litie, in my opinion, can the inflmmation of the eyes be ascribed to the influence of the nocturnal 1ght of the heavens upon the eye, the ends being more or less closed during sleep. The cause seems ina.' dequate. It is common, in this country, to se p in chainbers not less strongly illuminated (if not more so) han in Egyp, during the night, w.thout any inconvenience to our

fall

sight. Besides, I think, if we could suppose the eye to be so daz. zled by the light of the night as to be injured, the injury ought to upon the nerve, and not upon the eyelids and external parts. The nitrous particles with which Alpinus imagines the atmosphere of Egypt to be impregnated, will not, I suppose, be considered as a cause more probable than any of the preceding but the following passage may serve to give an idea of the nature of the complaint in question, and its frequency, at Cairo. "Plurimasque (oculorum lippitudines) Cayri easdemque per omnia anni tempora homines in vadere ob nitrosum pulverem, qui continuè oculos habitantium mordicat, & calesacit, observatur, longè maximéque in æstatis primâ parte, quo tempore calor ambientis summè calidi oculos inflammat, talium. que morborum numerum auget. Sparsim vero per urbem toto anno hæ oculorum inflammationes vagantur; atque epidemica plurima in primâ æstatis parte calidissimâ in æqualissimâque ob vehementissimum * meridionalium ventorum calosen, atque inflammatarum arenarum copiam, quæ ab iisdem ventis asportantur. Eo enim anni tempore è centum hominibus quin. quaginta saltem lippientes obserVantur." (De Medicin. Egypt. P. 24). The flying sand must be troublesome, and probably, in many cases, supports and increases the inflammation, and in some may give rise to it; but the following fact, which seems to me to render the induction complete, shows that the true and general cause is the great inequality between the tem

perature of the night and day; to which cause signal effect is given by the practice of sleeping sub dia. Mr. Clarkson (in his essay on the impolicy of the African slavetrade) informs us (p. 71), that,

when the slaves are brought on board, the seamen, to make room for them, are turned out of their apartments between decks, and sleep, for the most part, either on deck or in the tops of the vessei during the whole of the middle passage; or from the time of their leaving the coast of Africa (where the days are excessively hot, and the dews are excessively cold and heavy, ibid. p. 68), to that of their arrival at the West-India islands." "From this bad lodging," he proceeds, "and this continual exposure to colds and damps, and suddenly afterwards to a burning sun, fevers originate which carry many of them off. Nor is this the only effect which this continual vicissitude from heat to extreme dampness and coldness has upon the surviving crew: inflammatory fevers necessarily attack them. This fever attacks the whole frame; the eye feels the inflammation most. This inflammation terminates either in dispersion or suppuration: ia the first instance the eyes are saved; in the latter they are lost.

The inflammation of the eye is not the only disease produced in Egypt by the succession of hot days to cool nights, any more than ou board our slave-ships; in both situations causes and effects run pa, rallel, as the reader will find upon recurring to Alpinus and the later travellers. The well-known dan. ger of exposure to dews in hot

• fee Niebuhr's Thermometrical tables in the first volume of his Travels.

climates,

climates, and indeed in all climates, in certain cases, seems to depend upon the same principle. It is also probable, that the heat of the preceding day, enables the dews of the night to prepare the system for the stimulating effects of the heat of the succeeding day; so that, of two persons who should expose themselves without precaution to the cold of night and the heat of the following day, he who should have been most exhausted the day before by the heat, would, if other circumstances could be rendered alike equal, be most injured by the next alternation.

Several circumstances, such as the redness and swelling of the parts exposed to cold, together with the frequent occurrence of inflammatory disorders not long after exposure to cold, were calculated to mislead observers into a belief that these disorders were the direct effect of cold. Yet the great difference in the state of a part during inflammation, and under the influence of cold, might have induced them to suspect that so slight an analogy might be illusive: and, after taking into the account other well-ascertained facts, they ought to have concluded that the theory was false. Linnæus, in a paper in the Amoenitates Academicæ, expresses his astonishment at the impunity with which the heated Laplander rubs himself with snow, or even rolls in the snow, and drinks the cold snow-water. We every day see horses in a state of the most profuse perspiration free. ly washed with cold water, and always without injury. I have several times within these two years caused horses accustomed to be stabled, to be turned out for a single VOL. XXXVIII.

night in winter: and no cough, ca tarrh, or other disorder, has ever been the consequence. It appears, therefore to me, that within certain limits, and those not very narrow, the transition from a higher to a lower temperature is attended with no danger to animals in a state of tolerable health; and a person, I conceive, might suddenly pass from a higher to a lower temperature without inconvenience, even where the difference is so great as to be capable of producing considerable inflammation, if the change should be made with equal celerity in a contrary direction. On this, though an interesting subject for observations on man, and experiments on animals, we want precise facts; and I state the principle in order to induce observers to compare it with the facts that fall in their way.

In

Besides the succession of heat and vice versa, there is a third case well worthy of consideration; and this where part of the body is exposed to one of these powers, and the remaining part to the other; as, for instance where a stream of comparatively cold air flows upon part of the body of a person sitting in a warm room, and perhaps also drinking stimulating liquors. making chemical experiments it of ten happens that a cold (catarrh) is taken, if the hands be much im. mersed in cold water, when the laboratory is much heated; by adding warm water, to raise the temperature of that in the trough, this dagger is easily avoided. In these cases the effect seems to be the same as that of the succession of heat to cold. In persons whose bowels are extremely liable to be affected, it sometimes happens, as I have myself known it to happen, Dd

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