range. His quickness, the clearness of his views, and the extent of his information, might have led him to a much higher station in the temple of fame, or of science, if he had not been compelled to court the Cynthia of the minute.

noulli, of Blacklock, of Bonetus, and Bonnet, we do not perceive that we have more than was before known. To the life of Blacklock, an early and valuable contributor to the Encyclopædia, we hoped something might have been added: yet the prior account, dictated by warm affection, was perhaps sufficiently full; and the little that we could supply from an ardent friendship and almost reverential regard is perhaps too trifling to find a place in such a volume. Of Boscovich, and his system, the statement is full and judicious. His systems of natural philosophy and of light are detailed with great perspicuity and propriety; and if the doctrine we have hinted at, that all the phænomena of actual contact may be justly attributed to the action of an interposed fluid, be ever fashionable, to Boscovich the merit of the first idea is due. We would, however, warn the eager theorist and the hypercritic, that no conclusion can be drawn from the admission of this doctrine, in favour of materialism. It is not indeed our present business to do more than guard against the consequence; yet as calumny is always eagerly alive, we shall remark that the existence of a fluid, connected with a body, implies the existence of the body. If he advance a step farther, and conclude that, provided we can explain the phænomena without the assistance of matter, we may at once deny its existence, we shall only add that the conclusion is unwarranted by the premises. It is rash, injudicious, and unphilosophic. The mechanical philosopher calculates the power of his machines by considering a line as without dimensions, except in length; but never constructs his model without taking into the account the thickness, the weight, and the action of the bar.

Of Bouguer, Brindley, Burke, and Burns, we have good and satisfactory memoirs; yet, on the whole, we have nothing added which, as a novelty, can arrest our attention. In the life of Bruce we find a disquisition of some ingenuity, respecting his pretensions to the discovery of the head of the Nile. It is not a question in which, after what has been said, we need again engage, but we shall add some observations which, at least to us, are new. They may indeed admit of a reply: but we shall not have leisure to return to the subject.

A more serious objection to the truth of Mr. Bruce's narrative was started by an anonymous, but able critic, in an Edinburgh news. paper, soon after the publication, from the account of two astrono mical phænomena, which could not possibly have happened, as Mr. Bruce, asserts. The first of these is the appearance of the new moon at CRIT. REV. Vol. 34. April, 1802.

2 D

Furshout, during Mr. Bruce's stay in that place, which he mentions to have been from 25th December 1768 to the 7th of January 1769; and on a particular day in that interval asserts, that the new moon was seen by a fakir, and was found by the ephemerides to be three. days old; whereas it is certain that the moon changed on the 8th of January 1769.-The other phænomenon appears equally impossible. At Teawa, Mr. Bruce says, he terrified the shekh by foretelling that an eclipse of the moon was to take place at four after noon of the 17th of April, 1772; that accordingly, soon after that hour, he saw the eclipse was begun; and when the shadow was half over, told the shekh that in a little time the moon would be totally darkened. Now, by calculation, it is certain, that at Teawa this eclipse must have begun at 36 minutes past four, and the moon have been totally covered at 33 minutes past five; while the sun set there a few minutes past six, before which time the moon, then in opposition, could not have risen: so that as the moon rose totally eclipsed, Mr. Bruce could not see the shadow half over the disk, nor point it out to the shekh. To these objections, which appear unsurmountable, Mr. Bruce made no reply, though, in conversation, he said he would do it in the second edition of his book.

These are mistakes which can hardly be accounted for by attributing them to the inaccuracy of his notes, or indeed to any cause which we are inclined to name; and perhaps he has fallen into a mistake of the same kind in his account of the enormous main-sail yard of the canja, in which he sailed up the river Nile. To every man who has but dipped into the science of mechanics, it is known that a beam of wood 200 feet in length must be of proportional thickness, or it would fall in pieces by its own weight. This thickness must be greatly increased, to enable it to bear the strain occasioned by a prodigious sail filled with wind; and those only who have been at the Nile, and have seen the canjas, can say, whether these vessels, or indeed any vessels which can be employed on that river, would not be overset by yards,

To equal which, the tallest pine

Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast

Of some great admiral, wère but a wand.' Vol. i. P. 128. The lives of Campbell and of Carré present nothing_peculiarly interesting. That however of the late empress of Russia is compacted with great skill, and displays a vast fund of general as well as of political science. The life of Condorcet is an able performance, though too much of a peculiar spirit of invective against the French revolution prevails in it. There is no disgrace in saying that the train of events, and the conduct of the revolutionists, have placed this subject in a very different light from that in which it once appeared; and to allow at any time that we have been mistaken, is only to admit that we are wiser to day than we were yesterday. We shall however enlarge on this subject at a future period. The life of Copernicus, and the progress of his discoveries, is an admirable one, from

Dr. Smith's Essays; that of Cullen is full and comprehensive, though in some of the dates we suspect it to be erroneous.

We have proceeded with the lives, not to break the subject into too many parts. With respect to the history and the geography, we can add little. Of the historical articles we may in general remark, what was before omitted, that they are very imperfectly executed; and in the references we experience perpetual disappointment. This is by no means remedied in the Supplement. Of geography, as a science, we see but little; but of the travels, especially those lately published, we find at times tolerably judicious and satisfactory abstracts.

On the subject of bleaching.' the descriptions are perspicuous and accurate: but some of the later improvements, published since the appearance of the Supplement, are of course omitted. These however occur in many different places, and the omission may be easily supplied. The article of bookkeeping is judicious, and those of bread' and 'brewing' useful and instructive. We find our author frequently indebted to a very curious and useful work-professor Beckman's History of Inventions. To it, particularly in this part, the editors are obliged for many valuable observations on butter, chimneys, candles, &c. It is with great pleasure that we observe the specification of a patent for sweeping chimneys, which we hope will succeed, though we fear, from appearances, that it will be found too complicated. The articles of carpentry' and 'centre' are clear, recondite, and valuable, in a very high degree: they show, in every part, the hand of a master, and combine the most judicious practical observations with a correct theory. The article of chemistry' is extensive and valuable, and approaches as nearly to a complete abstract as the period of its compilation would admit.

We read with satisfaction the account of the antecedental calculus,' by Dr. Glenie, which appears to be a geometrical form of the differential calculus, or of fluxions. We own ourselves partial to the higher geometry of the ancients: but we fear the antecedental calculus will not answer the fond expectations of its inventor.

In the article of cherubim' the editor has inserted the explanations of Mr. Parkhurst, one of the soundest of the Hutchinsonians, with some judicious observations in opposition to his system. This article may be read with great satisfaction by the inquirers into the ancient Judaïcal rites, but will not admit of an abstract, could we otherwise have inserted it. Under the head of China, we have some valuable remarks on that singular country, and a judicious comparison or contrast of the different, and sometimes opposite, opinions of sir William Jones and sir G. Staunton, respecting the origin and the chronology of the Chinese. Some of the editor's remarks we shall transcribe.

This is a very positive decision against the opinion of a man whose talents and knowledge of oriental learning were such as to give to his opinions on such subjects the greatest weight. If the statements and reasonings of sir George Staunton be accurate, the Chinese empire must have subsisted at least 3000 years before the Christian era; for he says expressly, that many ages must have elapsed before the commencement of that cycle, which, according to him, commenced 2277 years before the birth of Christ. But surely Confucius was as well acquainted with the ancient annals of his own country, and the credibility which is due to them, as any man of the present age, whether Chinese or European; and we have seen, that he considered none of them as authentic which relate events previous to the eleventh century before our era. Even this is by much too early a period at which to rely upon them with implicit confidence, if it be true, as sir George informs us, that the transactions of the empire have been regularly recorded only from about three centuries before the birth of Christ. With respect to the cycle, there is every probability that it was derived from India, where we know that astronomy has been cultivated as a science from time immemorial, and where, we have shown in another place, that the commencement of the cycle was actually antedated. (See Philosophy, No.9. Encyl.) We have therefore no hesitation in preferring sir William Jones's opinion of the origin of the Chinese empire to sir George Staunton's; not merely because we believe the former of these gentlemen to have been more conversant than the latter with Chinese literature, but because we think his reasoning more consistent with itself, and his conclusion more consonant to that outline of chronology, which, as he observes, has been so correctly traced for the last 2000 years, that we must be hardy sceptics to call it in question.' Vol. i. p. 418.

To sir William Jones's derivation of the Chinese from the Hindoos, the state of their written language may occur as an objection; for since it is certain that alphabetical characters were in use among the Hindoos before the period at which he places the emigra tion of the Chinas, how, it may be asked, came these people to drop the mode of writing practised by their ancestors, and to adopt another so very inconvenient as that which the Chinese have used from the foundation of their empire? The force of this objection, however, will vanish, when it is remembered that the Chinas were of the military cast; that they had gradually abandoned the ordinances of the Veda, and were in consequence degraded; and that they rambled from their native country in small bodies. We do not know that the military cast among the Hindoos was ever much devoted to letters; there is the greatest reason to believe that a degraded cast would neglect them; and it is certain that small bodies of men, wandering in deserts, would have their time and their attention completely occupied in providing for the day that was passing over them. That the Chinas should have forgotten the alphabetical characters of the Hindoos is therefore so far from being an objection to sir William Jones's account of their descent from that people, that it is the natural consequence of the manner in which he says they rambled

from Hindostan to the northern provinces of what now constitutes the Chinese empire.' Vol. i. P. 419.

The additions to the article 'church' relate to the Greek church; and a very satisfactory account of its rites and ceremonies is inserted. On the cultivation of coffee' we have some good accounts from different works published since the æra of the Encyclopædia; and even of the humble trade of a cooper' we have information which few would expect, and which to many will be new. The remarks on accidental colours' are valuable; but, on the subject of contagion,' the editor seems to trust too implicitly to Dr. C. Smyth's mode of fumigation. We remember remarking, that Dr. Duncan did not give sufficient attention to the opposite methods. The author observes that we know little of contagion. It is indeed true: but we know pretty well how, in the greater number of instances, to avoid it.

We have already extended our article too far; and it may frighten our readers to reflect that we have only finished the letter C. We trust, however, that we have laid the foundation for more quick dispatch in future, and hope that our farther remarks will not proceed beyond another article. We may, like the compilers of the Encyclopædia, miscalculate; but we are certain that we shall not err in so great a degree.

ART. IV.-The Natural History of Volcanoes: including Submarine Volcanoes, and other analogous Phænomena. By the Abbé Ordinaire, formerly Canon of St. Amable at Riom in Auvergne. Translated from the original French Manuscript, by R. C. Dallas, Esq. 8vo. 8s. Beards. Cadell and Davies. 1801.

THE fate of volcanoes, as philosophical agents, has been singular. For ages they astonished and terrified, and were considered as the most dreadful and destructive powers: in turn they became in our systems the great means of reproduction, the sources of fertility, the causes which divided the waters from the waters, and made the dry land appear. In the hands

of the geologist they were agents peculiarly convenient and ma nageable; for he could place them in any region, and produce from them any change. Sound observation has however corrected the error in each extreme. Volcanoes are isolated mountains, not comparatively numerous, nor extensive in their advantages or their devastations. Many of their fancied vestiges we have discovered to be of a different origin; and their intense fires have been found of less temperature than even the most modest philosopher formerly ventured to suspect. At a period,