ART. IV. Continuation of the Philofophical Tranfactions. Vol. For the Year 1769. See our laft Month's Review,

LIX.

PAPERS relating to NATURAL HISTORY in general. Article 4. A Letter from the Honourable William Hamilton, his Majefty's Envoy Extraordinary at Naples, to Matthew Maty, M. D. Sec. R. S. containing fome farther Particulars on Mount Vefuvius, and other Volcanos in the Neighbourhood.

N this paper the ingenious and inquifitive Author favours the fociety with fome further communications, relative to his favourite fubject. In our account of his former letter, we recommended to the notice of electricians the appearances refembling lightning, which were obferved by himself during the great eruption in 1767 *. In this letter he confirms his own obfervation of thefe phenomena, by the teftimony of the peasants in the neighbourhood of his villa, who all agree in their account of the terrible thunder, and forked lightning, which continued during almoft the whole time of the eruption; and which was particularly confined to the mountain t. If these appearances proceed from actual lightning, and are not merely a fallacious refemblance of it, they are highly worthy the attention of electricians; who, amidst the numerous and ftriking discoveries, which have been made on the fubject of artificial electricity, have never yet fucceeded in their attempts to inveftigate the manner in which natural electricity is produced; or, in other words, to difcover the particular agents which nature employs, in putting the electric fluid in motion, and in breaking the equilibrium between the earth and clouds; by the operation of which, lightning, and the many meteors connected with it, are produced.

The opportunities which the Author has had of feeing volcanos in all their ftates, induce him to declare, that every fyftem, hitherto given on this fubject, might be demonftratively confuted, by an attentive and philofophical confideration of thofe in the neighbourhood of Naples. His own hypothefis, were he to form one, fhould be that mountains are produced by volcanos, and not volcanos by mountains.' The entire bafis of the island Ifchia, about 18 miles in circumference, is

*See Monthly Review, vol. xlii, February 1770, page 107.

We did not recollect, till after this was written, the very refpectable teftimony of Sig. Beccaria, to the fame effect, in his Lettere dell' ellettricifmo, p. 226, 362, &c. the fubftance of which the Reader may fee in that ufeful repofitory of electrical facts and obfervations, the Hiftory of Electricity, page 392, first edition.

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formed of lava. The great mountain in it, formerly called Epomeus, and now San Nicolo, which is nearly as high as Vefuvius, he is convinced was thrown up by degrees; and that the entire island has arifen out of the fea. He entertains the fame opinion with refpect to even Vefuvius, and all the high grounds near Naples; obferving that it will not appear very extraordinary that Mount Vefuvius fhould, in the course of many ages, rife above the height of 2000 feet, when it is confidered that the Montagno Nuovo near Puzzole, three miles round, and about 150 feet high, rofe out of the Lucrine lake, as is well attefted, in one night, fo lately as the year 1538. Mr. H. entertains fome thoughts of foon making a vifit to Puzzole, with a view of diffecting that mountain; which, from the nature of its production, appears to be well adapted to give light into the formation of many others, and to enable him to distinguish those which may be called original mountains, from fuch as have been the offspring of volcanos. To thefe particulars we fhall only add the following remarkable obfervation, that in digging a well very lately near the Author's refidence at Villa Angelica, close by the fea fide, the workmen came to a firatum of lava, at the depth of 25 feet below the level of the fea.. Article 5. On the Trees which are fuppofed to be indigenous in Great Britain. By the Honourable Daines Barrington. F. R. S.

Dr. Watfon having fent to the Author a fpecimen of supposed chefnut tree, which was taken from the old hall of Clifford's Inn, he here examines into the authorities on which is founded the notion which generally prevails, that this and some other trees, afterwards mentioned, are of the native growth of Great Britain. He first lays down fome general rules, by which the enquirer may be directed in determining, whether any particular tree is indigenous or not in any country; and in conformity to thefe rules, and from other confiderations, concludes that the fpecimen fent was only common oak, and that the chefnut tree is not a native of this ifland. He is inclined to grant, however, that the Scotch fir was formerly indigenous in the northern parts of England: fubterraneous firs having been dug up, at a very confiderable depth under the furface; although the tree is not now to be found in this country, except where the plantation appears moft evidently to be of modern date. He next mentions fome other trees, which do not appear to him to be natives of this island, though they are generally conceived to be fo. These are the elm, the lime, the greater maple, and the box. With regard to the white poplar and the yew he is doubtful-but we must refer the botanical antiquarian to the article itfelf, for the reafonings and authorities on which these opinions are founded; obferving only with regard to the last mentioned tree, that the Author here gives an account of one,

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of a moft extraordinary fize, which ftill continues to vegetate in the church-yard of Glen-Lyon in Scotland, though greatly decayed within thefe 20 years, which he twice meafured himfelf, and found to be 52 feet in circumference.

Article 17. Differtatio Epiftolaris de Offibus & Dentibus Elephantum, aliarumque Belluarum, in America Septentrionali, aliifque borealibus Regionibus, obviis; qua indigenarum Belluarum effe oftenditur. Autore R. E. Rafpe, fereniffimo Haffiarum Landgravio à Confiliis, & R. S. S.

We have lately had occafion to treat of this curious subject of natural history, in our account of Dr. Hunter's observations on the bones of the animal incognitum, found on the banks of the Ohio, and in Siberia, and elfewhere, publifhed in the preceding volume of the Tranfactions *. In this differtation Mr. Rafpe recites the accounts that have at different times been given of thofe large foffil bones which have likewife been found in Germany, and other northern countries, and which have been parts of animals that evidently no longer exift there. He endeavours to fhew that the animals, to which thefe bones formerly belonged, were natives of thofe countries in which we now find their remains: but he oppofcs the opinion of those who, fuppofing them likewife to have been formerly indigenous in thofe places, account for their extinction, by having recourfe to a fuppofed change in the obliquity of the ecliptic, or in the pofition of the earth's axis, or its center of gravity; productive of correfpondent changes in the climates of the earth; and endeavours to fhew that none of these folutions are admiffible.

Granting, for argument's fake, that there is, and has been, a regular and fucceffive diminution of the inclination of the earth's axis to the plane of the ecliptic, and making the most liberal allowances with regard to its quantity, thefe conceffions will not, according to him, be fufficient to furnish any just grounds to infer, from any alterations in climates produced by this caufe, that Siberia for inftance, or any country under the same paraldel, has ever been adapted to breed and fupport the prefent race of elephants, or any animals refembling them in habit or way of life. With regard to a fuppofed alteration in the pofition of the earth's axis, or in its center of gravity, the Author obferves, that if the change was fudden or inftantaneous, little lefs than a total destruction of the earth, and of its inhabitants, must have been the confequence of it; and that, from modern obfervations, there are no grounds to fuppofe it to have been flow and fucceffive. In fact, the great elevation of the equatorial parts of the earth, produced by its revolution on its axis, and which have probably been in their prefent fituation ever fince

* Monthly Review, vol xlii, February 1770, page 108.

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the earth itself had folidity enough to render it habitable, appears to us a standing proof, that its axis has not fenfibly deviated from its prefent pofition, during a space of time much greater than can be thought fufficient to decompofe the bones of any animal whatsoever. In our opinion, all the folutions of this queftion, drawn from aftronomical confiderations of any kind, tend to afcribe a much greater antiquity to thefe bones, than can be warranted from the ftate of prefervation in which they are found. Some of the tufks from the Ohio, our Readers may remember, were, at Dr. Hunter's requeft, examined by feveral of the capital dealers and workers in ivory, and were fufficiently found to enable them to pronounce, from their grain and texture, though perhaps erroneously, that they were true or genuine elephantine ivory +.

Mr. Rafpe rejects likewife the fyftems of those, who suppose that thefe foffil bones may have been brought into their present fituation by the univerfal deluge; or who think that the animals to which they have belonged, may have been formerly brought from the fouthern countries, in which they were bred, to be employed in war, in the northern regions, in which they are now found. Upon the whole, he is of opinion that those animals, whether elephants or not, have been of a particular fpecies capable of bearing the cold of thofe climates, where we now difcover their remains; and that, from caufes unknown to us, their whole race has become extinct. To render the latter part of this opinion more probable, he produces fome, not perfectly parallel, inftances of the decrease or total extinction of wolves and feveral other fpecies of animals, in different and particular parts of the world.

Although every opinion which has hitherto been offered on the fubject of this enquiry, is attended with confiderable diffi culties, yet a modern theorift, we fhall obferve, has, by one bold effort, nobly got rid of them all; by feriously fuppofing that the large foffil bones, which have been found in fo many parts both of the old and new continent, are nothing less than the remains of certain angelic beings, who, according to his fyftem, were the original tenants of this globe, in its primitive and glorious ftate; till, for their tranfgreffions, both were involved in one common ruin: after which, the remains of this fhattered planet were refitted for the accommodation of the prefent puny and degenerate race. This is the opinion of the author of the Effai fur l'Origine de la Population de l'Amerique, tom. ii. page 298*. The work is now out of our hands; but we quote it on the authority of the ingenious but farçaftic author

+ Monthly Review, vol. xlii. February 1770, page 109. See Appendix to our xxxviith volume, page 531.

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of the Recherches Philofophiques fur les Americains, vol. i. page 321t. There is fomething laughable in the idea, that the numerous foffil skeletons, now lying in heaps in the marsh at the Salt Lick, on the banks of the Ohio, and which M. Rafpe, and other naturalists, foberly suppose to have belonged to a troop of Pfeud-Elephants, who accidentally funk into the swamp, and perifhed there, while they were gratifying their palates, should, by another writer, be deemed to be nothing less than the venerable remains of a company of fallen angels. Notwithstanding, however, the notable contraft between these two opinions, in the claffing of these remains, the title of Animal Incognitum, given by Dr. Hunter to the subjects in question, is happily still perfectly applicable to both of them.

In the 7th article an account is given of a genuine specimen of native tin, which was found in the center of a beautiful tin diamond, of the rofin kind, fo tranfparent that the native metal appeared through it, refembling a piece of gold. It is now depofited in the museum of the Royal Society.

BOTANY and Z O OLOGY. Article 1. A Letter from Mr. J. Moult to Dr. Percival of Manchefter, F. R. S. containing a new Manner of preparing Salep. The nutritious quality of this foreign drug is well known; but its dearness has hitherto prevented its being brought into common use as a popular article of diet. In this paper the Author gives an account of the fuccefs of his very laudable endeavours to prepare this kind of aliment from the roots of the Orchis morio mas, foliis maculatis, of Parkinson; the Cynoforchis morio mas, of Gerard, and the Cynoforchis major, vulgo, dogftones; all of which grow fpontaneously in this kingdom, where they may confequently be eafily cultivated; particularly in a dry, fandy, and barren foil. The preparation is very simple. The roots are firft deprived of their thin, fkin; are then kept in the heat of a bread oven 8 or 10 minutes, where they acquire a tranfparency like that of horn, and are afterwards removed into a common room, in which they grow dry and harden in a few days. We recollect that M. Geoffroy has formerly fomewhere proposed a fomewhat fimilar method of paring the root of the Orchis or Satyrion, as an agglutinant and reftorative.

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Article 8. An Account of an Effay on the Origin of a natural Paper, found near the City of Cortona in Tuscany. In a Letter from John Strange, Efq; F. R. S. to Matthew Maty, M. D. Sec. R. S.

Some low grounds near Cortona having been flooded, were afterwards found covered with a fubftance greatly refembling a

+ Monthly Review, Appendix to vol. xlii. page 515.