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النشر الإلكتروني

LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC INTELLIGENCE,

AMERICA.

FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC.

A storm last year tore up a large oak near Brownsville. Uuder the bark, which was torn off in the fall, was discovered the impression of a male and female figure standing near a tree. The woman held some fruit in one band, and was surrounded by deer, goats, bears, Indian fowls, &c. The oak was presumed to be five or six hundred years old, and the impression must have been made long before the age of Columbus.

ASIA.

A line of telegraphs has been established from Calcutta to Chunard, a fortress on the Ganges, 150 miles south of Benares. The distance is 336 English miles, and the intelligence is conveyed at the rate of 100 miles in 12 minutes. Both the European and native, merchants anticipate much advantage from this rapid communication of news.

If we may believe the Bombay gazette, a person has lately discovered an alphabet, by which may be deciphered the ancient inscriptions found in the caverns of India, consecrated to the Hindoo worship, such as those of Elephanta, Keneri, &c. It is expected this will elucidate with precision the signification, dates, use, and origin of these inscriptions.

AFRICA.

A letter from St. Louis, in Senegal, gives the following account of the

state of the establishments on the left bank of this river, on the Ist of September, 1822. There are eleven large plantations, containing 800,000 square feet of cotton grounds, and which it is expected will be soon doubled in extent. Six new plantations have just been acquired from the natives, and are about to be laid out for the growth of cotton. Indigo and other equinoctial plants have been cultivated with success, and the equitable administration of Government by the French functionaries induces the natives to offer themselves as free labourers, so that labour is easily obtained. It is computed that the English cruizers in one year liberated 2810 negroes, whom they had captured in vessels bound for the West-Indies.

WEST INDIES.

St. Domingo.-The paper called the Telegraph of the 18th of August 1822 contains an admirable address from the commissioners of public in

struction at Port-au-Prince to parents of both sexes. It appears that the majority of the black population are very zealous in acquiring instruction for their children, and that the number of Lancasterian schools are to be increased. The address endeavours to stimulate those who are regardless of the benefits of acquiring and disseminating knowledge, and it denounces the vengeance of the laws against those who circulate obscene books and prints. The ancient university of St. Domingo has been re-established, and able professors have been appointed in the departments of the classics, philosophy and civil and canon law. The island is fast recovering from the brutal state to which it had been reduced by its former christian posses

sors.

GERMANY.

In August last, during a violent storm of rain, there fell near the castle of Schoenbrunn, in Austria, an immense number of insects unknown in Austria. They were covered with a species of coagulation, and died on being removed from the water. It is conjectured that they had been driven from some distant country by a waterspout.

The class of philology and history in the academy of sciences at Berlin has, since 1817, twice postponed the following question, each time doubling the value of the prize. "What was the proceeding at law before the tribunals of Athens in public and in private causes, distinguishing as much as possible the different forms observed in each." Three dissertations were given in, and the academy bestowed the prize upon that of Messrs. Meyer and Schoemann, both of them from Griefswald.

At Munich, the travels into the Brazils of Mawe, Eschwegge, Langsdorf, Koster and of the Prince of Neuvied, have had eminent success with the public. The works in the press are the researches and travels of Messrs. Martins and Spinx, whose extensive collections of objects from the Brazils are, by a royal ordinance, to be formed into a separate collection, to be called the Museum Brasilianum. The work will consist of two volumes, quarto, accompanied by lithographic maps, portraits and views. There will be also two collections in Latin. The Mammalia will be represented in folio

plates, and 39 engravings will be devoted to the three genera of the ape tribe. This superb work, published by royal authority, will appear at Easter.

German Universities.-A great sensation has been produced throughout Germany by the appearance of a work entitled, "The disgraceful proceedings of the Universities, Lyceums and Gymnasia of Germany, or history of the conspiracies of the schools against royalty, christianity, and virtue, by K. M. E. Fabricius." This work of about 200 pages is dedicated to the German members of the Holy Alliance, and to their ministers and ambassadors at the diet, and it denounces and vituperates the most enlightened and estimable of the German literati and men of science. It proposes to abolish all universities, or to put them under a more severe surveillance.

The illustrious Reiske of Leipsic has Jeft several valuable works upon the Arabians, and one in particular which he entitled "De rebus gestis Arabum ante Mahammedem." He has also Jeft a copy of an Arabían M.S. relating to the families of Arabia, of which he has made a Latin translation, and in his "Prodidagmata ad Hadgji Califae librum memorialem,” published in 1747, he speaks of his having written a history of the Arabs, from Jesus Christ to the time of Mahomet. Mr. Hartman and Mr. Heinrich, a professor at Bon, discovered this M.S. in the library at Lubeck, in 1814, it is entitled, “ Reiskii primae lineae regnorum Arabicorum et rerum ab Arabibus medio inter Christum et Muhammadem tempore gestarum." This M.S. consists of 376 pages, 4to. and to it is annexed "Rudimenta historiae et chronologiae Muhammadem;" it will be published immediately; Mr. Hartman purposes to publish whatever he may discover of the writings of Reiske.

Three of the most enlightened and valuable works have just been suppressed at Vienna, by public authority, among them is the Pannonia of Count Albert Festelizs.

RUSSIA.

Admiral de Krusenstern has been engaged for many years upon a set of charts of the south sea, and which are now nearly finished. The set will contain thirty charts, and the publication will be at the expense of the Emperor

of Russia.

An English firm has just obtained the exclusive privilege of lighting by gas throughout the Russian empire for ten years.

Odessa. On the 12th September, 1822, the pupils of the Lyceum of Odessa celebrated the anniversary of the death of the Duke of Richlieu, and wore mourning for the space of three days.

POLAND.

M. Hoffman, professor in the University of Warsaw, has invented a sort of coat made of copper, by which the most inexperienced swimmer can save himself in the most rapid river. This discovery is likely to prove of the greatest utility in shipwrecks as well as in fording rivers in military operations. By repeated experiments it appears that a person may, with this apparel, go about 120 paces in a minute.

Mr. Kowalski, a celebrated poet of this country, has just published a translation into the Polish language of the best comedies of Moliere.

Mr. J. U. Niemuwicz purposes to publish, at Warsaw, a collection of unedited documents relating to ancient Poland. The first part will be in three volumes, the price of subscription will be six rix dollars.

GREECE AND TURKEY.

The following is a table of the population of Greece. Morea

..400,000

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larly that belonging to the Princes Mourouci, who have always been the most persecuted by this barbarous government on account of their great wealth, their patriotism, and their talents.

SPAIN.

The government, on the 5th January, gave its assent to a plan for establishing a regular stage communication between Madrid and Corunna, and a communication by steam-boats between Corunna and London. Sir John Doyle the author of the plan is now completing the details. Every thing, which increases the facility of intercourse between distant nations, tends to civilize mankind, and is a real benefit to the human race.

A learned Spaniard, Don Xavier de Burgos, purposes to publish a Spanish translation of the Biographie Universelle, with corrections and additions.

PORTUGAL.

The Cortes have voted a medal, valued at 50,000 reis, for the author of the best commercial code.

ITALY.

The workmen employed in working the marble quarry, discovered near Florence, proceed with activity. They have opened a way leading to Mount Altissimo, near Sevarezza. The first blocks were sent to Paris; the others are reserved for Florence and Rome. These excavations will provide for Tuscany an important branch of industry and commerce.

Regulations have been published, at Turin, for the government of the Universities of Turin and Genoa. They consist of sixty-five articles, and prohibit the students taking their meals in the coffee-houses and taverns, and establish houses for those who have no relations in the city. The students must return to the University before sun-set, and they are not allowed to appear at balls, billiard tables, and rarely at the play. They are compelled to appear at divine service, at confession, and to take the sacrament at stated periods. Four priests are appointed inspectors of their religious and moral conduct. Regulations for schools have also been published, consisting of 250 articles.

FRANCE.

Mons. Mignet, who, in conjunction with M. Beugnot, jan. gained the prize given last year by the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, for the best discourse upon the Institutions of St. Louis, is now engaged in tracing the progress and vicissitudes of the

reformation in the different states of Europe. Mons. Mignet considers this great event as the first effort of the moderns to acquire liberty. The power of the Pope was a dreadful tyranny which, during the middle ages, suppressed the progress of civilization. The insurrection or resistance of intellect, which preceded the great political revolution, began with Arnaud de Brescia, the chief of the Vaudois; and was continued by the Albigeois, amongst whom it broke out so prematurely that the Pope was enabled to suppress it. The reformation of Luther, on the contrary, broke out at a more favourable period, and, being in Germany so far from the vicinage of papal coercion, it had a greater chance of success. From France and Germany M. Mignet carries his views to England, where the reformation assumed a political character under Henry the Eighth, but suffered its vicissitudes of fortune under Mary and his other successors. M. Mignet's analysis of the subject is clear, methodical, and his language is precise. The basis of his work is, that the reformation was a moral insurrection, or an emancipation of the human intellect from the most objectionable of all the modes of faith.

The prefect of Ajaccio has exerted himself to collect the subscriptions for organising the thirty schools, which the government has authorised to be establised in Corsica. The sum already subscribed amounts to 4,554 francs.

M. Regnauld, a physician at Grenoble, has invented an instrument by which the operation of lithotomy can be performed in two minutes. Several experiments have confirmed the fact.

M. Bonfiglio Rossignol, who has visited the same countries as M.Caillaud, is returned to France. After the publication of his travels, which is now in progress, he will go to Tripoli, whence he intends to traverse the desart and penetrate as far as the Niger.

Hieroglyphics.-A very important and unexpected discovery has been made of an Hieroglyphic Alphabet, by M. Champollion, jun. His MSS. were laid before the Academy of Inscriptions. By means of this alphabet the scholar is enabled to decypher the names of Alexander the Great, Ptolemy, Cleopatra, Berenice, &c.; on the temples of Phila, Ombos, Dendera, Esne, &c. he has also read the titles, names and sur names of Tiberius, Nerva, Trajan, Domitian, Adrian, Antoninus, Sabinus, &c.; on the Egyptian temples M. Champollion has spent ten years of incessant

labour in this pursuit, but he is now returned with an ample recompense.

At the beginning of last November, some workmen, in demolishing an old wall to build a bakehouse in the village of Mont, found a great quantity

of money in silver and base money of the sixteenth century, in the reign of Charles IX. and Henry III. kings of France; of Gregory XIII. and Sixtus V.Popes. The most recent bears the date of 1588.

GREAT BRITAIN.

Philosophical Society of York.-The more particular object of this society is to elucidate the geology of Yorkshire. There are few counties in England which are traversed by so great a variety of strata as this, few of which the strata contain so many fossils interesting to the geologist, or so many minerals important to the arts, and few of which the geological relations are so imperfectly and doubtfully determined. Towards the illustration of this subject, the society presume to hope that something may be done by a contribution of specimens from every part of Yorkshire to a central Museum. The foundation of such a Museum has been laid by a present, made to the society, of a very valuable and perfect collection of the fossil remains lately discovered in the Cave of Kirkdale. But though the illustration of geology is the principal design of the Yorkshire Museum, it will be open also to other objects of scientific curiosity, and will be a proper repository it is conceived for those antiquities, with which the county and particularly the city of York is known to abound. In addition to the Yorkshire specimens, the society are in possession of an elephant's tooth from Rugby, probably of the same æra as the Kirkdale bones; they have received a few geological specimens from Newfoundland, and some mineralogical ones from Sweden and other parts of Europe; a small collection of recent shells from the West Indies has been presented to them, and a fragment of a meteoric stone which fell at Juvenas, on the 21st of June, 1821, given to one of the members of the society, by M. de Humboldt.

"Mr. Bowditch has made arrangements for the speedy publication of a sketch of the Portuguese establishments in Congo, Angola and Benguela, with some account of the modern discoveries of the Portuguese in the interior of Angola and Mozambique, with a map of the coast and interior.

Dr. Baron, of Gloucester, has undertaken to write the account of the life, and to arrange for publication the numerous manuscripts of the late Dr.

Jenner; for which purposes all the documents in possession of the family will be committed to his care. From that gentleman, therefore, the public may expect an authentic work as speedily as his professional avocations will allow him to prepare for the press the ample and interesting materials with which he is to be furnished, together with those which he himself accumulated during a long and confidential intercourse with Dr. Jenner and many of his most intimate friends.

Miss Aikin is preparing for publication a Memoir of her Father, the late John Aikin, M.D.; together with a selection of snch of his critical essays and miscellaneous papers as have not hitherto appeared in a collective form. Improved editions of several of the most popular of Dr. Aikin's works are also preparing under the care of his family.

Sir Everard Home, Bart. will shortly publish a third volume of Lectures on comparative Anatomy.

A gentleman long known to the literary world, is engaged on the Lives of Corregio and Parmegiano.

In the course of a few weeks will appear in one volume Fables for the Holy Alliance with other Poems, &c. By Thomas Brown, the younger.

Early in the Spring will be published in one volume 12mo. with a plate, the Art of Valuing the Tenants' Right on entering and quitting farms in Yorkshire and the adjoining counties, adapted for the use of landlords, land-agents, appraisers, farmers and tenants. By J. S. Bayldon.

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A translation, by J. S. Forsyth, of Preceis Elementaire de Physiologie, Tome Second, par. F. Magendie, will soon be published into which will be introduced many interesting notes extracted from the Physiological Journal and other works by the same author, elucidating the facts contained in the elementary treatise. This volume, together with that already published, will form a complete elementary work on this important branch of medical science.

The Geography, History and Statistics of America and the West Indies,

as originally published in the American Atlas of Messrs. Cary and Lea, of Philadelphia, are re-printing in this country, in one volume 8vo. with much additional matter relative to the new States of South America, and accom panied with several maps, charts, and views, so as to concentrate under the above heads, a greater fund of information respecting the Western Hemisphere than has hitherto appeared.

Mrs. Holderness has in the press a volume entitled New Russia, being some account of the colonization of that country, and of the manners, and customs of the colonists. To which is added a brief detail of a journey overland from Riga to the Crimea, by way of Kieo, accompanied with notes on the Crim Tartars.

Mr. Oliver, surgeon, has in the press, and will publish in April, Popular Observations upon Muscular Contraction, with his mode of treatment of diseases of the limbs associated therewith. He proposes also to illustrate his system of the application in particular cases of mechanical apparatus by graphical delineations, more particularly when the knee, elbow and ancle joints are affected.

A new novel, entitled Willoughby, in two volumes, will appear in a few days.

The Rev. Dr. Rudge's Lectures on Genesis is nearly ready for publication.

Dr. Meyrick's Treatise on Ancient Armour, a book calculated greatly to facilitate a right understanding of the early historians, and to throw much light on the manners of our ancestors, is expected to appear in the course of next mouth. The chronological arrangement of the whole, the illuminated capitals illustrative of the subject, and the more picturesque representations of the armour of different periods, render this publication unlike any that has preceded it; which is on a plan so comprehensive as to make it an important acquisition to every extensive library.

Mr. James, author of the Naval History of Great Britain, has in the press the Second Part of that work, which will contain a Plan of the Battle of Trafalgar, superior in accuracy to any yet given of that memorable action.

Points of Humour, illustrated in a Series of Plates, drawn and engraved by G. Cruikshank, is in the press.

A reprint of Southwell's Mary Magdalen's Funeral Tears for the Death of our Saviour, in royal 16mo. with a Portrait, will shortly be published.

An Appeal for Religion to the best Sentiments and Interests of Mankind,

being, 1st. Four Orations for the Oracles of God.-2nd. Judgment to Come, an Argument in Five Discourses.—3rd. Messiah's Arrival, a Series of Lectures. By the Rev. Edward Irving," A, M. Minister of the Caledonian Church, Hatton-garden, in one vol. 8vo. ́ is in the press.

An Historical Essay upon the Art of Painting on Glass, from its earliest in troduction into England by Cimabue, to the present day.-In which will be described, seriatim, the Heraldic Emblazonings and Portraits upon the prin cipal Painted Windows in Fonthill Abbey: Backler's Painted Window for the Duke of Norfolk; that in the lis brary of Sir Richard Colt Hoare, Bart; at Stourhead; some of the tasteful performances of those ingenious artists, the Crekes, Egintons, Pearsons, and others will receive every attention.→→→ Together with remarks on Historical Painting in Oil. 1 vol. 8vo. By Thos. Adams, junior, Shaftesbury.

The following English works have lately been translated into Foreign languages :

The Pirate, translated into French. Paris, 4 vols. 12mo., 10 fr.

Travels in the United States of America, By Miss Wright. Translated into French, by J. T. Parisot. Paris, 2 vols." Svo., 10 fr.

Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, abridged and translated into French. By A. Caillot, 2 vols. 12mo. with Plates, 9 fr.

Shakspeare translated into French. By Letourneur, new edition, revised and corrected by F. Guizot and A, P. 13 vols. 8vo. Subscribers' price 65 fr.

France. By Lady Morgan. Translated into French. Brussells 2 vols. 12mo., 6 fr.

Parke's Chemistry, translated into French. By J. Riffault-Paris. 2 vols. 8vo., 10 fr.

Helen, Countess of Castle-Howel. By Mrs. Bennet: translated into French by the Translator of the Romances, by the Author of Waverly-Paris. 4 vols. 12mo., 10 fr.

The Shetlanders. Translated into French. By the Translator of Ro mances, by the Aathor of WaverleyParis. 2 vols. 12mo., 5 fr.

The Works of Lord Byron. Translated into French, third edition, revised and corrected. With a Portrait of the Author-Paris. JSmo, 17 fr.

Hume's History of England, with Smollett's Continuation. Translated into French. By M. Campenon, 22 vols. 8vo., 132 fr.

State of England with Regard to its

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