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inches, ranged in a line clofe together, from twelve to eighteen in each partition. How the depofites the eggs in this direction, it was difficult to discover, they are fo very fhy whilst about this work but my ingenious friend John Bartram, obferving her, in the beginning of this operation, took a ftrong woody ftalk of a plant, and, prefenting it to her, fhe directly fell to work upon it, as he held it in his hand. It was very wonderful to fee how dexterously fhe worked her dart into the stalk, at every puncture dropping.an egg. This was feen very diftinctly, as fhe did not touch the ftalk with any other part of her body. The Cicade fix on most fort of trees, but like beft the oak and chefnut, (which are the twigs engraven on the plate) and the faffafras, and all orchard trees.

They always dart to the pith of the branch, that, when the egg hatcheth, the little infect may find foft food in its infant ftate. When mature, they creep forth, go down the tree, or drop off, and foon make their way into the ground, where they have been found two feet deep. Here they find a fecure repofe, until they have pafled through their changes, from a maggot to an hexapode, and laftly to a fly.

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July 15th and fixteenth they were perceived coming forth : feveral darted twigs were perceived, and carefully examined, and opened: fome eggs were hatched, others not mature, of a dull brown colour. Thefe were taken out, and fpread on a table; in about an hour the eggs cracked. It was very entertaining to obferve, how the little infect contrived to difengage itself, from the fhell. When it was got clear from its incumbrances, it run about, very brifkly, feeking a repofitory in the earth.

Thefe Cicada are fpred all over the country in a few days; but, being the prey of fo many animals, their numbers foon decreafe, and, their duration by the order of nature being short, quickly difappear.

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They are the food of moft kind of domestic and wild fowl, and many beafts: even the fquirils grow fat with feeding on them; and one of the repafts of the Indians, after having first plucked off their wings, is to boil and eat them.

There are two diflinct fpecics of Cicada in North Ameica, the one here defcribed being much larger than the other. The lefur fpecies has a black body, with golden eyes, and remarkable yellow veined wings.'

Art. 11. An Account of the Plague at Cenflantinople. By Dr. Mackenzie.

This paper, containing as well a natural hiftory of the Plague, as a medicinal inveftigation of the diffemper and mode of cure, we are induced to rank it under the prefent clafs. The account is given in a letter from Dr. Mackenzie, refiding at Conftan

tinople,

tinople, to Sir James Porter, his Majefty's envoy at Bruffels; and contains a number of particulars, contradictory to the generally-received notions of this dreadful diftemper. The ingenious Writer begins thus:

So many great men have written upon the Plague already, as Profper Alpinus, Sydenham, Hodges, Diemerbroeck, Muratori, Mead, &c. that it might be justly thought presumptuous in me to touch upon that subject after them. But as I find, that they differ in fome circumftances, and that fome of them have had an opportunity of feeing only one year's plague; I may be allowed to write to you fuch remarks as I have made for almoft thirty years, that I have lived in this plaguy country, without any quotations or confirmations from other authors; which I hope will help to reconcile the different opinions of the abovementioned famous authors. Which task I would choose rather, than to contradict them; for I am perfuaded, that each of them wrote according to the beft of his knowledge (as I do myself) without any intention of impofing in the leaft upon mankind.

It is beyond difpute, that the plague appears in a different manner in different countries; and that it appears differently in the fame country in different years: for we find most other diseases alter more or lefs, according to the conftitution and difpofition of the air in the fame climate: for, fome years, fevers are epidemic, and very mortal: other years, they are epidemic, but not mortal; the fmall pox the fame; &c. And fo the Plague is fome years more violent, and has fome fymptoms different from what it has in other years; which, I take for granted, must be the reafon of any difference that may appear in the remarks of the celebrated authors already mentioned. There is one extraordinary fymptom, which the most of these authors mention, though none of them prove it, or pretend to have seen it; which seems to me inconfiftent and incompatible with the animal oeconomy; making ftill proper allowance for Omnipotence and Divine Vengeance, as in that of Sennacherib's numerous army, and many other fuch plagues, mentioned in scripture. What I mean, is, that a perfon cannot die of the Plague (such as it appears among us) inftanteously, or in a few hours, or even the fame day, that he receives the infection. For, you know, Sir, by your long experience in this country, that all fuch as have the Plague, conceal it as long as they can, and walk about as long as poffible. And I prefume it must be the fame in all countries, for the fame reafon, which is the fear of being abandoned and left alone; and fo, when they struggle for many days against it, and at laft tumble down in the street, and die fuddenly, people imagine, that they were then only infected, and that they died inftantly of the infection; though it may be supposed, according to the rules of the animal economy, that the noxious

effluvia

effuvia must have been for fome time mixed with the blood, before they could produce a fever, and afterwards that corruption and putrefaction in the blood and other fluids, as at laft ftops their circulation, and the patients die. This was the cafe of the Greek, who spoke with your master of horse, Knightkin, at the window, anno 1752, and went and died in an hour afterwards in the vineyards of Buiuk deré; and it was faid he died fuddenly, though it was very well known to many, that he had the Plague upon him for many days before this accident happened.

Mrs. Chapouis found herfelf indifpofed for many days, anno 1758, and complained pretty much, before fhe was fufpected of having the Plague. Captain Hills' failor was infected in Candia 1736; was a fortnight in his paffage to Smyrna, as the captain fwore to me; yet he was five days in the hospital there before he died. Mr. Life's gardiner was indifpofed twelve days before he took to his bed, and he lay in bed eight days before he died, in July 1745.

It is true, that Thucydides, in his account of the Plague at Athens, relates, that fome were faid to die fuddenly of it; which may have led others into the fame way of thinking: but Thucydides (with all due regard to him) must be allowed to have known very little of the animal economy, for he was no phyfician, though a very famous hiftorian; and he owns moreover, that, when the Plague first attacked the Piræum, they were fo much ftrangers to it at Athens, that they imagined the Lacedæmonians, who then befieged them, had poifoned their wells, and that fuch was the cause of their death. Befides, he pretends to affirm, from the little experience he had of the Plague, that the fame perfon cannot have it twice, which is abfolutely falfe. The Greek Padré, who took care of the Greek hospital at Smyrna for fifty years, affured me, that he had had the Plague twelve different times in that interval; and it is very certain, that he died of it in 1736. M. Broflard had it in the year 1745, when he returned from France; and it is very well known, that he and all his family died of it in April 1762. The Abbé, who takes care of the Frank-hofpital at Pera, fwore to me the other day, that he has had it already, here and at Smyrna, four different times. But, what is ftill more extraordinary, is, that a your woman, who had it in September laft, with its most pathemonic fymptoms, as buboes and carbuncles, after a fever, bed again on the 1th of April, and died of it fome days ago, wile there is not the leaft furmife of any accident in or about Conftantinople fince December, this only one excepted: but there died four perfons in the fame little houfe in September; and as the house was never well cleaned, and this young woman

always

always lived in it, she was at last attacked a fecond time, and died.

Having treated of the appearance and symptoms of this horrid infection, Dr. Mackenzie proceeds to throw out fome philofophical reflections on its rife and progress in those countries which are fo unhappy as to be very liable to it.

The Plague, fays he, is now more frequent in the Levant, than it was, when I came firft into this country, about 30 years ago; for then, they were almoft ftrangers to it in Aleppo and in Tripoli of Syria, and they had it but seldom at Smyrna; whereas now they have it frequently at Aleppo, and fummer and winter in Smyrna, though never fo violently in the winter; which must be owing to the great communication by commerce over all the Levant, and more extended into the country villages than it used to be. I take the Plague to be an infection communicated by contact from one body to another; that is, to a found body from an infected one, whose poisonous effluvia, fubtile miasmata, and volatile steams, enter the cutaneous pores of found perfons within their reach, or mix with the air, which they draw in refpiration, and fo advancing by the vafa inhalantia, mix with the blood and animal fluids, in which, by their noxious and active qualities, they increase their motion and velocity, and in fome days produce a fever; so that the nearer and the more frequent the contact is, the greater is the danger, as the noxious particles, exhaling from the infected perfon, must be more numerous, and confequently have greater force and activity in proportion to their distance.

Some perfons are of opinion, that the air must be infected, and that it is the principal caufe of thefe plagues; whereas I prefume, that the ambient air is not otherwise concerned, than as the vehicle, which conveys the venemous particles from one body into another, at least in fuch plagues as I have feen hitherto at Smyrna and Conftantinople; allowing always, that the different,conftitution of the air contributes very much to propagate the Plague: for the hot air dilates and renders more volatile and active the venomous fteams, whereas cold air contracts and mortifies them. The perfon having the plague may be faid to have a contagious and poisonous air in his room and about him, while at the fame time the open air is free from any dangerous exhalations; fo that I never was afraid to go into any large houfe, wherein a plaguy perfon lived, provided that he was confined to one room.'

Dr. Mackenzie goes on to defcribe the symptoms of the peftilential fever, and to give directions with refpect to the method of cure; but as the prefent inhabitants of this part of the world are providentially fo happy as to be never vifited with it; we fhall confine our extracts to the Doctor's philofophical and hiftorical obfervations on the fubject.

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The Plague breaks out here and at Smyrna fome years, when it is not poffible to trace whence it is conveyed; for fome houfes, which were infected, and not well cleaned after the infected perfon is removed, lodge fome of the venemous molecula in wool, cotton, hair, leather or fkins, &c. all winter long; which, put in motion by the heat in April or May, break out of their nidus, where they refided, and recover so much life and action, as to enter into the cutaneous pores of any person, who comes within their reach, and fo infect him; as it happened at the French palace, at Mr. Hubfch's and at Caraja's houfe, for two or three years running. But Plagues of this kind feldom fpread, and are never fo fatal as fuch as come from abroad.

Many are of opinion, that the heat kills the Plague, as they term it, which is owing to a foolish fuperftition among the Greeks, who pretend, that it must cease the 24th of June, being St. John's day, though they may obferve the contrary happen every year; and the ftrongeft Plague, that was at Smyrna in my time, anno 1736, was hottest about that time, and continued with great violence till the latter end of September, when it began to abate; but was not entirely over till the 12th of No vember, when Te Deum was fung in the Capuchins convent..

This mistaken notion may be in fome measure owing to a wrong fenfe put upon Profper Alpinus, who allows that the Plague at Cairo begins to ceafe in the months of June and July, when the ftrong northerly winds (called Embats or Etefian winds) begin to blow, which make the country much cooler than in the months of May, April, and March, when the Plague rages moft; which he very justly imputes to the great fuffocating heats and foutherly winds, which reign during those months in that country: and it is then that the fhips, which load rice, flax, and other goods and merchandife for Conftantinople receive the infection, and carry it with them hither; and, upon thefe goods being delivered to perfons in different parts of the city, the plague breaks out at once with great violence among the trading people of the Greeks, Armenians, and Jews; for I have obferved, both here and at Smyrna, that the Turks are commonly the laft of the four nations, who are infected; but when the Plague gets once among them, they suffer moft by it, becaufe they take the leaft care and precaution, and their families are much more numerous.

The plague, as well as all other epidemical diseases, has its rife, progress, state, and declenfion, when it begins to lose its virulence, and many of the fick recover. Some years it is felt fporadically all the winter; and we hear fome accidents in the Phanar, among the Greeks, among the Jews, Turks, and Armenians; and even among the Franks; for you may remember, that Pera was not clean all the winter 1762. Some years it

lodges

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