tal deeds of valour and renown. They it is that first breathe into the soul that divine effusion which there generates into a sublime spirit of animation, which enlarges itself into an immortal structure of wisdom, and which flows from its happy seat to illuminate the world with its inspiring rays, aud to create in other minds that happiness which it will never cease to be capable of imparting.

Liverpool, July, 1818.

W.

ON THE FORMATION AND MOTION OF RIVERS.
[By Mr. JOHN Baines, jun.]

IF we trace rivers to their sources, we shall find that whether they proceed from torrents which collect the superfluous waters of heaven, or from springs, these sources are situated in elevated tracts of ground. At first they are but inconsiderable rills; but meeting with others in their course, they unite and form a body of water capable of overcoming the obstacles which oppose its motion. Some rivers, it is true, and these are far from being inconsiderable, have their sources in elevated lakes, and it is in their descent from these that they acquire their motion. All rivers are generally shallow at first, but their course is then the most rapid; as they advance, their depth increases, and the surface of the same quantity of water is diminished, so that evaporation and absorption are not so great as before. If we examine the breadth, depth, and sides of valleys through which rivers flow, we shall have abundant reason for believing that they are the work of rivers, or at least of waters which have descended from the heights, loaded with all the light matter which they were able to bring away with them; and that the rivers which now flow in beds, and have a considerable permanency, have been the work of ages. These beds are either lined with aquatic plants, or with stones, gravel, and coarse sand, all the light matter having been washed away. The surface of elevated ground is also undergoing a continual change. Showers of rain carry down into the vallies, or sweep along by the torrents, a part of the soil which covers the heights and steeps.

The swiftness of a river is retarded in proportion to its distance from its source; the causes of which are, the continual friction against the banks, the many obstacles it meets with to divert its stream, and the surface of the earth becoming generally more level as it approaches the sea. If the swiftness acquired by the fall be entirely lost by striking against obstacles, and the course of the river becomes horizontal, there is nothing but the pressure of the succeeding water, which is always proportional to the depth, that can impel it forward; and this resource increases in proportion to the loss of swiftness, for as the swiftness decreases the water rises and increases in depth. The natural viscidity of the particles of water causes the lower parts of a river, which are moved by the depths, to draw the upper parts along with them, which in a horizontal channel, or in one but little inclined, would have no motion of themselves; hence, as the middle parts of a river are pressed by half of the water, and are free from the friction against the bottom, the greatest swiftness will be about the middle of the depth.

If a perpendicular obstacle be opposed to the water of a river that is almost horizontal, and raised suddenly against it, the river runs by virtue of its fall; but if it stop awhile, the pressure of the upper parts is the cause of its motion.

Rivers that have to form their own bed, carry away the most elevated parts of the ground, until the strength of the friction is equal to the resistance of the bottom, and then it is reduced to a state of consistence, at least for a considerable time. Bottoms that are composed of chalk, resist more than those that are formed of sand and mud. Rivers undermine their sides with a force proportional to the magnitude of the angle in which the water strikes them, and by this means it tends to render them more parallel to its course. At the same time that the water wears away its banks, it enlarges its bed, but loses its depth, until there is an equilibrium between the strength of the water and the resistance of the sides, and then its bounds are perma

nent.

If a river which presents itself to fall into another river, or into the sea, has not a sufficient velocity to surmount the resistance it meets with, it will presently swell, because its velocity will be diminished, and its waters driven back upon itself; but it will, in time, acquire a sufficiency of strength to force its way, by reason of the pressure of the succeeding water. Also, if one river fall perpendicularly into another, or even against its current, it will, in a short time, be turned away from that direction by the river which receives it, and obliged to make itself a new bed towards its mouth. The union of two rivers occasions a swifter stream afterwards; because instead of the friction of four banks they have only that of two to surmount.

Rivers whose waters are muddy, raise their bed by the subsiding of the matter mixed in them; they also diminish their breadth by the accession and incrustation of the same matter on their sides. This matter being driven from the stream by its little motion, may likewise contribute to the making of banks, and these rivers will, in time, be considerably above the level of the adjoining land. Of this kind, says M. Guigliemini, are most of the rivers in Lombardy. The plains which seem to have been formed by alluvia, are highest next the sides of the rivers which produced them, and at a distance always lower. Of the Nile, it is observed, in its passage through Egypt, that no rivers run into it; that the land is lower at a distance from its banks than near them, and that it has a gradual descent to the foot of the hills which run almost parallel to the Nile on either side. Also the water of the Holy Brook, a small river in Berkshire, is considerably above the level of the adjacent meadows.

Those rivers which run on a bed of coarse gravel, are subject to bring great heaps of it together, which in time help to divert its course. Of this kind are the Loire, in France, and the Don, in Russia.

Concerning the means by which rivers are furnished with water, it is not unnecessary to observe, that wherever we dig below the surface of the earth, except in a few instances, water is found; and it is by this subterraneous water that springs, and consequently rivers, nay, a great part of vegetation itself, is supported. De la Hire, a French philosopher, has contended that this water is raised into vapour by the internal heat of the earth; that by it fountains are supplied, and, by the addition of rain, rivers are for .ned. Messrs. Marriote and Perrault oppose this theory of De la

Hire, and assert that the vapours which are exhaled from the sea, and driven upon the land by the wind, are more than sufficient to supply the plants with moisture, and to furnish water for all the rivers in the world. Rain, it is well known, will penetrate into the earth, until it meets with some clayey substance to oppose its descent: it will then run along every descending crevice it can find, until it reaches the surface, and forms what is called a spring. If we calculate the quantity of rain or snow which falls in a year upon all the land which furnishes water from a river, we shall find that it does not require more than one-sixth part of it. The continual supply of water which causes the running of rivers is to be accounted for, by considering that rain, after it has penetrated the earth, is a long time in gathering itself together so as to form but a moderate stream, and that a large quantity of it is pent up in caverns of the earth which have but a small opening. Springs are most generally situated on the sides or at the bottom of mountains, and though we sometimes meet with them in high places and even at the tops of mountains, the water must come through subterraneous channels from places which are still higher, and act in the same manner as the syphon.

The largest rivers of Europe are (1) the Wolga, which is about 1700 miles in length, extending from Reschew to Astrachan: it receives several considerable rivers in its course, among which are the Occa and Camą. (2) The Danube-rises in Swabia, within a few miles of the borders of Switzerland, and discharges itself into the Euxine Sea, in lat. 45°N. and long. 291°E. It is 1400 miles long, and in its course receives sixty navigable rivers, and an equal number of smaller streams. (3) The Don, or Tanais, is 1200 miles in length from the source of that branch of it which is called Sofna, to its mouth in the sea of Asoph: in its course, viz. in lat. 49°N, it approaches within 80 miles of the Wolga. (4) The Nieper rises from a morass in the forest of Walconski, about 120 miles from Smolenski, and after forming a marshy lake of 24 miles in length, and in many places of one, two, or even six in breadth, discharges itself into the Euxine Sea: this river has no less than thirteen cataracts within the space of thirty-four miles; its whole length is about 1060 miles. (5) The Dwina formed from the confluence of the Soukhona and Yug, and divides itself into two branches near Archangel, before it runs into the White Sea: its length is 900 miles. (6) The Rhine-formed by the water which issues out of two rocks of ice in the Furca chain of mountains, in Switzerland. At Eck it divides itself into two branches, called the Old and New Rhine, one of which loses itself in the sands below Leyden, and the other takes the name of Leck: its whole course is about 700 miles.

To these may be added, the Po, of about 560, the Vistula, 540, the Loire, 500, the Elbe, 460, the Tagus, 420, the Rhone and Guadiana, 400 each, the Seine, 340, the Douro, 320, the Ebro and Adige, 300 each, the Garonne, 280, the Tiber, 270, the Guadalquiver, 250, the Arno, 200, the Severn, 192, the Thames, 185, the Ouse and Minho, 140 cach, and the Trent, of 136 miles in length.

Nottingham, July 4, 1818.

ON THE CHARACTER OF RICHARD III.

[By the same.]

RICHARD III. King of England, is represented by historians as one of the most detestable tyrants that ever disgraced the English throne. Hume says he was ready to commit the most horrid crimes that seemed necessary for his purpose; and that no compensation could ever be made to the people for the danger of the precedent, and for the contagious example of vice and murder by which he obtained, and attempted to secure, the throne. Shakspeare describes his person in the following manner :—

"Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before his time

Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable,

That dogs bark'd at him as he halted by them."

The crimes imputed to him are of the greatest magnitude: the principal are, the murder of Edward V. and his brother; the murder of Henry VI. and his son, Edward, Prince of Wales; the murder of his own queen, and of his brother George, Duke of Clarence; the execution of Lord Hastings, and that of Rivers, Gray, and Vaughan.

On the other hand, Richard is represented as possessing great courage and capacity, and as being well qualified for government if he had legally obtained it. The late Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford, in a tract entitled "Historic Doubts," has examined the circumstances of each of the above crimes, with the evidence of each of the charges against this monarch, and has endeavoured to prove that some of the crimes imputed to him were contrary to his interest, almost all inconsistent with probability or with dates, and some of them involved in material contradictions. It is also asserted that the partizans of the house of Tudor made use of every means in their power to blacken the memory of Richard, and that his person was not so deformed as it has been represented.

Although it is neither our interest nor our intention to white-wash the character of Richard, a monarch whose life will for ever remain as one of the blackest stains on the pages of English history; yet if the Lancasterian party destroyed all memorials of his best actions, and painted his worst in the most hideous colouring, is it not reasonable to believe that many of the crimes attributed to this monster of human nature, this hump-backed tyrant, if not altogether false, are greatly exaggerated? On the field of Bosworth he displayed the most resolute courage, but he fell in that memorable engagement, and thereby put a period to the sanguinary and unnatural contest between the houses of York and Lancaster, which had cost the country 100,000 men. This event destroyed his adherents, and gave his enemies every opportunity of painting his character as they chose.

Nottingham, July 7, 1818.

14

ON THE EMPLOYMENT OF MALE ACCOUCHEURS.

To the Editor of the Northern Star.

I AM glad to see that you seem properly to have consulted the duty which attaches to your high and editorial authority by paying due respect to your female correspondents; especially when they have arraigned the extravagant follies and the ridiculous foibles of your own sex. Indeed your correspondent Xantippe, seems to have been properly and sufficiently severe upon those improprieties she has censured. I should have been glad, Mr. Editor, had this subject on which I am about to write, fallen into the hands of one among my own sex of equal spirit and ability with your before-mentioned correspondent, had it not been for the fear that some persons might have attributed such masculine sentiments to one of your own sex, and thus have injured a good cause by attempting to support it by suspicious authority. Weak as may seem the reasons which I shall adduce, and inefficient as a woman's reasons are generally considered, I trust that I may at least elicit some attention to the subject, and that some of your abler correspondents may take it up with equal zeal and better arguments.

Believing you, Sir, to be a grave man, your gravity must frequently have been disconcerted by meeting as you pass along the streets that anomalous character, designated a man-midwife; the definition of which term would, no doubt, puzzle the profoundest philologist. The word, however, not being found in my dictionary, I shall briefly attempt its elucidation: the first and last member of this compound word seem sufficiently clear; the particle mid, in the middle of the expression, seems equivalent in signification to the word "between"; now the whole word as it here stands, being a sort of masculo-feminine gender, to make sense, the penultima must be preceded by the word "man", then I think the definition will be clear-Man-midwife, a man who officiates between another man and his wife, a situation which, surely, no man ought to occupy; and as it appears to me, to say the least, which no husband ought to suffer; I do not know what you may think, Mr. Editor, but I do know that the necessity of calling in the above character when required professionally, is a source of anxious regret with many of my own sex, but

"The frequency of crimes has washed them white,"

and the continuance of this unnecessary and indelicate exercise of the surgeon has rendered the practice of male-accoucheurs tolerable. When the practice of men exercising the obstetric art first began, I do not know; I should be glad if some of your correspondents acquainted with classic literature, would communicate what was the custom among the Greeks and Romans, it is most likely these nations had no men-mid-wives, but that the office was assigned to grave and experienced matrons. I should likewise be glad, could any of your historical correspondents furnish any information relative to its existence in other countries, or introduction into our own. I believe even now, the custom of employing surgeons in the obstetric art, does not prevail on the

* In deference to our fair correspondent we have inserted her remarks on this subject, but beg to inform her that it has already been laid before the public by Dr. Kinglake, whose objections to the employment of male accoucheurs were so ably refuted by Dr. S. Merriman, that the matter has been considered as wholly set at rest. See Med. and Phys. Journal, No. 206.