In this way our author proceeded to the warm baths, which contain iron, fufpended by fixed air, with perhaps an earthy falt of the vitriolic acid and lime. The water was quite hot, without fcalding; but it produced deliquium in about ten minutes. Probably its heat was about 105o of Farenheit.

The land, by the colonifts, is chiefly diftinguifhed into two kinds, the carrow and the four fields; and, in this narrative, we frequently find the country defcribed only by thefe terms. The carrows are quite dry, parched, and bare of grafs. The earth, in this part of Africa, generally dry, and frequently unadorned with the lively verdure of vegetables in the carrows, looks unufually naked, and is full of clefts and chinks. They are alfo generally furrounded by high cold mountains of granite, feemingly rich in iron ore. Here the fun scorches the traveller with its reflected rays; and the relief from rain is fcarcely a lefs evil than the burning fun; for, instead of falling in refreshing fhowers, it deluges in vaft fheets of water, feldom unaccompanied by burfts of thunder. But this gives a temporary verdure to thefe dreary spots, and, as ufual, order rifes out of confufion. Thefe ftorms furnish in the winter, the most fruitful feafon in this defart fpot, a temporary and precarious fuftenance for the cattle, who, at other times, browse on the shrubs and bushes, or feek for the reeds in the neighbouring rivers.

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The four fields lie higher and cooler than the shore they are generally covered with a coarfe grafs, as they are frequently fprinkled by gentle rain; but the fheep, fed in them, gnaw bones, harneffes, or, when fhut up together, even each other's horns. This appetite, which feems to point out an acid in the ftomach, is the occafion of the term. All land, not fimilar to the carrow and four fields, are denominated sweet. The four fields yield lefs milk, but more, and better butter, than the fweet. Sheep are fed beft in the carrows, next in the fweet fields, and least profitably in the four ones.

If we examine the whole country, in its vaft extent, we find a wildness, arifing from craggy rocks of an amazing height, feparated by confiderable plains, and fometimes by impaffible woods. This angle of the old world feems the part of a vast continent, where we trace no veftiges of a former fea, whofe mountains are not compofed of marine productions, but confift of that primæval ftone, whofe exiftence is anterior to a deluge; or whofe texture is fo firm, as to be incapable of any admixture with the contents of its deftructive waters. Yet thefe hills feem to be yielding to the continued action of a boisterous element; and, instead of rifing from the fea, the land

land at the Cape is rather falling into it. We shall conclude this account of the country, by a meteorological hiftory of the weather, during the fummer months of this fouthern hemif phere.

During the first half of May the thermometer kept fluctu ating between 53 and 63 degrees; and during the latter half, between 50 and 58, excepting on the 27th of this month, when it was at the lowest, or 491, although the day was clear and the fun fhone. The rainy days in this month were the 11th, 12th, 15th, 16th, 30th; and among thefe the three first named were the worst, and accompanied with tempeftuous north-weft winds; fo that when I paffed Zout Rivier on the 11th, the water was no higher than my horfe's knees; but when I repaffed it on the 15th, the water had rifen fo high, in confequence of the rain and tide, as to reach up to my faddle.

In the month of June the thermometer was between 54 and 60. There was a fall either of rain or fnow on the 1, 2d, 3d, 4th, 14th, 27th, and fo on to the 31ft inclufively. Befides thefe, there were a few other cloudy days, attended with a high wind; but the remainder resembled our fine fummer days in Sweden. On the 3d, it rained very violently, when it happened that a quantity of water which, in the preceding days, had been collected on the mountain, burft its way down to the town, and filled the canals there, at the fame time overflowing fome of the freets; fo that for feveral minutes, it rofe to the height of two or three feet against the houses. It likewife washed away a fmall wall belonging to a stone houfe, and carried it under the building, at the fame time rushing into divers cellars.'

In July, by reafon of fome intervening affairs that hindered me, I obferved the ftate of the weather only till the 19th; during that time, the thermometer kept between 54 and 59 degrees. The rainy days were the 6th, 7th, 8th, 11th, 12th; clouds without rain on the 3d, 9th, 10th, 13th, and 14th.'

There are fome fubfequent obfervations refpecting the weather; but, as this is the moft connected account, and the inftrument by which it was cbferved was afterwards loft, we have the greatest dependence on what we have felected.

If we advance to the animated inhabitants of this district, we fhall find many curious remarks, and entertaining relations. Africa is the native dominion of the lion; and, in its defarts, he reigns with an uncontroled tyranny. It is infested by the leopard, the tyger, the more fubtile hyena, and the devouring wolf. Where man, the more artful defpot, has extended his dominions, thefe native ravagers gradually difappear, and retire to thick woods, or inacceffible caves. Yet thefe deftructive enemies are not wholly ufelelefs: the vegetable world would be devoured, and the earth become one vaft fruitless defart, if the herbivorous animals, the defined food of man,

increased without limits, where man had not fettled. The lion and the tyger restore the equilibrium, by the destruction of the milder animals; but thefe, again, will not eat bones, and feldom carcafes. The wolf and the hyena then fucceed; and what escapes them is devoured by different infects; fo that fucceffive crops are preferved on the earth, and the air kept free from a poisonous exhalation.-Such is the wisdom of Providence, to produce the best effects from apparently the moft fatal caufes! and fo blind is man, to doubt of its mercy and goodness, because he fees through a glafs darkly, because he perceives but one link of that vaft chain, which extends from earth to heaven!

The tyger-wolf, the spotted hyena of Mr. Pennant (History of Quadrupeds, N° 149, page 250), is a fingular beast, and very little known.

The night, or the dusk of the evening only, is the time in which these animals feek their prey, after which they are used to roam about both separately and in flocks. But one of the most unfortunate properties of this creature is, that it cannot keep its own counsel. The language of it cannot eafily be taken down upon paper; however, with a view to make this fpecies of wolf better known than it has been hitherto, I fhall obferve, that it is by means of a found fomething like the following, aauae, and fometimes ooao, yelled out with a tone of defpair, (at the interval of fome minutes between each howl,) that nature obliges this, the moft voracious animal in all Africa, to difcover itfelf, juft as it does the most venemous of all the American ferpents, by the rattle in its tail, itself to warn every one to avoid its mortal bite. This fame rattle fnake would feem, in confequence of thus betraying its own defigns, and of its great inactivity, (to be as it were nature's ftep-child,) if, according to many credible accounts, it had not the wonderous propertyof charming its prey by fixing its eye upon it. The like is affirmed alfo of the tiger-wolf. This creature it is true, is obliged to give information against itself; but on the other hand, is actually poffeffed of the peculiar gift of being enabled, in fome measure, to imitate the cries of other animals; by which means this arch-deceiver is fometimes lucky enough to beguile and attract calves, foals, lambs, and other animals. As to the howlings of this creature, they are, in fact, as much the natural confequences of hunger, as gaping is of a difpofition to fleep; and as the flowing of the faliva, or the water coming into the mouth, is of the fight of fome delicacy, which excites the appetite. There muft, indeed, be fome phyfical caufe for this. The very hollowness of the found, or fome other quality of it which I cannot well defcribe, induces me to conjecture, that it proceeds from the emptiness of the ftomach. In the mean

while, that a difpofition to this yelling is abfolutely implanted in the animal by nature, I am apt to conclude from the inftance of a young tiger-wolf that I saw at the Cape, which, though it had been brought up tame from a whelp by a Chinese refident there, and was then chained up, was faid nevertheless to be filent in the day time, but very frequently in the night (being then probably hungry) was heard to emit the yelling noise peculiar to its kind.'

This power of imitating other voices was known to the ancients, though generally disbelieved by the lefs credulous, and fometimes fceptical moderns. We are glad to find it fup. ported by our author's authority; and those who examine Mr. Pennant's article, which we have purposely referred to, will fee alfo the foundation of another opinion, that the hyæna was able to change its fex.

Among the quadrupeds of this fouthern promontory we find too an apparently infignificant animal, but one capable of deftroying the fyftems of the philofopher, and the theories of the fpeculatift, viz the viverra putorius. This is an animal of North America, and not to be found, as Buffon has pofitively afferted, in the fouthern parts of the old world. He has afferted it, not from examination, but because he would allow no animals to America, which could not be supposed to migrate through the strait between the two continents eastward of Siberia, This is an additional argument to those which we lately produced, in our review of Mr. Pennant's Artic Zoology,' refpecting the improbability of the new world being peopled from the old. We fincerely wish, with our author, that Mr. Buffon, and we may add other naturalifts, would be contented with the contemplation of nature, ' which is never without its ufe, without endeavouring to lay down univerfal laws for her.'

We must pursue this very entertaining and useful narrative in another article.

Medical Sketches. Part I. By Richard Pew, Member of the Royal Society at Edinburgh. 8vo. 2s. 6d.

THIS

Bew.

HIS little volume is to be enlarged by fucceffive publications, under the fame title; and we fhall follow, with pleasure, the improving hints of a young, but active mind. If, in the first part, we perceive much theory; and too extenfive quotations, we hope, in the fucceeding ones, to diftinguish that careful found observation, which can alone illuftrate the natural hiftory of the body in a morbid state. The

Sketch

ketch before us is not deficient in this refpect; but those which fucceed may be more abundantly fupplied with it.

'The first fubject is epilepfy, of which the remote causes, affigned by Dr. Pew, are perhaps too numerous, and a little too redundant. Inequality of the bones of the head,' and preternatural tuberofities,' are the fame in their effects. Of this effect from inflammation,' we have no evidence in fact; and acrimony' is a vague idea, and requires more explanation; in reality it must be reduced to fomething elfe, before we can acknowlege it as a caufe of epilepfy The proximate caufe of the difeafe is more exact. It is founded on the nervous pathology of Dr. Cullen, and is not very different from his opinion. To this, fome cafes which occurred to the author, and others compiled from different obfervers, are added. The fubject is concluded by farther obfervations on fenfibility and irritability, which are very ingenious.

On the fubject of fever, he endeavours to oppose the opinion of the periodical revolution of the difeafe, depending on the diurnal one of the conftitution, because intermittents occur at every different hour. But this is not quite exact; for their general tendency is fixed, and they are only changed in confequence of fome irregularity in diet, or fome effect of medicine. We fee the regular exacerbation of remittents and continued fevers, ftill more diftin&ly and accurately. We allow that fevers, inflead of anticipating or poftponing paroxyfms, have fometimes a fhorter interval; but we have frequently feen the former, when on examination it appeared more ftrictly an anticipating paroxyfm than our author fufpects; for it has been brought on by irregularity in diet. Befides, the greater number of inftances establish the general rule, and that is clearly in favour of fuch paroxyfms, independent of irregularity. We refer our author' only to the changes from a remittent to a continued fever.

In the proximate cause of fever, Dr. Pew fuppofes a stimulating caufe, acting ultimately on the brain, and the shivering to be the effort of nature to preferve fo effential an organ. We cannot enlarge on this subject, but shall only remark, on the one hand, that the very peculiar nature of febrile debility has occafioned great errors in those who have opposed the Cullenian doctrine; and on the other, that perhaps it would be materially affifted, as a caufe of fever, by its being fuppofed owing to a morbid matter actually prefent. The arguments in fupport of the opinion of our author are acute; but we think he is lefs fuccefsful in his attempt to fhow, that the double tertians may be ftyled an eighteen or thirty-hour in

ter