of discovery or survey along the coasts of Brazil. They arrived at the island of St. Catherine, the first mark of their operations, on the 9th of May; and from that spot they began to point along all the shores, islands, rocks, sand banks, and every dangerous passage, as far as to St. Salvador, where they anchored on the 16th of August. They have hereby collected all the materials requisite for the construction of a new set of charts. On their entrance, June 6, into Rio Janeiro, M. Roussin was received with much distinction and cordiality by the court. His Portuguese Majesty expressed to him in public, that he should with pleasure encourage an expedition, the object of which was interesting to every nation; and added, that he should give orders that the vessels of M. Roussin should be entertained in all the ports of his dominions with suitable marks of attention to a mission so useful in its tendency. Every where he has found these orders executed. M. Roussin was expected to spend about six weeks at St. Salvador, to refit his ships, to refresh and recruit the crews, &c. till the sun had passed the zenith, when the observations would assume a greater degree of precision, and he should be enabled to draw up charts of 400 leagues of land and coasts that he had visited. By the end of October, he calculated on pursuing his route to the north, to complete his survey of the shore of Brazil.

--

English Expedition to Africa. From the latest information, it seems that the expedition, under the command of Major Gray, on whom the direction developed after the death of Major Peddie, has returned to Galam, on the Senegal, after a most harassing journey through the country of the Foolado. Mr. Docherd, the surgeon attached to the expedition, had, with a few individuals, however, proceeded onwards to Bammakoo, in Bambarra; from whence accounts have been received from him, dated twelve months since, expressing his hopes of procuring the necessary permission to proceed farther. Markets, it seems, were held twice every week at Sandsanding and Yamina, where provisions were reasonable, and every sort of European merchandise in great demand; especially articles of finery for the dresses of the females, who are fond of showy colours. Among other things were Manchester prints in great abundance, which seemed to meet a ready sale, and which must have been conveyed by the caravan from Morocco across the great desert. Lieutenant Lyon, of the Royal Navy, who was the friend and fellow-traveller of the late Mr. Ritchie, is appointed to succeed that gentleman as British Vice-Consul at Mourzouck, the capital of Fezzan, for the purpose of facilitating and attempting discoveries. By the Magnet, which left Cape Coast on the 23d of March, we learn that Mr. Dupuis had proceeded to Cormassie, to enter upon his functions as Consul at the court of the King of Ashantee, and had arrived in safety, and been well received.

Interior of Africa.-The Marquess d'Etourville, who is at present in Africa on matters of private business, intends, on his return to France, to publish some very interesting notices relative to natural history; a science wherein he has made numberless discoveries, and such as well deserve the attention of the learned. He has recently forwarded certain memoranda which he made during his long captivity, of which the following is a very brief analysis:-M. d'Etourville resided some time in the Isle of St. Thomas, situated under the equator, at the extremity of the Gulf of Guinea, whence he occasionally made excursions into the western regions of Africa. In one of these, he fortunately cured a dangerous wound under which the Manicongo, a prince of the country,

was suffering. Having thereby obtained the favour of the prince, he attended him in a journey more than four hundred leagues in the interior of the continent. In the course of peregrination, M. d'Etourville traced on a map the western lines of the Lake Aqualinda; respecting which, till then, no information had been obtained. He likewise ascertained, with precision, the geographical route of the Zaire, with its sources, and the lakes it forms in its progress. In a journey which he undertook in 1800, he was taken prisoner by a wandering tribe of Gigas, who are cannibals. Whatever common fame has reported of their ferocity is no exaggeration. They make. war to devour their prisoners; and it is certain, as Duppa relates, that human flesh is sold in their markets. The blood which they draw from the veins of their living victims is to them a delicious beverage. M. d'Etourville remained fifteen months among these barbarians. All his companions were devoured; and he must have shared the same fate, had he not been so fortunate as to cure a broken arm of the favourite mistress of the chief of the horde. Compelled to be in the train of this troop of Gigas, he ranged through an extent of continent from the country of the Auriseans to Hulla, when he escaped from their hands. He then proceeded to a province south of the Western Mountains of the Moon, at a small distance from what he considers as the real sources of the Nile. Hereabouts he fixes the empire of Droglodo, unknown at present, but far more civilized than the circumjacent regions. The politics of the government, according to his account, bear a strong resemblance to the Chinese; and the civilization of the Droglodians must be traced to a very remote source. The merchants of Droglodo go once a year, authorized by their government, to meet the Abyssinian merchants in a narrow passage of the mountain Narcar. They convey' thither gold dust, musk, pearls, precious stones, ivory, gums, and Ethiopian slaves, in exchange for which they receive shawls, Indian stuffs, Turkey carpets, and salt. In this country, M. d'Etourville remained about ten years; and though in a state of slavery, he had many opportunities of noticing the manners of the people and their antiquities. His different observations have led him to conclude, that the Abyssinians, the Nubians, and the ancient Egyptians, who built the pyramids, were all originally from Droglodo, which he conceives to have been the country inhabited in ancient times by the Troglodites. M. d'Etourville returned to France about the time of the re-establishment of the Bourbons; but set out again in 1814, to realize and secure some goods and property in Africa, whence he is expected shortly to return, when the full account of his travels will most probably appear. We shall then be able to pronounce judgment upon the probable veracity of a narrative whose announcement has about it sufficient of the marvellous to awake suspicion.

French Travellers.-M. the Count de Forbin, author of the voyage to the Levant, has set out for Sicily, to visit the antiquities of that island. He takes with him M. Huyot, as designer, who had been the companion of his former voyage.

M. Gamba, a merchant, who has long resided in Paris, is about to proceed on a tour to Asia, and the banks of the Caspian Sea, to investigate various objects of a scientific and astronomical character.

Russian Expedition. — M. the Count de Romanzof is fitting out, at his own expense, an expedition, which is to set out from Tehouktches, so as to pass over the solid ice from Asia to America, to the north of Behring's Strait, at the point where Cook and Kotzebue were stopped. The same gentleman is also fitting out an expedition, which is to ascend one of the rivers that disembogue on the western coast, in

Russian America, in order to penetrate into the unknown tracts that lie between Icy Cape and the river Mackenzie.

Proposed Expedition to the Interior of Africa.-Mr. Bowdich has issued a prospectus, inviting the institutions and individuals of Europe, by subscribing for shares of £5. each, to raise the means of another mission into Africa, under his direction, for the purpose of advancing our knowledge of that continent. He says that £700. would be sufficient to ensure success. In a correspondence with the late Mr. Park, published in the fifth number of the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, it is remarked, as a subject of regret, that no attempt has been made to carry on these researches by means of the natives. A sufficient number of African youth might be educated in the various branches of learning suited to their intended duties, whether as schoolmasters, missionaries, traders, or naturalists; and, from their colour, constitution, and language, would be exempted from most of the difficulties that baffle the exertions of the European adventurers.

Extraordinary Surgical Operation.-A most surprising operation in surgery has lately been executed by M. Richerand, by taking away a part of the ribs and pleura. The patient was himself a medical man, and not ignorant of the danger he ran in this operation being had recourse to; but he also knew that his disorder was otherwise incurable. He was attacked with a cancer on the internal surface of the ribs and of the pleura, which continually produced enormous fungosities, that had been in vain attempted to be repressed by the actual cautery. M. Richerand was obliged to lay the ribs bare, to saw away two, to detach them from the pleura, and to cut away all the cancerous parts of that membrane. As soon as he had made the opening, the air rushing into the chest, occasioned, the first day, great suffering and distressing shortness of breath; the surgeon could touch and see the heart through the pericardium, which was as transparent as glass, and could assure himself of the total insensibility of both. Much serous fluid flowed from the wound as long as it remained open; but it filled up slowly, by means of the adhesion of the lungs with the pericardium, and the fleshy granulations that were formed in it. At length the patient got so well, that on the 27th day after the operation, he could not resist the desire of going to the Medicinal School to see the fragments of the ribs that had been taken from him; and in three or four days afterwards, he went about his ordinary business. The success of M. Richerand is the more important, because it will authorize, in other cases, enterprises, which, according to received opinions, would appear impossible; and we shall be less afraid of penetrating into the interior of the chest. This eminent surgeon and anatomist even hopes, that by opening the pericardium itself, and using proper injections, we may cure a disease that has hitherto been always fatal, the dropsy of that cavity.

Duplex Typograph.-An ingenious mechanical invention has lately been completed, which opens a new and inexhaustible source of information to those who are afflicted by the privation of sight. It is called a Duplex Typograph, and enables the blind to receive and communicate ideas by means of letters, upon a principle adapted to the sense of feeling. The apparatus is compact and portable, and the system so simple and intelligible, that it may be acquired by the blind in a very short space of time, and its application is instantly comprehended by others. The inventor is Mr. J. Purkis, brother of a well-known musical character, who, by the aid of a skilful oculist, obtained the blessings of sight at the age of thirty, after having been blind from the time of his birth. It is right

to add, that Dr. Edmund Fry has printed a sheet, on whica the letters are raised on the paper, and capable of being felt and read by the finger's ends.

Antidote for Vegetable Poisons.-M. Drapiez, a continental chemist, has ascertained, by numerous experiments, that the fruit of the fevillea cordifolia is a powerful antidote against vegetable poisons. This opinion has been long maintained by naturalists, but we are not aware that it was ever before verified by experiments made on purpose in any parts of Europe. M. Drapiez poisoned dogs with rhus toxicodendron, hemlock, and nur vomica. All those that were left to the effect of the poison died, but those to whom the fruit of the fevillea cordifolia was administered recovered completely, after a short illness. To see whether this antidote would act in the same way, when applied internally, to wounds in which vegetable poisons had been introduced, he took two arrows which had deen dipped in the juice of manchenilli, and slightly wounded with them two young cats. To one of these he applied a poultice, composed of the fruit of the fevillea cordifolia, while the other was left without any application. The former suffered no inconvenience, except from the wound, which speedily healed; while the other, in a short time, fell into convulsions, and died. It would appear, from these experiments, that the opinions entertained of the virtues of this fruit in the countries where it is produced is well founded; it would deserve, in consequence, to be introduced into our pharmacopoeias as an important medicine; but it is necessary to know, that it loses it virtues if kept longer than two years after it has been gathered.

Substitute for Peruvian Bark.-M. Re, Professor of the Materia Medica, of the Veterinary School of Turin, has discovered in a common plant a real succedaneum for Peruvian bark. This plant is found in Piedmont, and principally in marshy places, as if Providence had intended to place the remedy by the side of the evil. It is the Lycopus Europaus of Linnæus, and called by the peasants of Piedmont the herb of China. The trials and experience of M. Re give every confidence in its efficacy.

Ausculation. This singular mode of discovering the various disorders of the chest by percussion, was, we believe, first suggested by Avenbrugger, a physician of Vienna, who published a work on the subject, since translated by M. Corvisart. A memoir has lately been presented to the French Academy by M. Laennec, detailing the various modes of employing this discovery. Among others, he recommends the use of a tube, with thick sides, or a cylinder pierced along its axis with a narrow aperture. This, on being applied to the chest of a person in good health who is speaking or singing, produces a sort of trembling noise, more or less distinct; but if an ulcer exists in the lungs, a very singular phenomenon happens. The voice of the sick person can no longer be heard by the ear at liberty, the whole of the sound passing along the aperture of the cylinder to the observer. Commissioners, appointed by the French Academy, have verified the experiment in various cases of consumption. Alleged Discovery of the Original Poems of Ossian.-The following is an extract of a letter from Belfast, dated August 4:On opening a vault where stood the cloisters of the old Catholic Abbey, at Connor, founded by St. Patrick, the workmen discovered an oaken chest, of curious and ancient workmanship, whose contents, on being opened, proved to be a translation of the Bible into the Irish character, and several other manuscripts in that language. The box was immediately taken to the minister of Connor, the Rev. Dr. Henry, who unfortunately did not understand the aboriginal language; and he sent it to Dr. Macdonald, of Belfast, who

soon discovered the MSS. to be the original of the Poems of Ossian, written at Connor, by an Irish Friar, named Terence O'Neal, a branch of the now noble family of the Earl O'Neal, of Shane's Castle, in the year 1463. The translations by Macpherson, the Scotchman, appear to be very imperfect; this is accounted for by the Scotch Gaelic language having no character in which to preserve their poems which they had borrowed from the sister country. The Irish translation of the Poem, however, by Baron Harold, who dedicated the work to Edmund Burke, is nearer the original; for the wily Scot, Macpherson, to give them a greater air of antiquity, omitted all allusions to the religious subjects which the originals possess. The fixing of the scenes of the Poem at and round Connor, by the Antiquarian Campbell, who travelled here a few years ago, gave rise to the digging and searching about the old Abbey and Castle, which has thus happily terminated in making, against his will, the Land of the Harp,' the birth-place of the author of the elegant Poems of Ossian. I conclude in the words of Smollett-Mourn, hapless Caledonian, mourn!'"

Prize for a Treatise on Eastern Languages.—Count Volney has bequeathed, in his will, a sum amounting to a perpetual rent of 1200 francs, (£50. sterling,) as a prize to be adjudged by the institute to the author of the best treatise on Eastern languages, and especially on the simplification of their characters.

·Progress of Literature and Civilization in Egypt.—The Pacha of Egypt has sent several youths to Milan to study the sciences and arts of Europe, under the direction of Sig. Morosi. These young Egyptians are charged with the duty of translating the Gazette of Milan into Arabic. By this means the Pacha will have the news of Europe, as well political as literary &c. transmitted to him with all speed and convenience: if he would also reprint this intelligence at Cairo, for the information of the Egyptian people, there is no saying how soon Egypt might regain its former eminence for letters, arts, and liberal studies, as well as for commerce, wealth, and abundance.

LIST OF NEW PUBLICATIONS.

AGRICULTURE AND RURAL ECONOMY.

An Inquiry into the Causes of the Progressive Depreciation of Agricultural Labour in Modern Times; with Suggestions for its Remedy. By J. Barton. 8vo. 4s.

A Report made to the Workington Agricultural Society. By the President, J. C. Curwen, Esq. M. P. 8vo. 5s.

ANTIQUITIES AND TOPOGRAPHY.

A Picture of Margate, and of its Vicinity. By W. C. Oulton, Esq.

8vo. 9s.

An Account of the Ancient and Modern State of the City of Lichfield. 8vo. 5s.

History and Antiquities of the Metropolitan Church at York. By John Britton, with 35 Plates. 4to. 31. 15s.

History and Antiquities of Evesham. By E. J. Rudge, Esq. M.A. 12mo. 5s. 6d.