Our Author points out these methods in an ample and inftructive detail, comprehending the choice of new rams to cross the breed, the choice of paftures, the allowing the flocks to lead a free, wandering and favage life (as far as climate, foil, conveniency, and the nature and kind of the animal will permit), and a competent measure of knowledge in the hufbandman to correct the errors and prejudices of the fhepherd. Upon the whole, our Academician recommends the English method of managing fheep as the most eligible, and the best adapted to restore to the Flemings this lucrative brance of commerce, which the English and Spaniards carried away from them.This he often repeats with a certain degree of acrimony, or at least with a keen defire of making reprifals. This latter is allowable-the rival attempts of the English were lawful-the Flemish attempts to recover what they have loft are lawful alfo-for after all-charity. begins at home.

Memoir. Containing Hydraulic and Mineralogical Researches in the Districts of Tournay and Auftrian Hainault. By the ABBE D'EVERLANGE DE WITRY.

Memoir. Concerning the Medical Leech. By M. DU RONDEAU. The ample defcription of this animal, and the ingenious experiments made upon it with the air-pump, are interesting and curious.

ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATIONS made at Louvain. By Mr. PIGOTT, Fellow of the Royal Society of London, Correfpondent of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, &c. This Memoir contains Observations of the Satellites of Jupiter in order to afcertain the longitude of Louvain.

OBSERVATIONS of an Eclipfe of the Sun on the 24th of June. 1778, made at Bruffels. By the ABBE CHEVALIER,-at Paris in the obfervatory of the Marine, by M. MESSIER, member of the academies of Paris, London, Bruffels, &c.-At Bruffels, by the Baron de POEDERLEE.

OBSERVATIONS of Four Satellites of Jupiter, made at Paris at the Obfervatory of the Marine, during the Year 1777, with an excellent Achromatic Telescope of Three Feet and a Half, with Three Lenfes for the Object-glass, which magnified 120 times. By M. MESSIER.

Memoir. Concerning the poisonous Quality of Lead. By M. DE BEUNIE. There is nothing new in this Memoir to thofe that have even a fuperficial portion of medical knowledge; its perufal will, however, be useful to multitudes, as the generality are too little on their guard against the dangers with which the ufe of this imperfect metal, or of fubftances mixed with it, is attended. Boerhave, Henckel, Hoffman, Gaubius, and many more celebrated chemifts have loudly proclaimed the pernicious effects of lead, and reprefented it as containing a flow poifon,

fore us.

which is fo much the more dangerous, as neither its colour, fmell, nor tafte, admonish us of its noxious qualities, as copper does, by its green hue, its difagreeable odour, and its ftyptic favour. Examples, facts, and experiments, that leave no doubt concerning this ferious matter, are exhibited with the moft ftriking and frightful degree of evidence in the Memoir now beThe monsters who have made use of the litharge, or other preparations of lead, to dulcify the fmall Rhenifh wines, and prevent them from fouring, are here particularly ftigmatized, and Zeller's method of discovering this abominable practice, is particularly defcribed. The method is well known: it confifts in throwing ten or twelve drops of a compofition of yellow orpiment and quick-lime into a glafs of Rhenifh wine: if, on making this experiment, the wine changes its colour, and becomes fucceffively dark, reddish, brown, and black, this is an evident proof of its being adulterated by a preparation of lead.

Memoir. Concerning a Method of correcting the tinning of Copper Veffels in ufe at prefent, until fome other more proper Subftance for Kitchen Utenfils is fubftituted in its place. By the Abbé MARCI. The danger of ufing copper, without its being tinned, is sufficiently known, and the danger, though lefs, that the use of tinned veffels may be attended with, arifes from the mixture of a certain quantity of lead with the tin in the operation of tinning. The tinners pretend that this mixture is neceffary: our Author, therefore, propofes to correct it thus. He recommends the use of English block-tin alone for this operation. "When "the block-tin (fays he) is melted in a cone of iron, and left "to cool without fhaking it, the lead *, which is heavier than "the tin, will be precipitated to the bottom of the cone, and "thus a finer metal, lefs charged with lead, and confequently "less fufible, will be obtained. This method of tinning gives "the metal employed a purer white, from its being lefs charged "with lead it renders the tinning more folid by the removal "of a confiderable quantity of lead, which gives it too great a "tendency to fufion. A veffel thus tinned bears the heat of "the confectioner's oven without melting." Our Author enumerates other advantages of his method of tinning, and then defcribes the manual part of the operation:-but we proceed no farther, as we do not find (perhaps it may be our fault) in this Memoir the perfpicuity and precifion which the fubject requires. If our Author is fo convinced of the danger of lead, why does he not rather recommend tin, which has no mixture of that metal for the operation of tinning? The pewterers say that this

*We did not know that block tin had in it a mixture of lead: this is the cafe of the common tin which pewterers fometimes fell, and in which there is frequently as much lead as pure tip.

is

is not practicable,—and he has not proved the contrary. He tells us, indeed, that a pewterer at Bruffels has fucceeded perfectly in the new method, and offers to perform the operation in question with pure tin for a penny more than is paid for the ordinary method. To what quantity of work or materials this penny is fuperadded, we know not; nor does the Author tell us: but he tells us, that this man is dexterous at the business, and is capable of purifying the English block tin from a good part of the lead which has been added to it. So that, after all, we have ftill a portion of lead, even in our copper-veffels, which are tinned after the new method; and fince only a good part of the lead is removed, a good part of it may ftill remain.-Were all this clear and fatisfactory,—there is another point, which our Author has not touched, and which is nevertheless worthy of attention on this fubject, we mean the danger that may attend even the use of pure tin, if it be true (and M. Margraff has proved it to be fo), that it contains almost always more or lefs of an arfenical matter, proceeding from the ores in which it is found. Thefe generally contain arfenic, which, in the melting, eafily unites itself with the tin, and cannot be feparated from it without the greateft difficulty *.

Memoir. Concerning the fingular Generation of a kind of Gryllus (an Animal of the cricket or locuft kind), which is a new inftance of the Analogy between the Animal and Vegetable Claffes (or Reigns as the French call them). By the Count DE FRAULA. This animal (we mean the female) lays her eggs in a cod or hufk like that of pulfe or pease, and this circumftance conftitutes the analogy between this generation and that of pease and other vegetables.

A DISSERTATION, in which it is propofed to determine precifely the Port in which Julius Cæfar embarked for England, and the Port in England where he landed, as alfo the day when this happened. By the Abbé MANN. The refult of this Memoir, in which there is a rich display of erudition and critical acuteness, is, that Cæfar set out from Boulogne (Portus-iccius) at midnight, and came before Dover between nine and ten in the morning the 26th of August in the year 55 before the birth of Chrift, and paffing the Foreland landed at Deal, the day following before fun-rife. The merit of this Memoir does not confift in the difcovery of places of embarkation, and landing, different from thofe hitherto mentioned by hiftorians, but in deciding and afcertaining a point that has been obftinately and heavily debated, and delivering it from the uncertainty and ambiguity in which it

M. Margraff has alfo proved, that all the vegetable acids act on tin, and diffolve a part of it. See MEMOIRS of Berlin for the year

was

was involved by a variety of opinions and a cloud of philological, but jarring and difcordant witneffes.

Memoir relative to the Hiftory of King Zwentibolche, PrinceSovereign of Lotharingia, or of the Kingdom of Lothier, drawn fram the Authors and Records of that Time, in which also there is an Account of the Charters and Diplomas that were iffued out during the Reign of that Prince. By M. DE HESDIN.

RESEARCHES undertaken with a view to difcover the Theory of Language. By the Count DE FRAULA. It must be acknowledged, that this learned investigator has not built a castle in the air in forming his theory; for his voyages through the motley region of language, to feek both foundations and materials for his edifice, have been, as it would feem, laborious and not unfuccessful. As to the edifice we cannot fee it very clearly, for the weather is particularly mifty in that quarter, and the rays of evidence undergo refractions that cannot but render us fomewhat diffident of appearances. It is, indeed, amazing to think what pains this Academician has taken. Finding the English, Flemish, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian and German languages to be dialects of the Teutonic, and perceiving that the ancient Moefogothic, Suigothic, Anglo-faxon, Sicambrian, Greek, Latin, and all the modern languages of Europe, were reducible to the fame ftandard, and derived their origin, in a manner refpectively, more or lefs remote from the language of the ancient Scythians (the first colonies that peopled Europe), he has examined all these languages, and afcertained their affinities. This is not all his curiofity led him to trace the Scythian language to its origin, and for this purpose he studied with Herculean labour, the languages of Perfia, Turkey, Hungary and Tartary; the Arabic and Hebrew did not escape `his researches, and he perused with attention all that M. Anquetil has written concerning the Zend and Pehlvi.

Enriched thus with ample materials, our very learned Academician unfolds his theory, preceded by fifteen axioms, from which he draws a variety of confequences, tending to prove and illuftrate it. For this curious part of his Memoir, we must refer the Reader to the work itself. To give, however, fome idea of this theory, it will be fufficient to obferve, that in a table, which ocupies 53 quarto pages, our Author points out the progrefs of language with refpect to the nomenclature of the term that expreffes a dwelling, and the application of that term, with its variations, to different kinds of dwellings, and to objects that have an affinity to that idea. For example, 1ft, From the Hebrew word hets (a tree) all the others proceed: the first covering that man had, even in Paradise, was the fhadow of a tree, and all the other coverings which he procured afterwards, were only fo many fubftitutions to this. 2dly, New names were not in

ver

vented for new dwellings. 3dly, The name of the smalleft dwellings was applied indifcriminately to the largest. 4thly, Dreffes and utenfils were confidered as kinds of dwellings, and were fo denominated. To illuftrate this, the word hets is exhibited in its propagation through 75 languages, and the affinities of its fignifications are pointed out in the vaft table already mentioned. Our Author thinks that the periods and countries, in which the particular inflexions and variations of the name of a dwelling took place, may poffibly be discovered by a second table, which he proposes publishing at the end of his examination of the geographical names of cities.We hope this second table will be more correctly printed than that now before us, to which are fubjoined ten pages of prefs errors.

We fhall not pretend to appretiate the merit or utility of the. kind of erudition that is lavished with fuch an able and laborious hand in this Memoir, and in the analogical table; but we cannot help expreffing our furprise at a multitude of the pretended derivations which the latter exhibits. We followed hets with pleasure through a few pages, where we found it extending to a confiderable diverfity of analogical objects, without lofing much of its effential and primitive form: we followed it with patience when even its children and farther pofterity had loft almoft all the features of their parent; but when, proceeding farther, we found hets represented as propagating (by substitutions, interpofitions, different prounciations of confonants, &c.) keichen, cuts, kapp, ceud-wyl, kuckz-ka, klo-bouck, cum, pot-wika, pobifuo, doos, tobb-eken, and fome thousands of other fuch diffimilar and heterogeneous terms, we could not help looking upon these either as fuppofititious children, or monftrous births. We may, however, be mistaken.

Ge

SUMMARY REFLECTIONS on the formation of a Plan for a neral History of the Auftrian Netherlands. By the MARQUIS of CHASTELER. The noble writer difcuffes, with judgment, in this Memoir, the following questions: at what period the hiftory of the Auftrian Netherlands ought to commence ? -Whether it be adviseable to compose a particular hiftory of each province, or to comprehend the whole in one general hiftory? Whether it be expedient to treat feparately the points relative to the constitution, manners, customs and religion of the Netherlands, or to enlarge on thefe important objects occafionally, and in their connection with the course of events?

AN HISTORICAL AND PHYSICAL Memoir concerning the Orichalcum of the Ancients, to which are prefixed fome Obfervations on the Lapis Erofus of Pliny. By M. DE LAUNAY. Our Author here corrects an error of Pliny, who, taking the native Cadmia or calamine for a copper ore, obferves, that, in his time, this metal was faid to be found in the Belgic provinces. He also

proves,