and returns of crops in ordinary culture." These two things are, Sir, as diftinct, nay, as diftant from each other as any two can be, wiz.. as you are from a grateful friend or a just adversary.

It is to no purpose that you talk of the quality of corn, and the natural connection of quality with price. All this we readily allow. It is to no purpose that you affure us "that bad land, or badly tilled, will have crops proportionably bad in quantity and quality;" which alfo we freely admit. It is to no purpose that you affert, " experiments evincing this truth are as useful as those which evince that good land, and well tilled, will produce crops proportionably good in quantity and quality." To this laft affertion we may juftly oppofe, that thefe former experiments are not so useful, because not fo needed; every bad farmer making thefe experiments every year. But if we fhould allow this affertion, we muft add, that fuch experiments, if ufeful, must be kept separate, and not fuffered to enter into averages of regular culture, to confound all reasonable deductions, merely for the fake of adding a few pages to two bulky volumes, and a few pence to their price.

But now you aim a clinching blow! " My averages have nothing to do with national prices, and my experiments have no relation to this nation or country, any more than to the moon." Indeed, Sir, you force one to fmile! While you bring into your averages the prices and effects of extravagant cultures, either miferably poor or ridiculously expensive; while many of your experiments are fuch as you were pre-convinced could never anfwer the end proposed, fuch parts of your book are not worth one farthing for your friends on earth, but they may be for thofe in the moon!

But if, Sir, you would foberly dafh out of your book, for the next edition, all extravagant experiments, or at least confused averages, the reft might answer many important purpo es, when the refult of your experiments, as to the prices of labour and provisions, are compared with national ones.

It is defired, by every true politician, to know the quantity of our home confumption of corn compared with the exported, and the general expences and prices, in order to determine rightly the expediency of exportation with or without the bounty, and the neceflity of inclofures, &c. Now in all these, and many other points, he must have recourfe to general national accounts: yet he well knows in what manner these are collected, and how uncertain they are. He must therefore with for books of authenticated experiments, to confirm or correct general national accounts of prices. Books of experiments in agriculture, unless thus adapted, are of no ufe to the readers; but are, on the contrary, an impofition on them.

What is it, Sir, to the Public, whether A. Young, Esq; gain or lofe 1200 guineas by a fett of experiments, unless they can be enabled by them (allowance made for difference of circumftances) to gain or fave fuch a fum, or in proportion to their experiments?

Really, Sir, we forgive and pity your want of temper on this fubject. Confufion about averages is the only great error in the manage. ment of your Course, and, doubtlefs, a confiderable deduction from its merit but, without treachery to the Publie, we could not pafs it unnoticed. We pointed to it as uninvidioufly as poffible; and if you had given up its defence, you would have confulted your true

intereft.

intereft. But you were hurried by paffion to your only remaining refource, viz. grofs abufe!

One of your pleasanteft efforts is, your challenge to us, " to produce a fett of experiments in agriculture better than your Course, and to affign our reafons why they are fo." And you engage to fhew prefently, that others are praised for what is condemned in you, and vice verfa. This challenge exactly resembles a Tourist Mountebank'sdefiance to his regularly bred medicinal brethren.

However, to check your vanity, we accept the challenge, and we name the experiments of Mr. Arbuthnot, lately published by his amanuenfis A. Young, Efq; and we give thefe reafons for preferring them to your Course:

ift, He retails no ridiculous experiments which his reason assured him before-hand could not poffibly fucceed.

2dly, He draws no abfurd averages of things that are abfolutely incompatible.

3dly, He gives not his experiments with the prolixity of your Courfe.

4thly, He levies no tax on the Public to reimburse him for his failing experiments.

5thly, He does not judge of his experiments, thus published, that they are as fit for the moon as for this world: whence fome men may think of a fubfcription there for a new edition.

In fhort, we were content with 'Squire Young till we knew Mr. Arbuthnot; as we are thankful, in a dark night, for a farthing candle, yet never think of comparing it to the fun.

And now, Sir, perform your boast!

Indeed, Sir, fuch hypercritics as you, provoke no emotions in men of fenfe who are the objects of your fcurrility, but contempt and compaffion; the former when you are confidered as the Author of the Appendix to the Eaftern Tour, the latter when confidered as the Author of the Tour itself.

If you retain enough of your school Latin to understand the poet's picture,

turpiter imum

Definet in pifcem mulier formofa fupernè,”

and will honeftly apply it to the four volumes of the Eastern Tour and its Appendix, you may thank us for the compliment.

Such attacks as yours, sir, on the Monthly Reviewers, can have no other effect than to confirm that favourable opinion which the Public has long and juftly formed of its conductors, viz. that they pay fuch regard to justice and candour, that even the moft fcurrilous abufe cannot force them to deny juft praife.

If we were indeed, Sir, your foes, as you affect to apprehend, we would provoke you to tagg fuch an Appendix as that which you have given to the Eastern Tour, to every one of your works. But as we are, even now, among your well withers, we advife your book feller to fave you from yourfelf, your and his worst enemy.

We have this once aufwered your grofs abufe with fuch calmness as must convince the impartial, that it is very easy to wipe off the dirt you throw on us: but, if you refolve to fcold on, we must (in imitation of a fenfible rustic custom) erect a broom, as a fufficient

object

object towards which the Farmer may direct his petulant declamation. We are, Sir,

Your ill ufed Encomiafts,

The Reviewers of the Agricultural Department
in the Monthly Review.

P. S. Common fenfe dictates that, as we have behaved genteelly toward you, in the Monthly Review, and only diffented from you in one material point in your two large volumes, the real motive to the fcurrility with which you have treated us, cannot be a fincere perfuafion, on your part, that we are your foes. Your inadvertency, however, having caufed you to drop the mafque juft before you dropped your pen, we are no longer at a lofs to difcover your defign; and, at a more proper feafon, we may compliment you upon C.

TH

it.

HE fhort hiftorical account of the origin of a modern theory formed to explain the nature of Evaporation; which we were lately induced to draw up, in confequence of a fimilar hypothefis having been prefented to the public as a new idea proper to one of the writers in a late mifcellaneous publication, has been the occafion of our having been favoured with a letter on the subject of that article, from Mr. Ja. Hill, furgeon at Dumfries; who there claims the right of being confidered as the first publifher,' at least, of this hypothefis in Britain or ireland.' Though we cannot exhibit the letter-writer's proofs at large, we fhall fo far promote his intention in addreffing us upon this occafion, as briefly to obferve that the priority for which he contends is founded on a paper fent by him in 1763, and confequently before the publication of Dr. Hamilton's theory, to the editors of the Medical Museum; and which was published in the 72d number of the 2d volume of that work. Our prefent correfpondent there confiders Air,' as the univerfal menftruum,' by which animals, vegetables, and moft part of minerals, but especially mercury and water, are diffolved. We fhall only add that, though we readily admit the letter-writer's claim of priority of publication, the reafons fpecified in this letter do not appear to us fufficient, to induce us to adopt with equal readiness his conclufion-that Dr. H. moft probably derived the hint of this theory from the aforesaid paper in the Museum: as we think it requires no great stretch of candour or charity, to fuppofe that the contents of the faid paper might then, and may ftill, be as perfectly unknown to Dr. H. as they certainly were to the writer of the hiftorical account abovementioned. -After all, Dr. Franklin's paper on this fubject was written, prior to both thefe publications; and M. Le Roi's, published long before

all of them.

In the account of Mr. White's paper on the Rife of Vapours, published in the fecond volume of Georgical Effays. ee Monthly Review for November last, page 394.

ERR A TUM.

B---y,

The reader is requested to correct the following tranfpofition, in the account of Father Beccaria's experiments, in our laft Appendix, page 556. line 12; where, for this it does, in the common manner, even after it has been discharged.'-he is defired to read, this it does, even after it has been discharged in the common manner,'

1

THE

MONTHLY REVIEW,

For MARCH, 1772.

ART. I. CONTINUATION of the PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS; from the Review for December laft, Page 455.

PAPERS relating to NATURAL HISTORY.

Article 1. An Account of a Journey to Mount Etna, in a Letter from the Honourable William Hamilton, his Majefty's Envoy Extraordinary at Naples, to Matthew Maty, M. D. Sec. R.S.

TH

HE public owe to the very intelligent Author of this article many curious and interefting obfervations, relative to the eruptions and natural hiftory of Mount Vesuvius, which have been published in the preceding volumes of the Tranfactions *. The prefent paper contains an account of a vifit which he made in the year 1769 to another, probably more ancient, and ftill more confiderable volcano; that of Mount Etna. He had here the fatisfaction of meeting with many convincing proofs of the juftice of his former opinion, concerning the origin and formation of very confiderable mountains, merly in confequence of large and frequently repeated fubterraneous explofions. The cavities which muft neceflarily be formed in the earth, by the immenfe quantities of matter thrown up by volcanos, are no where, perhaps, fo numerous and remarkable as in the neighbourhood of Etna. In its lower region, a new mountain was thrown up by the terrible eruption in 1669, which is no less than half a mile perpendicular height, and at least three miles in circumference at its basis. At the foot of this new mountain, the Author, by means of a rope, defcended through a hole communicating with feveral of these cavities, branching out in variou, directions, and extending much farther and deeper than he chofe to venture.

See Monthly Review, vol. xxxix. December 1768, p. 418; vol. xlii. February 1770, p. 195; and vol. aliv. March 1771, p.

201.

VOL. XLVI.

N

One

One fingular reafon prevented him from profecuting this fubterraneous expedition. In those parts of the earth from which undoubtedly those fiery torrents formerly iffued forth, forming a river of melted lava 14 miles in length, and, in many parts, fix in breadth, which extended to the fea, and deftroyed part of Catania, there now rages the moft exceffive cold, accompanied with a violent wind, that frequently extinguifhed fome of the torches. Some of these cavities, which have been discovered in different parts of Etna, are now ufed as repofitories for fnow; and the whole iflands of Sicily and Malta are from thence fupplied with that article, deemed effentially neceffary in those climates.

In the second or middle region of Etna, which is covered and adorned with the most beautiful and majestic woods, are mountains, or fragments of mountains, on every fide, that have been thrown up by explosions of ancient date, fome of which are nearly as high as Mount Vefuvius. Now it is certain that a confiderable time is requifite to convert lava and ashes into a fubftance proper to fupport even the fmalleft plants. In the fpace of two or three miles round the mountain raised by the eruption in 1669, there are as yet not the leaft appearances of vegetation. The high antiquity therefore of the explosions, which have formerly ravaged this part of Etna, is very justly deduced by the Author from the present state of its furface and products; there being now a fufficient depth of vegetable mould over the lava to fupport the largeft oak, chefnut, and fir trees he ever faw any where. But the very ancient date of these eruptions is ftill farther afcertained from hiftorical information; from whence it appears that this part of Etna was celebrated for its timber, fo far back as the time of the tyrants of Syracufe. These ancient woods therefore grew on places either originally formed of lava and afhes, or at leaft formerly covered with thefe fubftances, in confequence of explofions which must have happened in times anterior to all history.

Our inquifitive Traveller, not fatisfied with exploring the lower, and this laft mentioned or middle region of this refpectable mountain,' where he pitched his tent for the night, attempted its fummit; and was gratified at fun rifing, after reaching and feating himself on its very highest point, with the fplendid view of an extenfive and beautiful landfcape that baffles all defcription. This apex, we fhould obferve, is the top of a smaller mountain, about a quarter of a mile perpendicular in height, and nine miles in circumference, which has been thrown up from the great crater at the top of Etna, within the laft 25 or 30 years. His enlarged horizon being gradually lighted up, he difcovered the greater part of Calabria, and the fea on the other fide of it: the Phare of Meflina, the Lipari islands, and Strom