ページの画像
PDF
ePub

tail more than compenfates for the difadvantages of drawing against the hair. Beavers are faid alfo to fight and take prifoners, and to condemn their prifoners to this drudgery, among othe s. But Klein farther obferves, that if they had need of winter ftores, they might carry them in, more commodiously, in their mouths, affifted by their fore feet, as they can, like monkeys, walk upon two. This, however, is fpeculation oppofed to fact; and the question here is to be determined, not by argument but teftimony. It would be extremely acceptable to the public in general, and particularly to the curious, if fome of our inquifitive readers would communicate what they know or have read upon the fubject. Klein's account of the animal is as follows:

it feems as abfurd to deny what thefe authors affirm of the Baubax, merely upon a fuppofition that it muft neceffarily imply reafon, as to deny what is notorious of the spider and the nautilus, upon a fuppofition that it must neceffarily imply the knowledge of geometry and navigation. The fact depends, as all facts do, with refpect to those who can know them only by the teftimony of others, upon the credit of the perfons who relate it, and the manner of the relation, whether from the writer's own knowledge, or from mere traditional opinion and report. Polignac's work was the labour of his life, affifted by the opinion of almost every man eminent for parts and knowledge, of his time: it is abfurd, therefore, to imagine, that he would admit any particulars of natural hiftory, as foundations of argument, that were not well fupported by the teftimony of fufficient and credible witneffes. Klein, indeed, objects, that, among thefe animals, the labour of prifoners cannot be wanted to amafs for the winter, because they continue eight months together in a dormant ftate, and have therefore no need of provifions; and because it is ridiculous to imagine they fhould drag their living cart by the wrong end, against the grain and direction of the skin and hair. As to the first of thefe objections, it ftands upon the fingle teftimony of Klein, against that of Rzaczinski, Agricola, and Spon: as to the fecond, it is generally agreed, that thefe creatures are frequently found with their backs bare; and it is alfo related, by many authors of great credit, that beavers ufe each other as waggons in this manner, and that the conveniency of drawing by the

It is called, by Pliny, Mus Alpinus; in Savoy, Marmotte: in Germany, Murmelthier; in Poland, and other northern nations, Boback; and in France, Rat des Alpes.

It is fomewhat thicker than a common rat, is reddish while young, but of a dark colour when older the hair is ftiff, the feet short, the head contracted, and the nose as if divided, the mouth furnished with whifkers, like thofe of a cat, the teeth are like a squirrel's, and the voice is fhrill, like that of a young whelp.

When it is wild, it eats grafs, roots, herbage, and infects of various kinds; when tame, it fubfifts on bread and milk, meat and fruits it ufes its fore paws to convey its food to its mouth, like the fquirrel, and growls while it eats or drinks.

[blocks in formation]

They play nimbly together like mice, running, leaping, and climbing the trunks of trees, and fometimes walking upright.

At the beginning of autumn they retire to caverns under ground, which they form in the shape of the

letter Y, where they lie together in families upon little beds of ftraw, having clofely ftopped the avenues of their dormitory, and continue torpid in a profound fleep till the approach of fpring, when, being revived by the warmth of the fun, they again come forth to the business and the pleasures of life.

In this animal, the circulation of the blood, which has fcare any ferum, and all the fecretions are exceeding flow; the omentum and intestines are flat, and they have only a fingle membranous ftomach; fo that, though they feed upon herbs, they do not chew the cud. Towards the gut cæcum there are many annular valves, stretched as it were into branches; fo as the entrance of the ileon between the two coats, which retards the paffage of the faces, and caufes them to be collected towards the cæcum, there to remain during winter. Whether they fleep at all between the time of their quitting their fubterraneous retirement in the fpring, and that of their return to it in autumn, we are not told.

Mr. Klein, in the conclufion of his letter, affures Mr. Collinfon that this account is genuine'; fays, he may communicate it to Dr. Mead, and promifes to procure for him the 2d volume of Rzaczinfki'swork; which, I think, was afterwards done, and believe it is now in the British Museum.

A particular defeription of an old
Elephant brought from Perfia to
Naples. By the famous Abbé Nollet.

THIS monftrous creature was

fent from Perfia, as a prefent to the grand fignior, and by him prefented to the king of the Two Sicilies, now king of Spain. It ar rived at Naples in October 1740, and died the beginning of the year 1755. After defcribing its fhape and fize, Mr. Nollet fays, we may judge of the hugeness of its bulk, from its fkin, which, after being taken off, weighed 2384 pounds weight, or 74 stone, averdupois weight. It ufually went to fleep upon its fide at fun fet, and after fleeping three or four hours, it waked to feed: after having fed enough, it went directly to fleep again, and generally continued afleep till fun. rife t. It eat up every day 220 pounds of the dry ftraw of millet, 23 pounds of new bread, and 28 ounces of fugar mixed with as many ounces of butter, which was inclosed in two loaves, of two pounds each, and which they put whole into its mouth: but during the first 21 days of April, instead of the dry ftraw, they gave it daily 800 or 1000 pounds of green barley. For fome time after its arrival at Naples, they made it drink every day about two quarts of brandy, for affifting its digeftion, and probably to atone for the difference between the climate of Naples, and that of its native country; but, inftead of the brandy, they afterwards fubßituted two bolus's, of the bigrefs of a nutmeg each, compofed of 33 different forts of drugs, of fuch a hot nature, that

* The pouud meant by M. Nollet, is what the French call poids de mare, of eight

ounces,

The days and nights at Naples are not fo unequal as here.

onc

one of these bolus's would have killed a man of the strongest conftitution; yet this creature could not bear to be deprived of them, without becoming very uneasy, and lofing its reft.

As to this creature's ufual drink, it was otherwife nothing but common water, of which it drank 400 quarts per day in winter, and in fummer it went as far as 900, which it drank at three different hours, and each time at five, fix, ten, or a dozen different draughts, by pumping or fucking up the water with its trunk, carrying it to its mouth, and swallowing it at two or three gulps .

This elephant appeared to be fufceptible of every paffion: it fhewed gratitude and affection to those who had the care of it, feemed as if it hugged them with its trunk, and was fo docile as to obey them with readiness. They obferved, that it had a fondness for a fheep, fell pretty often into a fit of melancholy, and had an extreme dread of pain, which made it take every imaginable precaution against being hurt. It was of the male kind; but the part which characterised its gender, was ufually concealed; only when it was about to make water, that part came out to the length of two feet, then turned backwards, and directed the course of his urine between the two hind legs. In the fpring of every year he began to rut, or become proud, when it was more difficult than ufual to govern him, and he even neglected his food; but what was moft extraordinary, there iffued, during that time, a warm liquor from his trunk, and an orifice opened at each temple, by the fide of his ear, from whence iffued a duft

coloured, coarfe fort of matter, as thick as hog's-greafe: I have been affured, fays Mr. Nollet, that a matter of the fame fort trickled down from another part. After his rutting was over, all thefe fymptoms ceafed: perhaps they had never exifted, had the animal an opportunity to fatisfy himself in the natural way. He was fubject to cholicks, and diftempers in his legs, which his keeper understood, and they cured them in the fame way as they do in other animals, but with a good deal of difficulty, for he was far from being a fubmiffive patient, as they could not make him take any thing he did not incline to. But what was very fingular in an animal of fuch a prodigious fize and strength, whatever ftate or condition he was in, he was never heard to utter any fort of found or bellowing, only a fort of blowing, yet this he modulated in fuch a manner, that his keepers could from thence judge what he thereby meant to exprefs.

This, we muft obferve, is the more remarkable, as feveral travellers fpeak of the bellowing of elephants, when they are taken, and alfo upon other occafions.

[blocks in formation]

As the keeping of an elephant is fo expenfive, we may conclude, that no old, or fullgrown one, will ever be brought here for a fhew.

It arofe from a cupola built on the oppofite bank of the river Avon, which, upon enquiry, I found belonged to a lead fmelting-house; a nuif.nce univerfally condemned, and univerfally neglected. That a manufacture fo poisonous fhould be allowed to fubfift in the vicinity of the fecond medicinal fpring in the kingdom, is fo unaccountable, that, had I not feen it, I could scarce have believed it.

In countries regulated by a police, fmelting-houfes are built on barren grounds, near the fea-fhore; and the owners are obliged to rent a confiderable track of land; and if their neighbours fuffer in their cattle, planting, or herbage, they are compelled to pay the damage. Even in Wales, I have known inftances of fuch nuifances indicted, and removed; and perhaps fome effectual notice may be taken of this, when the public is fully apprized of its effects.

[ocr errors]

The smoke that exhales, night and day, from furnaces in which lead is fmelted, is richly impregnated with a whitish fubftance, vifible to the eye. This fubftance precipitates itself on the roofs of houfes, and on vegetables, for almost a mile round, and is none other than a corrofive fublimate of lead, highly deleterious to animal life. It is indeed the worst poifon in the mineral kingdom; I fay, the worst, be caufe we are hitherto unacquainted with its antidote. Thefe Flores Saturnini deftroy plants. Cattle fed on grafs thus impregnated, are feized with the bellon, a disease like the dry belly ach which deftroys the labourers employed in fuch manufactures.

August 20, 1761.

Cattle

The nature of the foffil Afbeftos a)certained by the discovery of an artificial fubflance perfectly like it, lately made in France by Mr. Turbeville Needham. From the Philofophical Tranfactions.

ΤΗ

HE Afbeftos, or Amianthus, is an incombuftible substance, divifible into fibres, of which a kind of linen has been made that fuffers no damage by fire. The proprietor of a forge in fome part of France, not named, upon taking down his furnaces to repair them, found a great quantity of this fubftance at the bottom, which, like the native Amianthus, was capable of being manufactured either into incombuftible linen or paper. Upon a farther enquiry, he discovered that both this and the native Afbeftos, is nothing more than calcined iron, deprived of the Phlogistic, and that uniting the Phlogistic with this, or the foffil Amianthus, he can restore it any time to its primitive ftate of iron.

Does not 'this, fays Mr. Needham, with the difcovery of Lava, pummice ftones, iron in a perfect ftate, and many other traces of fire obferved in most of the mountains, particularly in all the great chains, and remarkably in all thofe under the equator, which are the highest on the globe, feem to indicate, that the dry land, with all its eminencies, was originally raised out of the waters by the force of fubterraneous fire?

Defcrip

Defcription of a White Earth of which bread is made. From the German Ephemerides.

N the lordship of Mofcaw, in the Upper Lufatia, a fort of White Earth is found, of which the poor, arged thereto, no doubt, by the calamities of the wars in those

parts, now make bread. It is taken out of a hill where they formerly worked at faltpetre; when the fun has fomewhat warmed this earth, it cracks, and small white globules proceed from it as meal; it does not ferment alone, but only when mixed with meal. M. Sarlitz, a Saxon gentleman, was pleased to inform us, that he has feen perfons who, in a great measure, lived upon it for fome time; he affures us, that he procured bread to be made of this earth alone, and of different mixtures of earth and meal, and that he even kept some of this bread by him upwards of fix years: he further fays, a Spaniard told him, that this earth is alfo found near Gironne in Catalonia.

The practice of burning Sulphur in hog fheads for preserving wine, accounted for by a new and curious experiment.

F two or three drops of the oil

glafs of very fine red wine, the wine will lofe its red colour, and become opaque and yellowish as turned and pricked wine; but if two or three drops of the spirit of fulphur, which is a very strong acid, are afterwards poured into the glafs, the fame wine will intirely refume its beautiful red colour; whence the reason is

eafily perceived, why fulphur is burnt in hogfheads in order to preferve wine, fince it is not the inflammable part of fulphur that caufes this effect, but its acid fpirit, that enters and permeates the wood of the veffel.

An account of a very extraordinary degree of Artificial Cold produced at Petersbourgh, by Dr. Himfel. Extracted from an article in the Philofophical Tranfactions.

Ο

N the 14th of December

1759, the weather was so cold at Petersbourgh, that the quickfilver in De Lifle's thermometer, fell to 250 degrees *. On this day an artificial cold was produced by the mixture of fpirit of nitre with fnow, as in Farenheit's experiment, and the thermometer being plunged in it, the quickfilver funk to 470 degrees. At this point it remained fixed in the open air near a quarter of an hour, and might have remained fo longer, but after that time it was carried into a warm room, where it foon began to rife. Upon a repetition of this experiment in the presence of several profeffors, the glass was broken as foon as the mercury, which fell to 500 degrees, appeared to be fixed, and it was

a

body, which being hammered, extended its furface like other metals, but recovered its fluidity foon after, being expofed to the open air, tho' the degree of natural cold was 199.

This frozen quickfilver took up lefs space then when it was fluid, and funk to the bottom of quick

* Forty degrees below the freezing point in Farenheit's thermometer, is equal to 210 degrees of De Lifle's,

« 前へ次へ »