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1823.

Foreign Varieties.-France.

as that the magnetic circle be completed; and that we should then touch circularly, with the magnet destined to communicate the power. When the two horse-shoe bars are separated, they lose usually a considerable part of their force, if we do not previously decompose the great circuit into two smaller ones, by applying each contact to its curved magnet before the separation. In this way, the two separated magnets lose little or nothing of their power; and two may be touched in the same time that one is, on the usual plan. By conforming to these rules, Professor Steinhäuser has succeeded in making magnets of extraordinary power, in the least possible time. He also lays the bar to be magnetized on others previously made, and arranged in a horseshoe form.

Charles Dibdin.-A subscription has been opened for the erection of a monument to the late Mr. Charles Dibdin, to whose lyrical muse his country owed much during the period of her greatest peril, in the arduous contest which for more than twenty years shook the world. The nature, sentiment, character, and poetry, which were displayed to so remarkable an extent in his songs, have

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perhaps never been duly appreciated, for they came forth singly or in small numbers, and the impression which a view of their collected genius makes, was never sufficiently felt. But their universal popularity decides the question of general merits; while their influence on the Naval spirits of Britain was, it may justly be asserted, a powerful ally in the war in which the country was engaged.

Retrograde Movement of the Magnetic Needle.-M. Arago, in commenting on Colonel Beaufoy's observations, inserted in the Annals of Philosophy for May, remarks, that the numbers given for its mean declinations in March 1822, compared with those of March 1819, give for the retrograde movement of the north point of the compass in three yearsBy the observations of the morning 5′ 40′′ By those of 14 hour afternoon.... 5 06 And by those of the evening...... 6 32

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FOREIGN VARIETIES.

Egyptian Hieroglyphics. The three systems of writing-the Hieroglyphic, the Meratic, and the Demotic (see page 549, Vol. VI. of this work), according to the recent communication of M. Champollion, jun. to the Royal Academy of Sciences, are purely idiographic; that is to say, they represented ideas, and not sounds or pronunciation. Their general process (marche) was, however, very analogous, or rather it was modelled on that of the spoken Egyptian language. But since the three systems of Egyptian writing did not express the sounds of the words, it was important to know by what means the Egyptians could insert in their writings the proper names and words belonging to foreign languages, which they were often forced to mention in their idiographic texts, principally during the various periods of the subjection of Egypt to kings of a foreign race. It is this question, so interesting to history and philology, that I have attempted to solve, and of which I shall give a concise epitome. The demotic text of the Rosetta inscription, compared with the Greek text, has led us to perceive that the Egyptians made use, in this third system of writing, of a certain number of idiographic signs, which, throwing aside their real value, become acci

VOL. IX. NO. XXV.

dentally signs of sounds or of real pronunciation. It is with signs of this order that the names of kings, Alexander, Ptolemy, of the queens, Berenice, Arsinoe, and those of private persons, Actes, Pyrrha, Philinus, Aréia, Diogenes, and Irene, are written in the demotic text of the Rosetta inscription. Another demotic text, we mean that of a MS. on papyrus lately purchased for the cabinet of the king, which is a public document of the reign of Ptolemy Euergetes II. contains also in its protocol, of which we have attempted a translation, the names of Alexander, Ptolemy, Berenice, Arsinoe, and likewise those of Cleopatra and Eupater; lastly, the names of Apollonius, Antiochus, and Antigone; which are those of public officers or private individuals. The comparison of these names with each other has fully confirmed what the demotic text of Rosetta had already told us the existence in the popular idiographic writing of an auxiliary series of signs, destined to express the sounds of proper names, and of words foreign to the Egyptian language. We have given to this auxiliary system of writing the name of Phonetic writing. The several names written according to this method, as well on the Rosetta Stone as in the public document on papyrus, being compared together, have shown us

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the certain value of all the characters which form together the demotic alphabet, or rather syllabical. The use of phonetic being once distinguished in the demotic or popular writing, it was important to discover whether there was not also in the hieroglyphic writing a series of signs likewise phonetic, employed for the same purpose; because the discovery of this species of alphabet must produce, by its application to the numerous hieroglyphical inscriptions of which we have accurate copies, newer and positive results, highly interesting to history. The hieroglyphic text of the Rosetta inscription might alone have decided this curious question, and have given us also a nearly complete alphabet of phonetic hieroglyphics, if the text had come to Europe entire. Unfortunately, the stone contains only the last fourteen lines of this text, and the hieroglyphical name of Ptolemy, inclosed, like all the hieroglyphic proper names, in a kind of cartouch, is the only one, of all those mentioned in the Greek text of the inscription, which has escaped total destruction. This name is formed of seven or eight hieroglyphic characters; and as the Greek name IITOAЕMAIO contains ten letters, we could not fix any certain relation between the values of the one and the others,-nothing besides authorising us formally to consider the hieroglyphic name of Ptolemy as composed of phonetic signs. A new monument has at length removed all uncertainty in this respect, and has led us in a certain manner to most numerous, and we may say the most unexpected, results. The Egyptian Obelisk brought to London by M. Belzoni, from the island of Philæ, was connected with a base, bearing a petition, in the Greek language, addressed by the Priests of Isis, at Philæ, to king Ptolemy Euergetes II., to Queen Cleopatra his wife, and to Queen Cleopatra his sister. I distinguished, in fact, in the hieroglyphic inscriptions which cover the four faces of this obelisk, the hieroglyphic name of Ptolemy, precisely similar to that in the hieroglyphic text of Rosetta: and this circumstance led me to suppose that the second cartouch (or scroll) placed on this obelisk near that of Ptolemy, and the last characters of which (that terminate also the hieroglyphic proper names of all the Egyptian goddesses) are the idiographic signs of the feminine gender, contained, conformably to the Greek inscription on the base (or zocle,) the name of Queen Cleopatra. If this were really the case, these two hieroglyphic names of Ptolemy and Cleopatra, which in the Greek have some letters the same, might serve to institute a comparison between the hieroglyphic signs

which compose them both; and if the corresponding letters in the two Greek names were expressed in both the Egyptian scrolls by the same hieroglyphic, it then became certain, that in the hieroglyphic writing there existed, as in the demotic, a series of phonetic signs, that is to say, representing sounds or pronunciations.

This hypothesis has become certainty by the mere comparison of these two hieroglyphic names: the second, third, fourth, and fifth characters of the scroll of Cleopatra, KAEONTPA, and which represent the A, E, O and II, are in fact perfectly similar to the fourth, sixth, third, and first hieroglyphic characters of the name of Ptolemy, which in like manner represent the A, the E, or the diphthong Al, the O, and the II, of the same proper name ΠΤΟΛΕΜΑΙΟΣ. It then became very easy to infer the value of the characters which differed in the two names, and this analysis gave us the greater part of a phonetic hieroglyphic alphabet, which it only remained to verify by applying it to other scrolls, and to complete by this verification. It is thus that our hieroglyphic alphabet has progressively increased, and the general alphabet has been obtained.*

"An Historical and Medical Account of the Yellow Fever which prevailed at Barcelona in 1821, by M. Andouard, Physician in the Military Hospitals of Paris, who was sent to Barcelona by the Minister of War." The author has confined. himself in his history of the Fever to the narrative of facts, independently of all the hypotheses which still prevail among physicians. The second part, which is dedicated to the question of contagion, leaves no doubt of the fatal property of the yellow fever to communicate itself; and this is what it imported us to know. The author has collected a great number of facts, which prove that this communication has been effected.

1. By the approximation of persons.
2. By the use of clothing and other ar-
ticles which had belonged to the
sick.

3. By the medium of the air at a short
distance.

He shows by other proofs that the atmosphere of Barcelona did not contain the principle of the disease; that the pretended infection of the atmosphere had no part in it; and he starts ideas of the special contagion of the yellow fever which are not to be found in any of the numerous treatises on that disease. The question, subjected to the strictest reasoning, has been considered under several points of

* See the Eclaircissemens upon this inscription, published by M. Letronne.

1823.

Foreign Varieties.--France.

view, and facts are adduced to support the theory. The author, therefore, entering perfectly into the legislative views which govern France on this subject, states, from his own experience, the means calculated to preserve the troops and the inhabitants of towns from this contagion. The meteorological tables drawn up at Barcelona for the months of July, August, September, and October, 1821, close the work. They show that Reaumur's thermometer did not rise to above 25°, consequently that the heat was very moderate; which is contrary to the assertion of those who attribute the disease to the noxious exhalations raised by the heat from the mud and slime in the port. We know that the heat has been greater at Barcelona this year than in 1821, that the port has not been cleaned, and that there has been no yellow fever. The author has avoided the controversial questions of contagion and infection.

The School of Medicine has been shut by authority in Paris, in consequence of disorderly conduct among the students, or rather because of their too openly holding opinions disagreeable to ultra-royalism.

Antiquities.-Baron Chandruc de Crazannes has published "Antiquités de la Ville des Saintes, et du Département de la Charente-Inférieure, inédites ou nouvellement expliquées." 4to. with seven plates. This is a very interesting work, and will prove valuable to antiquarians. It consists of several dissertations on the most interesting subjects relative to the antiquities of the town of Saintes and its territory, which have either never been published, or have appeared to the author susceptible of farther illustration. La Sauvagère and Bourignon had already made us acquainted with the greater part of them, either by descriptions or engravings; but researches below the surface of the ground, made within these few years, (they commenced only in 1815,) and most of them under the eye of the author, have brought to light a greater number of monuments. Among these M. C. de Crazannes discovered considerable remains of a Roman villa, where he found baths, a mosaic pavement, and many Roman medals, for the most part of the Lower Empire.

Meteoric Appearances.—Several luminous globes, in the direction of the South, were lately visible at Bourg. Four luminous globes followed each other; one only attended by a train of light, and the first of the apparent size of the Moon, with a rotatory motion, and an opacity in the centre.

M. Antommarchi, professor of Anatomy in the Universities of Paris and Pisa, and

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surgeon to the Emperor Napoleon, at St. Helena, and M. le Compte de Lasteyrie, are publishing a set of anatomical plates of the human body, with descriptions. The work is to appear in fifteen parts, on large paper. The details will be most exactly copied from nature, and the minute parts will be laid down and described with the greatest correctness. The whole will form a perfect topography of the human body, with the exception of the teguments which are already accurately delineated in the Anatomy of Mascagni. The plates are both plain and coloured, the former are 375 f. and the latter 750 f.

M. Jomard, of the Institute, lately read there a paper containing a new theory on the Zodiac of Dendara. It is impracticable to give the substance of his opinions on the subject without an engraved plate, but his ideas are ingenious, if not profound, and they merit considerable attention.

"The Maccabees; or, The Martyr, "a tragedy in five acts, by M. A. Guicard, which came out during the last year, has drawn forth some pertinent remarks from the French critics. It was performed in the Odeon in June last. This tragedy contains no dramatic interest to keep alive the feelings of the spectator, nor does it convey instruction; it has not even the necessary adjuncts for tragic action. The very subject is a horrible one of blood and execution throughout. A mother viewing the butchery of her seven children, and encouraging them till she takes her turn, and perishes herself at last, is such a foundation for dramatic superstructure as it might have been well imagined the severe regulations of the French drama would not tolerate. With a vicious subject, the piece only possesses five characters :-the tyrant Antiochus; Heliodorus, his minister; Salomé, mother of the Maccabees; Ephraim, their uncle; and Mizaël, the youngest of the brothers; and the parts they respectively take are either improbable, feeble, or inconsistent with probability. The style, however, is good, and the details are elegantly penned; but these can only give it a place on the library table. Long, tedious speeches, developements without object or action, and ignorance of dramatic effect, are leading traits throughout. Let us hear no more of the barbarity of Shakspeare in his Titus Andronicus, after the severity of the French theatre has endured the performance of such a farrago of cruelty and crime.

M. H. J. Paixhous, one of the ancient scholars of the once famed Polytechnic School of France, which the fear of the too rapid progress of knowledge, has made the

ultra ministry of that country suppress, has published a work on a " New Maritime Force," and on a mode of applying the same to the land service; and an essay on the actual means of a naval force, and on a new species of maritime artillery; also on the construction of vessels using this artillery, sailing either by steam or canvass, less costly and more powerful than those now in use; and on the power of cannon, so made, in sieges for defence or offence. Passing over much interesting preliminary matter, it is to be observed that the artillery proposed is designed to project hollow shot of all diameters in the same way as bullets are fired from common cannon, and with the same precision, having the double object of penetrating as far as possible into the object to be destroyed and bursting there. The hope has been for a long time indulged to produce these effects without employing guns of too large a calibre, by using chlorate of potash instead of gunpowder; but the hazard and danger attending the use of the latter has hitherto, and must prevent its adoption in war. It can only, then, be attained by encreasing the size of the bore; and in what M. Paixhous proposes there seems much plausibility; but if he used fifty-five pounders, other nations would adopt them also, and a single shot would often suffice to destroy the largest man-ofwar. Monsieur P., however, thinks that vessels may be successfully defended even against such formidable projectiles; and his work is well worth perusal, and contains much that is useful and interesting.

The Society for the Encouragement of National Industry has published the account of an invention of M. Clinchamp, called a hyalographe, from its tracing a design on a transparent surface. It is first done in perspective, with geometrical exactness, on a square of glass, (gope over with a thin coat of gum-water), for which a blank point or pencil is employed. Afterwards the square is turned up, and the same design drawn on the opposite face of the glass with a particular ink, following exactly the lines of the first drawing. This latter can then be taken off from the glass by an operation which gives a number of fac-similes perfect as the first. M. Gambey, of Paris, produced a new Theodolite. M. Merinier made a report on the potteries of M. Lagros d'Anisey, where leaf gold is used so thin as to be partly transparent; this, on being applied to red pottery, is heightened in colour by the latter, so as to appear as deep as an alloy of gold and copper. A new matter was also produced for making hats it consisted of the hair of the goats of the High Alps, which, though not so

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brilliant in colour as those made from rabbit hair, were much lighter in weight. Several other inventions of minor interest were mentioned in the Report of the Society.

M. Houel, President of the Society of Emulation at Rouen, read a paper at a late sitting, on the State of learned Societies under different forms of government. Among other things, M. Houel said, "that it was not until the moment when governments were directed by a tolerant but firm hand, that the Muses appeared to unite in compliment to the happiness of the people. And taking from this fact a theory, the result of experience, it may be said and asserted that the literati have distinct characteristics, or take a colouring from the country they inhabit; because, properly speaking, the government is their climate. As the government is the friend or foe of knowledge, they flourish or wither. The physical temperature, the torrid or glacial zone, is a matter of indifference. In those places, where the sage and wise Anaximander shone forth, we now see the brutal and ignorant Mahometan. And French literature is not frozen even on the borders of the Neva." Four necrological notices were read, on MM. Lamauve, Lesquillez, Robert de St. Victor, resident members, and Bervio, member of the French Institute, all lately deceased.

Antiquities.-Extracts from the sixth and seventh letters from M. Caillaud to M. Jomard, on the antiquities of Nubia, contain the following information. "I am come from the Desert, where I have visited two places, in which there were numerous curiosities. M. Linant, a Frenchman, not having left the country of Senaar, saw them some days before I did. Near the village of Wetbeyt Naga are the ruins of two small temples; in the Desert, about eight leagues to the southeast are the remains of seven other small temples. The valley which leads to these ruins, and the ruins themselves, are called Naga, and I have no doubt are the remains of the ancient city of Naka. Three of these temples are in tolerable preservation; one of them is highly interesting for the objects with which it is ornamented. The figures are in costumes very different from those seen in Egypt; the garments are like those which I have mentioned to you before as having seen in the pyramids. The second is larger than the first, with an avenue of sphynxes; the third consists of an isolated portico, high ly curious, and of a less ancient construction. The architecture is a mixture of Greek and Egyptian, it having Corinthian capitals. The other temples are com

1823.

Foreign Varieties. — France.

plete ruins. In the great valley of the Desert, about six hours' journey from the Nile, and eight hours' south-south-east from Chandy, there are other and more considerable ruins, which, I think, are the remains of a college from Meroe. They consist of eight little temples, all joined in a line by galleries and terraces. It is altogether an immense construction of numerous chambers, cells, courts, and galleries, surrounded with double enclosures. I am unable to give you here the slightest description of these ruins. The central temple communicates with the others by these galleries or terraces, 185 French feet long. Each temple has particular apartments, which stand in a line. In the eight temples are thirty-nine chambers or habitations, twenty-six courts, and twelve staircases. The ruins cover a space of 2500 feet. But in this so great extent of ruins, all is in small proportion as to size, both as it respects the monuments, and the stones employed in them. The stones are placed in courses of twentyfive centimetres in height, and are frequently square in form. The largest temple is eleven mêtres in length. On the columns are figures in the Egyptian style and on some columns of the same portico there are channellings (flutings) as in Greek architecture. On the base of one of them are the remains of a zodiac. I could see the Twins and Sagittarius, and have taken a faithful copy of it. Time and the destructive elements that have so much defaced the ancient Saba and its monuments, seem to have left us the observatory of Meroe tolerably perfect, for it is easy to define the whole plan. I could find no more water here to-day, and I am forced to get what I want from the Nile.

"A few hundred paces from these ruins are the remains of two little monuments, and the traces of a pond or large piece of water surrounded by ridges, which served to keep off the sand. I could find here - nothing like the site of a town, nor ruins, nor tombs. If the city of Meroe once existed on this spot, they would not, 1 should imagine, have elevated the pyramids two days' journey off. I am led to believe that this place was the college of Meroe; the form and structure seem to point it out as such. But the city was no doubt near the tombs where the fortyfive pyramids now are, and of which the latitude is nearly that given to Meroe by the ancients while these ruins are much too distant to agree with it. One is asto

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nished to find but few hieroglyphics here. There are only six columns forming the portico of the middle temple that have. any all the other parts are destitute of sculpture.

"At the time I arrived here, the Arabs of Chouery and Bycherycho revolted against Ismael Pacha. They even plundered the inhabitants of the banks of the Nile, and M. Linant was pursued by them, but I have had the good fortune to escape. It is on this account that I renounced the project of visiting Gor Radjah on the Atbara, because it is in the Desert of the Red Sea that the Bycherchs have revolted. I have finished my journey to Barkel, being at the extreme of the province of Sokket; I have been to Selima, which is an oasis, three days' journey off, in the Desert, hoping to find some antiquities there, but have met with nothing but the remains of a Christian habitation, consisting of eight small chambers, with about two hundred date-trees. Selima is at present inhabited, and is the station of the great caravan to Darfour. During the course of my long and painful journey, I have been fortunate in enjoying good health. I have lost seven camels, and am obliged to pay a franc a pound for bread, and for every thing else in proportion. Again the prince is come to my succour, when I could not buy a camel at any price, and he has given me one."

At a late sitting of the Academy of Sciences, M. Puissent read a memoir entitled "The Exposé of a method to deduce the mean result of a series of astronomical observations made with the cercle repetiteur of M. Borda ;" and several other papers were also produced and read.

At a subsequent sitting, M. de Halley read a memoir on a "Mineralogical Chart of France." Mr. Gay Lussac presented, on the part of the inventor, a new Hygrometer; and M. Couchy read a note on a meteor which had been observed at the same time both from Paris and Mans.

Mr. Casati, a traveller who recently returned from Egypt, has brought several ancient manuscripts; among which are two in Greek, and one in Greek and Egyptian. The first, which is sixteen feet six inches in length, and seven inches in breadth, contains a deed of sale drawn in the Thebais, on the 9th day of the month of Epiphi, and in the 4th year of the reign of Cleopatra, and of her son Ptolemy Soter II. which corresponds to the 25th of July, of 113 years before Christ.

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