Rain between Jan. 1, and Feb. 1, by the pluviameter, was 1-798 inches. The quantity that fell during the same period on the roof of my observatory, was 2-045 inches. The evaporation between noon Dec. 2, and noon Feb. 1, was 2.04 inches.

The observations in each line of the table apply to a period of twenty-four

hours, beginning at 9 A. M. on the day indicated in the first ' denotes, that the result is included in the next following obser

A dash

REMARKS.

First Month.-1. Fine. 2. Much wind in the night: snow by morning. 3. After some snow, a thaw, p. m. 4. Small rain, a. m.: fair, p. m.: starlight. 5. Wet stormy day: clear night. 6. Hoar frost: fair. 7. Fair, a. m.: cloudy, p.m.: a gale, with raiu, during the night. 9. Wet mid-day: the Cirrocumulus has appeared two or three times within a week past. 10. Cirrus and Cirrostratus at sun-set, rose-coloured, followed by a gale with rain. 11. Gloomy, a. m. with small rain, p. m. and night as yesterday. 12. Fine day: a gale again in the night. 13. The gale continued, with cloudy weather: the night, after a calm evening, was stormy. 14. Wet stormy day in the evening, Cumulus, with Cirrostratus and Cirrus: the air clearing: much wind in the night. 15. Much cloud and wind, a. m.: small rain, p. m. : night stormy. 16. Fair, with a gloomy sky, a. m.; some rain, p. m. : a heavy gale in the night. 17. The wind is now more moderate, with a tendency to N.W: a very fine day and night. 18. Fair, with a breeze: a squall, with a little rain, p. m. : bright moonlight. 19. Fine. 20. Red Cirrostrati at sun-rise, with hoar frost: fine day, with Cirrostratus in flocks: Cirrocumulus, and Cirrus, with a rainy aspect. 21. Gloomy overcast morning: some wind and rain by nine: afterwards fine with Cumulus, and a breeze from NW: lunar halo. 22. Fine: windy, p. m.: in the fore part of the night, a heavy southerly gale, with showers. 23. Fine, windy: the barometer fluctuating: lunar corona at night: the wind NW. 24. Rain very early; wet forenoon, p. m. and night fair; windy, 25. Fine, a. m. with Cirrus and Cirrostratus: windy night. 27. Much wind in the night, followed by rain. 28. Large Cumuli, with Cirri above; and the rapid deve lopment of Cumulostrati presented this afternoon a spring-like sky. 29. Hoar frost: fair day: a thickness to the S. and W. p. m. was followed by a nocturnal gale, with rain, as usual of late.

Character of the period, stormy and changeable: amidst a succession of gales of wind, there were many intervals of fine weather by day; and, as the thermometer shows, of frost by night.

TOTTENHAM, Second Month, 20, 1818.

L. HOWARD.

ANNALS

OF

PHILOSOPHY.

APRIL, 1818.

ARTICLE I.

Biographical Account of M. Le Sage.

NOTHING can exhibit a more remarkable example of the effect of certain forms of government, modes of education, and states of society, than the condition in which the little Republic of Geneva has been maintained for the last three centuries. A territory smaller than the smallest county of England, and a population less than of the inhabitants of our metropolis, has produced a succession of men of learning and science, which has greatly exceeded that of some of the most extensive and powerful kingdoms of Europe. In the present number of the Annals we propose to give a brief account of one of the natives of that city, who, although less known abroad than many of his countrymen, has considerable claims upon our attention, as well from the extent of his abilities, as from some remarkable peculiarities in his character and turn of mind.

George Louis Le Sage* was born at Geneva, June 13, 1724. His father was a native of Burgundy, but had for some years before retired to Switzerland, where he supported himself by teaching mathematics and natural philosophy. The elder Le Sage appears to have been a man of talents, although not of the

* In the biographical sketch of Lord Stanhope, which was inserted in our number for February, we inadvertently fell into an error, in confounding the works of M. Le Sage, his Lordship's tutor, the subject of our present memoir, with M. B. G. Sage, of Paris, Professor of Chemistry and Mineralogy in "l'Ecole des Mines de la Monnoié." The error was pointed out to us by a friend, and we were induced, from this circumstance, to examine the interesting account of the life of Le Sage of Geneva, drawn up by Prof. Prevost, from which we have principally extracted the materials of the present memoir.

VOL. XI. N° IV.

first order, and at the same time to have possessed a singular dispo sition and train of sentiments, which had a very marked influence upon the character and pursuits of his son. He was the author of a considerable number of treatises, upon a great diversity of topics, metaphysics, belles lettres, natural philosophy, and economics; but we believe that their reputation has not extended into this country. The subject of our memoir acquired the first rudiments of his education entirely from his father, who appears to have been very anxious to procure for his son every advantage of which his confined resources admitted, and to have spared no pains, or labour, in giving his young mind what he conceived to be the right direction in the pursuit of knowledge. It, however, unfortunately happened, that no two individuals, perhaps, ever possessed a more decided opposition in their natural tastes and intellectual faculties, than the elder and younger Le Sage. The father's sole object was to acquire the knowledge of insulated facts, and to store up individual pieces of information, at the same time that he discarded all system, or attempts at generalization. The son, on the other hand, seems to have been slow in obtaining knowledge, and still more in retaining what he learned, in consequence of a singularly defective memory, while, from a very early period of his life, he was fond of arranging facts and connecting them into a systematic form. This disposition of the son was checked by the father with constant and even harsh perseverance; which, while it had no effect in altering the natural bent of the young man's mind, repressed the warmth and impetuosity of his feelings, and tended most materially to increase and confirm a tendency to shyness and reserve, which he very early manifested. This was still further increased by the behaviour of his mother, and by the general habits of the family, in which parental authority and filial obedience seem each of them to have been carried to an extraordinary extent. In a less tender and complying mind than that of Le Sage, this undue restraint might have been productive of the most unfavourable consequences, both to the intellect and the morals of the individual subjected to it. But although he felt it, and even did not scruple to call it a system of tyranny, his gentle disposi tion never led him to think of rebelling; but induced him to spend his leisure hours in silent meditation, deprived, as it would seem, of most of the gratifications and amusements of childhood, but without degenerating into spleen or misanthropy. One point, which was a regular part of the discipline of his father's house, was the keeping silence, and never asking what his parents were pleased to consider as idle questions; and this Pythagorean system was adopted with so much strictness, that through life he never acquired a facility of expressing himself, although he afterwards made many useless efforts to counteract this defect of his education..

This cruel restraint had, however, its advantages, although