thing of the kind, which, however, does not afterwards happen. If -one fhould chance to drink cold wine fo fuddenly as not to warm in his ftomach, then the pylorus and upper orifice remain fhut; and, the wine afterwards contracting warmth; the ftomach fwells; the party is choaked, as it were, and has a kind of apoplexy; if then, with a bit of fpunge moiftened with oil or honey, and wrapped about the end of a knitting-needle, the fauces are tickled, the wine is vomited up, and the party is freed from all dangerous fymptoms.

When Otto Tachenius, according to the prescription of Johannes Agricola, had fo often endeavour. ed to fublime arfenic, that it was at length to remain fixed in the bot tom of the veffel; and when, after many fublimations, he had opened the veffel, he breathed an air pleafant and grateful to his palate; but in lefs than half an hour he felt his ftomach aching and contracted, with a convulfion of all his limbs, difficult breathing, bloody urine, and a great heat; being afterwards fuddenly feized with colic pains, he remained contracted for a full half-hour: being recruited with milk and oil, he found himfelf much better; yet a flow fever, like an hectic, remained on him the whole winter, which he extinguished by decoctions of vulnerary herbs, the eating of cabbage, the ufe of orange-juice, oil, and falt; and by these remedies he perfectly recovered. Here is an example of all the functions of the common fenfory hurt, from the elfactory nerves being only affect ed

Of the effect of rains, of marshes and bogs, fubterraneous wood, and fubterraneous waters. From M. Buffon's Theory of the Earth.

AINS, and the running

waters produced by them, detach continually, from the tops and ridges of mountains, fand, earth, gravel, &c. and carry them into the plains, whence ftreams and rivers bear away a part into lower plains, and often to the fea. Plains are therefore filled up fucceffively, and rife by little and little, and mountains diminish conftantly and become low, which diminution is perceptible in feveral parts. Jofeph Blancanus relates facts in regard to this, which were well known in his time, and which prove that the mountains were become fo low as to discover villages and caftles from feveral parts, whence they could not be formerly. feen. In the fhire of Derby in England, the fteeple of the village Craih was not vifible in 1572, from a certain mountain, upon account of the height of another mountain interpofed, which extends into Hopton and Wirksworth; and 80 or 100 years afterwards this steeple was feen, and even a part of the church. Dr. Plot cites a like example of a mountain between Sibbertoft and Ashby in the county of Northampton. The waters carry not only along with them the lighteft parts of mountains, as earth, fand, gravel, and small stones, but even roll away large rocks, which confiderably diminishes their height. In general, the higher mountains are, and their inclination more steep, the more the rocks feem to be cut off from them. The higheft mountains of Wales have rocks

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rocks extremely ftrait, and very naked; the fhivers of thofe rocks are feen lying in large heaps at their bottom. It is froft and water that separate and bear them down: fo that it is not only the mountains of fand and earth which rains lower, but alfo, as it appears, they attack the hardest rocks, and drag along their fragments into the vallies: And, these rocks and large ftones, difperfed here and there, are much more common in countries where the mountains are of fand and freeftone, than in those where they are of marble and clay, becaufe the fand which ferves as bafe to the rock, is a less folid foundation than clay.

To give an idea of the quantity of earth which the rains feparate from the mountains, and bear down into the vallies, we may cite a fact related by Dr. Plot: He fays, in his Natural Hiftory of Staffordfhire, that a great number of pieces of money, ftruck in the time of Edward IV. were found at 18 feet depth in the earth; fo that this ground, which if marshy, fwelled or was augmented about a foot in 11 years, or one inch and in a year. A like obfervation may be made on trees, which have been dug up at 17 feet depth, under which were found medals of Julius Cæfar; and thus earth, carried off from mountains into plains by running ftreams, increases very confiderably the elevation of the grounds of plains.

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This gravel, fand, and earth, which the waters feparate from the mountains, and carry into the plains, form there beds which must not be confounded with the ancient and original beds of the earth. We should rank in the class of these

new beds thofe of fand-ftone, foft ftone, gravel, and fand, of which the grains are washed and rounded; and to it fhould be likewife referred the beds of ftone that are formed by a kind of sediment and incruftation, as we cannot deduce their origin from the motion and fediments of the waters of the fea. In thofe fandy, foft, and imperfect ftones, are found an infinity of vegetables, leaves of trees, land or river fhells, fmall bones of land animals, but never fhells, nor other marine productions; which proves evidently, as well as their little folidity, that thofe beds are formed on the furface of the dry land, and that they are much newer than marble and other stone which contain fhells, anciently formed in the fea. Sand-ftone, and all thofe new ftones, appear to have hardness and folidity when they are extracted; but, if used for any purpofe, the air and rains are found to diffolve them very foon; their fubftance is even fo different from true ftone, that, when they are reduced into fmall parts in order to make fand of them, they are soon converted into a fort of earth and mud: the ftalactites likewise, and other ftony concretions, which Mr. Tournefort had taken for marbles that had vegetated, are not true ftones no more than thofe formed by incrustations. Sand-ftone is therefore an imperfect matter, different from ftone and earth, and having its origin from both by the means of the water of rains, as ftony incruftations have theirs from the fediment of the waters of certain springs; and thus their beds are not ancient, and have not heen formed, as others, by the. fediment of the waters of the fea.

The

The beds of peat or turf muft likewife be confidered as new beds, produced by the fucceffive accumulation of half-rotted trees and other vegetables, which were no otherwise preferved then by happening to be in bituminous grounds, which have hindered their intirely corrupting. In all thofe new beds of fand or foft ftone, or of ftone formed by fediments, or of peat, no marine production is found: but, on the contrary, many vegetables, the bones of land animals, river and land fhells, as may be seen in the meadows of Northamptonshire near Afhby, where a great number of fnail-fhells have been found with plants, herbs, and feveral river fhells, well preserved at the depth of fome feet under ground, without any fea-fhells. The waters that flow upon the furface of the earth, have formed all those new beds by often changing their channel, and fpreading on all fides; a part of thofe waters penetrates to the interior, and flows through the clefts of rocks and ftones; and this is the reason that no water is found on high lands, or on the tops of hills, because all the heights of the earth are generally compofed of ftone and rocks, especially towards the fummit. In order to find water, the ftone and the rock must be dug into till their bafe is reached; that is, till clay or firm earth appears, on which thofe rocks reft; and no water is found unless the thickness of the ftone is pierced through and through, as may be observed in feveral wells dug in high grounds; and when the height of the rocks, that is, the thicknefs of the ftone that must be pierced, is very confiderable, as in high mountains, where the rocks are

often 1000 feet high, it is impoffible to fink wells therein, and confequently to have water. There are likewife prodigious tracts of land where water is abfolutely wanting, as in Arabia Petræa, a defert where it never rains, where burning fands cover the whole furface of the earth; where there is fcarce any vegetable earth, and where the few plants that grow, faint away by drought: Springs and wells are fo rare here, that five only are reckoned from Cairo to Mount Sinai, and their water is befides bitter and brackish.

When the waters on the furface of the earth cannot find channels to flow in, they form bogs and marshes; the most famous marshes of Europe are thofe of Mufcovy, at the fource of the Tanais; thofe of Finland, where are the great marshes Savolax and Enafak: there are marshes alfo in Holland, in Weftphalia, and in feveral other flat countries: In Afia, there are the marshes of the Euphrates, thofe of Tartary, the Palus Mœotis; yet in general there are fewer in Afia and Africa, than in Eu rope: but America is, as it were, a continued bog in all its plains; and the great number of them is a much better proof of the newness of the country, and the fewness of the inhabitants, than of their little industry.

There are very large marfhes in England, in the county of Lincoln, near the fea, which has loft a deal of ground on one fide, and gained it on the other. In the old ground are found a great number of trees buried beneath the new ground which has been formed by the wa ters. A great number of trees are in like manner found in Scotland,

Near Bruges in Flanders, digging to 40 or 50 feet in depth, are found a very great number of trees as close to one another as in a foreft; the trunks, the branches, and the leaves are fo well preferved, that the different fpecies of trees are eafily diftinguished. Five hundred years ago that land, where thefe trees are found, was a fea, and before that time there is no account or tradition that this land had ever exifted; but it must have been lan d as thefe trees grew and vegetated; and thus the ground, which in far diftant times was firm land covered with wood, was afterwards covered with the waters of the fea, which brought there 40 or 50 feet depth of earth, and afterwards thofe waters retired. A great number of fubterraneous trees have likewife been found at Hull in the County of York, twelve miles below the city, on the river Humber; fome of them are fo large that they ferve for building; and it is affured, perhaps without good foundation, that this wood is as durable and ferviceable as oak; and it is cut into fmall rods, and long Splinters, which are fold into the neighbouring towns, and the people ufe them for lighting their pipes. All thofe trees appear broken, and the trunks are feparated from their roots, as trees which the violence of a hurricane or inunda tion had broken and carried away the wood nearly refembles that of the fir-tree, has the fame fmell when burnt, and makes coals of the fame fort. In the ifle of Man, in a bog fix miles long and three broad, called the Curragh, are found fubterraneous fir-trees, and, though they lie 18 or 20 feet deep,

their roots. The like are found in all great bogs, in quagmires, and in moft marthy places, in the counties of Somerfet, Chester, Lancafter, and Stafford. There are certain places where trees are found under ground, cut, fawed, fquared. and worked by men: Axes and bills have been likewife found be tween Birmingham in Warwickfhire and Bromley in Lincolnshire; and there are hills raised of fine and light fand, which rains and winds carry and transport away, by leav. ing dry and uncovered the roots of great firs, whereon the impreffion of the axe feems yet as fresh as if it had been juft made, Thofe hills might have been, no doubt, formed as downs, by heaps of fand borne along and accumulated by the fea, and on which thofe firs might have grown; and they might afterwards be covered with other fands, collected as the former, by inundations or violent winds. A great number of thofe fubterraneous trees are found alfo in the marthy grounds of Holland, in Friezland, and near Groningen; and it is from thence that comes the peat that is burnt all over the country.

In the ground are found an infinity of large and fmall trees of almoft every kind, as fir, oak, birch, beech, yew, white-thorn, willow, and afh; in the marshes of Lincolnshire, along the river Oufe, and in the county of York in Hatfieldchace, the trees are ftraight, and planted as feen in a forelt. The oaks are very hard, and are used in buildings, where they laft for a long time; the afh is foft, and crumbles into duft, as does the willow; fome of thefe trees have been found fquared, others fawed, others bor

ed,