sum of 20,0001. Part of the money was recovered, and Mr Walsh, after an examination, fully committed for trial. 19. Mr and Mrs Williamson, and their servant maid, all murdered, in Mr Williamson's house, Gravel Lane, London. A reward of 5001. offered to discover the murderers. 21. A house in Castlehill, Edinburgh, blown up by gunpowder; one woman was killed, and several other persons wounded, one of whom (a woman), is since dead. 24. Bonaparte, by a decree, calls out 120,000 men, of the conscription of 1812. TO 27. Williams, one of the persons apprehended on suspicion of being concerned in the murders at Ratcliffe Highway and New Gravel Lane, found suspended in his cell in Coldbath-fields prison. From evidence examined since his death, little doubt remains of his being one of the perpetrators of these horrid crimes. root as to be afterwards immoveable. horses at an inn which does not It was first introduced by a few great men, and has been since anxiously copied by a great many little men. What I allude to, is the mean practice of not receiving the horses and servants of visitors; 'but of dismissing them, however tired or jaded, to some paltry alehouse, or perhaps to an inn at a considerable distance. With great men who do not return visits, this may answer very well; and may save to them at the years end, five and twenty, or even thirty pounds; a sum, certainly not to be overlooked in these hard times. It is true, it will cost their visitors three or four times that sum; but then, again, the Inn, which probably belongs to the great man, will fetch a proportionable rent, and by this means he is doubly a gainer. Besides, however the horses may fare, the servants have themselves to blame if they have not every thing that is best; they are, in fact, masters, for the time; and may order what they please, without the smallest chance of their masters belong (for that is a matter to be I am, Sir, yours, &c. learning what they are about; and if they should be afraid of swelling out the bill for their own entertainment too much, there is an easy method, though probably unknown to our chemists, of converting oats into porter, or even into wine! Not to mention the many useful lessons which a country booby of a servant will naturally learn by frequent communications with immaculate hostlers and chaise drivers! Now, although I have clearly shown that this practice is really profitable to the great man who does not return visits, yet, I confess, I do not see either the profit or economy of it to the little man who does. But, to put the matter in a clear light, let us suppose that when I go to visit my friend 1, it costs me thirty shillings for my servants and would it not be a notable improveP. S. If the practice continues, ment to convert our Porter's Lodges into inns. Proceedings of the Wernerian the meeting of this Society, on the 14th December, Professor Jameson read a short general account of the geognosy of the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright. It would appear from the Professor's description, that the greater portion of this part of Scotland is composed of grey-wacke, grey-wacke slate, and transition slate, with subordinate beds of transition porphyry, transition greenstone, and flinty slate. But three tracts, the first of which contains the mountain of Criffle, the second Cairnsmuir of Dee, &c. and the third Loch Doune, are composed of granite, sienite, sienitic porphyry, and killas. The sienite and granite, in some places, are covered by the killas; in other places the granite and sienite rest upon the killas; and Professor Jameson also observed the killas alternating ternating with beds of granite and sienite, and veins shooting from the granite into the adjacent killas. The granitous rocks, besides felspar, quartz, mica, and hornblende, also contain imbedded rutilite, titanitie, iron-ore, and molybdena; and, in rolled masses of a reddish coloured sienite, crystals and grains of zircon were observed. Professor Jameson also stated several of the characters of the killas, described the magnetic pyrites it contains, noticed its affinity with certain rocks of the transition class, and exhibited specimens to illustrate this affinity. At the same meeting, there was read a series of thermometrical observations on the temperature of the Gulf Stream, by Dr Manson of New Galloway: And a description of a new craniometer, proposed by Mr W. E. Leach, illustrated by a sketch. Memoirs of the late Dr Robert Whytt, Professor of Medicine in the Universi, ty of Edinburgh, with corrections and additions, from the last edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, Vol. XX. TH HIS eminent Physician, born at Edinburgh on the 6th September 1714, was the son of Robert Whytt, Esq. of Bennochy, Fifeshire, advocate, by his wife Jean, daughter of Anthony Murray, Esq. of Woodend, Perthshire, advocate, and niece of Sir Thomas Murray of Glendoick, baronet, Lord Register in the time of Charles II. Robert Whytt died six months before the birth of our author, who had also the misfortune to be deprived of his mother soon after he had attained the 15th year of his age. After receiving the first rudiments of school education, he was sent to the University of St Andrews, and, after the usual course of instruction there, in classical, philosophical, January 1812. and mathematical learning, he came to Edinburgh, where he entered upon the study of medicine, under these eminent medical teachers, Munro, Rutherford, Sinclair, Plummer, Alston, and James. After learning what was to be acquired at this university, in the prosecution of his studies, he visited foreign countries; teachers at London, Paris, and Leyand, after attending the most eminent den, he had the degree of doctor of physic conferred upon him by the University of Rheims in 1736, being then in the 22d year of his age. Upon his return to his native country, he had the same honour also conferred upon him by the University of St Andrews; where he had before obtained, with applause, the degree of master of arts. Not long afterwards, in the year 1737, he was admitted a licentiate of medicine by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh; and, the rank of fellow of the college. From year following, he was raised to the the time of his admission as a licentiate, he entered upon the practice of physic at Edinburgh; and the reputa tion which he acquired for medical learning, pointed him out as a fit successor for the first vacant chair in the university. Accordingly, when Dr Sinclair, whose eminent medical abilities, and persuasive powers of oratory, had contributed not a little to the rapid advancement of the medical school of Edinburgh, found that these conspicuous talents which he possessed, couldno longer beexerted in the manner which they once had been, when he enjoyed bodily vigour, unimpaired by age, and powers of mind unloaded by disease, he resigned his academical appointments in favour of Dr Whytt. This admission into the college took place on the 20th of June 1746; and he began his first course of the institutions of medicine at the com mencement mencement of the next winter session. From the first time that he entered upon an academical appointment, till the year 1756, his prelections were confined to the institutious of medicine alone. But at that period, his learned colleague, Dr Rutherford, who then filled the practical chair, who had already taught medicine at Edinburgh, with universal applause, for more than thirty years, and who had been the first to begin the insti tution of clinical lectures at the Royal Infirmary, found it necessary to retire from the fatiguing duties of an office, to which the progress of age rendered him unequal. On this crisis, Dr Whytt, Dr Munro sen. and Dr Cullen, each agreed to take a share in an appointment, in which their united exertions promised the highest advantages to the university. By this arrangement, students, who had an opportunity of daily witnessing the practice of three such teachers, and of hearing the grounds of that practice explained, could not fail to derive the most solid advantages. In these two departments, the institutions of medicine in the university, and the clinical lectures in the Royal Infirmary, Dr Whytt's academical labours were attended with the most beneficial consequences, both to the students and to the university. But not long after the period we have last mentioned, his lectures on the former. of these subjects underwent a considerable change. About this time the illustrious Gaubius, who had succeeded to the chair of Boerhaave, favoured the world with his Institutiones Pathologiae. This branch of medi cine had, indeed, a place in the text which Dr Whytt formerly followed, but, without detracting from the character of Dr Boerhaave, it may justly be said, that the attention he had bestowed upon it was not equal to its importance. Dr Whytt was sensible of the improved state in which pathology now appeared in the writings of Boerhaave's successor; and he made no delay in availing himself of the advantages which were then afforded. In the year 1762, his pathological lectures were entirely new modelled. Following the publication of Gaubius as a text, he delivered a comment, which was read by every intelligent student with most unfeigned satisfaction. In these lectures he collected collected and condensed the fruits of accurate observation and long experience. Enriched by all the opportu nities of information which he had enjoyed, and by all the discernment which he was capable of exerting, they were justly considered as his most finished production. from the time that he had finished his academical course, and obtained a degree in medicine: but the delay of this publication was fully compensated by the matter which it contained, and the improved form under which it appeared. The next subject which employed the pen of Dr Whytt was one of a nature more immediately practical. His Essay on the Virtues of Limewater and Soap in the Cure of the Stone, first made its appearance in a separate volume in 1752. Part of this second work had appeared seve ral years before in the Edinburgh Medical Essays; but it was now presented to the world as a distinct publication, with many improvements and additions. His third work, entitled, Physiological Essays, was first published in the year 1755. This treatise consisted of two parts: 1st, An Inquiry into the Causes which promote the Circulation of the Fluids in the very small Vessels of Animals, occasioned by Dr Haller's treatise on that subject. The former of these may be considered as an extension and farther illustration of the sentiments which he had already delivered in his Essay on the Vital Motions, while the latter was a subject of a controversial nature. In both he displayed that acuteness of genius and strength of judgment which appeared in his former writings. For a period of more than twenty years, during which he was justly held in the highest esteem as a lecturer at Edinburgh, it may readily be supposed that the extent of his practice corresponded to his reputation. In fact, he both received the emoluments and the highest honours that could be obtained. With extensive practice in Edinburgh, he had numerous consultations from other places. His opinion on medical subjects was daily requested by his most eminent contemporaries in every part of Britain. Foreigners of the first distinction, and celebrated physicians in the most remote parts of the British empire, courted an intercourse with him by letter. Besides private testimonies of esteem, many public marks of honour were conferred upon him both at home and abroad. In 1752, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London; in 1761, he was appointed first physician to the king in Scotland; and in 1764, he was chosen president of the Royal College of Physicians at Edinburgh. But the fame which Dr Whytt acquired as a practitioner and teacher of medicine was not a little increased by the information which he communicated to the medical 'world in different publications. His celebrity as an author was still more extensive, than his reputation as a professor. His first publication, "An Essay on the Vital and other involuntary Motions of Animals," although it had been begun soon after he had finished his academical course of education, did not come from the press till 1751; a period of fifteen years From the time at which his Physiological Essays were published, several years were probably employed by our author in preparing for the press a larger and perhaps a more important work than any yet mentioned his Observations on the Nature, Causes, and Cure of those Disorders which are commonly called Nervous, Hypochondriac, and Hysteric. This elaborate and useful work was published in the year 1765. The last of Dr Whytt's writings |