EDINBURGH: PRINTED BY ALEX. CHAPMAN AND CO. And Sold by JAMES WATSON & Co. No 40. South Bridge. METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. Rife and Fall of the Barometer. THE barometer being lower, and continuing fo longer than what can be ac counted for by immediate falls, or ftormy weather, indicates the approach of very cold weather for the feafon and alfo, cold weather, though dry, is always ac companied by a low barometer, till near its termination. Warm weather is always preceded and moftly accompanied by a high barometer, and the rifing of the barometer, in the time of broken or cold weather, is a fign of the approach of warmer weather: and also if the wind is in any of the cold points a fudden rife of the barometer indicates the approach of a foutherly wind; which in the winter generally brings rain with it. A high barometer is always accompanied by calm or moderate weather as to wind, and is followed in the first place by warmer weather than what is the medium of the feafon; zdly, by fair weather without precipitations. It is also worth remarking, that a steady and strong wind blowing fix hours or more from the foutherly points, always drops the barometer; but from the northerly or easterly, always raifes it. The falling of the barometer may proceed from a decompofition of the atmosphere occurring around or near that part of the globe where we are placed, which will occafion the electricity of the atmosphere to be repelled upwards in fine lambent por tions; or driven downwards or upwards in more compacted balls of fire; or laftly, to be carried along with the rain &c. in an imperceptible manner to the furface of the earth the precipitation of the watery parts generally very foon takes place, which diminishes the real gravity of the atmosphere, and alfo by the decompofition of fome of the more active parts, the air lofes part of that elastic and repulfive power which it fo eminently poffeffed, and will therefore prefs with less force on the mercury of the barometer than before, by which means a fall enfues. The rifing of the barometer may be accounted for by the watery vapour and other constituent parts of the atmosphere being thoroughly concentrated, or com bined together in the form of a real mixt, by means of the phlogifton, latent heat, or electricity communicated by the fun, fire on the furface of the earth, &c. which act here, as on other occafions, like a bond of union among the other diffimilar parts, fo that the air becomes not only more homogeneous, concentrated, and hea vier, but also may be fuppofed more elaftic and repellent, and therefore will communicate a much greater preffure to the barometer. A high barometer may in like manner be faid to indicate heat, and à low one cold, from the prefence or want of a certain portion of heat or electrical fire in the air, which when in a large proportion muft encrease the warmth, folidity, and fpring of the air, especially when by its prefence a real mixture takes place. But when there is a deficiency of the principle of heat in the atmosphere, the watery vapour cannot be thoroughly combined, but only remains in a flate of folution in the air, and confequently a greater degree of cold and diminution of the volume, and preffure or elafticity of the air, takes place. Manchester Memoirs, vol. 4. AN EFFECTUAL METHOD OF CURING THE SCAB IN SHEEP. BY SIR JOSEPH BANKS, BART. F, R. S. TAKE one pound of quickfilver, half a pound of Venice turpentine, half a pint of pil of turpentine, four pounds of hogs' lard: Let them be rubbed in a mortar till the qu ckfilver is thoroughly incorporated with the other ingredients; for the proper mode of doing which it may be neceffary to take the advice of fome apothecary, or other perfon used to make fuch mixtures. SCOTS MAGAZINE, For JULY 1794 ON THE LOVE OF OUR COUNTRY. HE love of our country is one of the nobleft paffions that can warm and animate the human breast. It includes all the limited and particular affections to our parents, friends, neighbours, fellow citizens, and countrymen. It ought to direct and limit their more confined and partial actions within their proper and natural bounds, and never let them encroach on those facred and first regards we owe to the great public to which we belong. Were we folitary creatures, detached from the rest of mankind, and without any capacity of comprehending a public intereft, or without affections leading us to defire and pursue it, it would not be our duty to mind it, nor criminal to neglect it: But as we are parts of the public fyftem, and are not only capable of taking in large views of its interefts, but by the Atrongest affections connected with it, and prompted to take a fhare of its concerns, we are under the most facred ties to profecute its fecurity and welfare with the utmost ardour, efpecially in times of public danger. This love of our country does not import an attachment to any particular foil, climate, or spot of earth, where perhaps we first drew our breath, though those natural ideas are often affociated with the moral ones, and, like external figns or fymbols, help to afcertain and bind them; but it imports an affection to that moral fyftem, or community, which is governed by the fame laws and magiftrates, and whose several parts are variously connected one with the other, and all united upon the bottom of a common intereft. Perhaps, indeed, every member of the community cannot Comprehend fo large an object, especially if it extends through large provinces, and over vaft tracts of land; and ftill Jefs can he form fuch an idea, if there is no public, i. e. if all are fubject to the VOL. LVI. caprice and unlimited will of one man ; but the preference the generality fhew to their native country; the concern and longing after it which they exprefs when they have been long abfent from it; the labours they undertake and fufferings they endure to fave or serve it; and the peculiar attachment they have to their countrymen, evidently demonftrate that the palhon is natural, and never fails to exert itself when it is fairly difengaged from foreign clogs, and is directed to its proper object. Wherever it prevails in its genuine vigour and extent, it fwallows up all fordid and felfish regards; it conquers the love of eafe, power, pleafure, and wealth; nay, when the amiable partialities of friendship, gratitude, private affection, or regards to a family, come in competition with it, it will teach us bravely to facrifice all, in order to maintain the rights, and promote or defend the honour and happiness, of our country. Refignation and obedience to the laws and orders of the fociety to which we belong, are political duties necessary to its very being and fecurity, without which it must foon degenerate into a state of licentioufnefs and anarchy. The welfare, nay, the nature of civil fociety requires that there fhould be a fubordination of orders, or diversity of ranks and conditions in it; that certain men, or orders of men, be appointed to superintend and manage fuch affairs as concern the public fafety and happiness; that all have their particular provinces affigned them; that fuch a fubordination be fettled among them as none of them may interfere with another; and finally, that certain rules or common measures of action be agreed on, by which each is to dif charge his duty to govern, or be governed, and all may concur in fecuring the 3 C order order, and promoting the felicity, of the whole political body. Thofe rules of action are the laws of the community; and thofe different orders are the several officers or magiftrates appointed by the public to explain them, and fuperintend or affift in their execution. In confequence of this fettlement of things, it is the duty of each individual to obey the laws enacted; to fubmit to the executors of them, with all due deference and homage, according to their refpective ranks and dignity, as to the keepers of the public peace, and the guardians of public liberty; to maintain his own rank, and perform the functions of his own ftation, with diligence, fidelity, and incorruption. The fuperiority of the higher orders, or the authority with which the ftate has invefted them, intitle them, efpecially if they employ their authority, well, to the obedience and fubmiffion of the lower, and to a proportionable honour and refpect from all. The fubordination of the lower ranks claims protection, defence, and fecurity, from the higher. And the laws, being fuperior to all, require the obedience and fubmiffion of all, being the laft refort, beyond which there is no decifion or appeal. -Public fpirit, heroic zeal, love of liberty, and the other political duties, do, above all others, recommend thofe who practise them to the admiration and homage of mankind; because, as they are the offsprings of the nobleft minds, fo are they the parents of the greatest bleffings to fociety. Yet, exalted as they are, it is only in equal and free governments where they can be exercifed and have their due effect: For there only does a true public fpirit prevail; and there only is the public good made the ftandard of the civil conftitution. As the end of fociety is the common intereft and welfare of the people affociated, this end muft of neceffity be the fupreme law, or common standard, by which the particular rules of action, of the feveral members of the fociety, towards each other, are to be regulated. But a common intereft can be no other than that which is the refult of the common reafon or common feelings of all. Private men, or a particular order of men, have interefts and feelings peculiar to themfelves, and of which they may be good judges; but these may be feparate from, and often contrary to, the interests and feelings of the rest of the fociety; and, therefore, they can have no right to make, and much lefs to impose, laws on their fellow citizens, inconfiftent with, and oppofite to, those interests and thofe feelings: Therefore a fociety, a government, or real public, truly worthy the name, and not a confederacy of banditti, a clan of lawlefs favages, or a band of flaves under the whip of a master, must be fuch a one as confifts of freemen, chufing or confenting to laws themselves ; or, fince it often happens that they cannot affemble and act in a collective body, delegating a fufficient number of reprefentatives, i. e. fuch a number as fhall moft fully comprehend, and moft equally reprefent, their common feelings and common interests, to digest and vote laws for the conduct and controul of the whole body, the most agreeable to those common feelings and common interefts.-Such is the Conftitution of Great Britain. A fociety thus conftitued by common reason, and formed on the plan of a com mon intereft, becomes immediately an object of public attention, public veneration, public obedience, a public and inviolable attachment, which ought neither to be feduced by bribes, not awed by terrors; an object, in fine, of all thofe ex tenfive and important duties which arise from fo glorious a confederacy. To watch over fuch a fyftem; to contribute all he can promote its good by his reafon, his ingenuity, his ftrength, and every other ability, whether natural or ac quired; to refift, and, to the utmost of his power, defeat every incroachment upon it, whether carried on by a fecret corruption or open violence; and to facrifice his ease, his wealth, his power, nay life itself, and, what is dearer ftill, his family and friends, to defend or fave it, is the duty, the honour, the interest, and the happinefs of every citizen; it will make him venerable and beloved while he lives, be lamented and honoured if he falls in fo glorious a caufe, and tranfmit his name with immortal renown to the latest posterity. ME. MEMOIR OF SOME EXTINGUISHED VOLCANOS IN THE Prince complains of the difficul- Caffel, is equally volcanic. attending the ftudy of mineralogy, by se uncertainty in the nomenclature of at fcience, of which we may judge by 1 anecdote he reports of the Abbe Souvie. In the collection of this learned an is a ftone cut into four blocks, each of hich has received a different name from ch of the four mineralogifts to which ey had been fent. If this confulion in effential a part appears furprising, the ence of naturalifts on extinguished volcadoes not feem lefs fo to our author. This filence,' fays he, would be more gular, if it refpected any two or three lcanos: But their number is fo progious, their productions fo various, we Is continually by the fide of them, the itter they furnish has been employed a number of years, not only in paving eets and highways, but alfo is made article of commerce. As we go up Rhine, we meet with them as foon as pafs Bonne, and they are continued as as Switzerland: they run on both les the Maine, then enter Heffe and the untry of Fulda, and end at Gottingen, wards Hartz. They are to be found Mifnia, Tranfylvania, &c.; and Lanjedoc, Auvergne, Dauphiny, Velai, ivarais, &c. are full of them. Meff. aujas and Soulavie have given a deription of them. So that it is clearly oved, that there are beyond comparimore extinguished than exifting vol mos in the world. This has been af ated by M. Buffon, and the prefent feems le proper time to enquire into the fub The cele brated cafcade of Weiffenftein is entirely built of lava and bafaltes, dug from the ground on which it is fituated. The octagonal building crowned by the ftatute of Hercules, is placed immediately on the crater of the mountain; we fee indubitable proofs of this when we are on the fpot. A few paces from the octagon cafile, under a flight layer of vegetable earth, appear more porous lava, red, brown, grey, and violet, and then fome heavy lava. Immediately below begins the bafaltic lava, which has run to the right and left of the mountain as far as where the caltle of Weiffenftein now ftands. These are large rude blocks, which are alfo to be found on the flope of the mountain, between the cafcade and earth. The prifmatic bafaltes are equally to be found on the flope of the mountain, to the left of the ftatue as we come from Caffel. I have only examined a very fmall umber of those extinguished volcanos in Germany. Coming from Munfter to Padterborn, I began by thofe of Heffe. The frit mountain, decidedly volcanic, which I met in my route, was that of GribeaReen, near Geifmar. It is a perfect cone, on the fammit of which is a fall caftle, and at the foot of the caftle they dig the hafalts, employed in paving the highway Letween Geifmar and Caffel. The mountain of Carifbery, near Among the gravelly lava, employed on the walls of the cafcade, we often meet with vitrious and calcarous ftones, round and perfectly preferved: the heat of the lava, during their running, has not altered, them. May we not therefore conclude, that thefe lava have been only cinders projected from the volcano? The fea afterwards covering this mountain, has formed folid maffes of it. The fubmerfion of this mountain in water appears, 1. by the quantity of marine fhells which I have gathered from the land newly removed near the temple of Apollo, built by the prefent Landgrave; and, 2. by the bafaltes themfelves, which are never formed but from lava which has run into the fea. For none of the modern currents, which have not reached the sea, are converted into the bafaltes. The volcano of Lang-gins, near Mar purg, is remarkable for the fmallnefs of its bafaltes, preferving, however, all their regular prifmatic fhape. Among its productions are alfo found the glafs, known by the name of Iceland agatha. The volcano of Saxenhaufen or of Sandhoff, near Frankfort, on the left fide 3 D of |