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The imperial government have lately offered one thousand ducats in gold to the author of the best work on the construction of windmills, whether he be a native or foreigner.

The lovers of philology and classical literature will rejoice to hear that the publication of TISCHBEIN'S Illustrations of Homer has lately been resumed, after a lapse of twenty years. The seventh number of this magnificent work, forming the first of a new series, has just been published, and the archæological erudition and supeior taste it displays renders it an honourable testimony of that zeal for classical literature by which Germany has long been pre-eminently distinguished.

ITALY.

The Res Literaria is now completed with the third volume. This work is a bibliographical and critical miscellany; its main object is Italian literature, and the Latin writers of Italy

in the middle ages. The three volumes contain 250 articles. The edition is limited to seventy-five copies, a few of which have been sent to England. The first volume was printed at Naples in 1820; and the second at Rome, in the following year.

The Academy of Lucca has lately published the first volume of its Transactions, prefixed to which is an historical account of the rise of this Society. It originated in 1584, when it was held in the house of Gian Lorenzo Malpiglio, the person named by Tasso in two of his admirable dialogues. During two centuries the institution maintained itself without any attention on the part of the government, until 1805, when it was put on an improved footing, and received its present appellation.

FRANCE.

A work is said to be forthcoming at Paris, entitled "Memorial of St. Helena, or Journal of every Act of Bonaparte's Life during his first Eighteen Months' Sojourn in the Island."-We may conclude, however, from its appearance at Paris, that it will be suffi ciently tame and obsequious, or no printer would dare to engage in it. O'Meara's honest "Voice from St. Helena" is proscribed at the French Custom-houses, and, though in the English language, is seized wherever it is found. Every book containing a scintillation of public spirit, or enlivened by the spirit of free enquiry, is treated in like manner; and the genius of that country, which at one time could boast of its Voltaire, Rousseau, and D'Alembert, will soon be on a level with that of Austria and Prussia, where no work worthy of being read in a free country has appeared for the last thirty years. Reprints of English poets, and standard English authors, seem at present to be the chief objects of speculation among the Parisian booksellers.

Mr. J. B. SAY, justly celebrated for his writings on political economy, has announced his intention to establish, about the beginning of November, at his house, No. 92, Rue du Faubourg St. Martin, at Paris, a Series of Conversations on Political Economy, for the benefit of those gentlemen who may wish to acquire a more extended knowledge of that science, and who procure a recommendation from some person of known respectability, which

must

must be forwarded to the house of the Professor, together with the subscription for the course, which is twelve pounds.

From the collections in the Paris Museums, M. HUMBOLDT estimates the known species of plants at 56,000, and those of animals at 51,700; among which 44,000 insects, 4,000 birds, 700 reptiles, and 500 mammalia. In Europe live about 400 species of birds, 80 mammalia, and 30 reptiles; and in the opposite southern zone, on the Cape, we find likewise almost five times more birds than mammalia. Towards the equator, the proportion of birds, and particularly of reptiles, increases considerably. According to Cavier's enumeration of fossil animals, it appears that in ancient periods the globe was inhabited much more by mammalia than birds.

NETHERLANDS.

Some activity prevails in the presses of the Netherlands, owing to the less liberal system of France. A fine edition of Choiseul Gouffier's Greece is printing in ten volumes octavo, and some original works of Travels, History, and Biography, have lately appeared at Brussels. A translation is even announced of O'Meara's "Voice from St. Helena;" and, though the press does not enjoy the protection of Trial by Jury, yet the government is confident in its own strength, and does not appear to tremble at the warnings or the voice of truth.

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WEST INDIES.

The following letter from Boyer,
president of Hayti, to M. Jullien,
conductor of the Revue Encyclo-
pedique, proves that that eminent man
is duly attentive to the interests of lite-
rature, and argues well for the happi-
ness and improvement of Hayti.

Liberty- -Equality.
REPUBLIC OF HAYTI.

J. Pierre Boyer, President of Hayti, to Mr.
Jullien Founder, Director of the Revue
Encyclopédique.

Sir, I have, in the interval of a few
days, received the letters which you sent
of November last, the first by Mr. Frederic,
me, dated the 15th of October and the 4th
and the other by Mr. St. Georges, for
whom you ask my interest. I do not think
that this young man, in conforming to the
laws and customs of the country, will meet
any obstacle to the success of the affairs
entrusted to him: the protection which go-
vernment is glad to give to commerce,
must leave no fear to foreign speculators
tions they seek to make. Should, how-
who come here, on the result of the opera-
ever, your protégé happen to experience
any difficulty in the pursuit of his commer-
cial affairs, and should it depend on me to
facilitate their success, you may be as
sured I will give him my protection.

I have read with much satisfaction the
first of the above-mentioned letters, and
contains. In giving my opinion on your
am sensible to the obliging expressions it
Revue Encyclopédique, I paid but a feeble
homage to the merit of that important
publication. I am sorry, but not surprised,
at the obstacles it meets with from suspi-
cious men, inimical to all philanthropy; it
is natural that all which throws a dazzling
Instre hurts eyes which fear the light; but
what is not less certain is, that the more
efforts these blind men make to hinder
will enhance its worth.
the progress of the Revue, the more they
which holds so distinguished a place in the
A production
literary world, and has obtained so many
honourable testimonials, (eulogies,) must
certainly triumph, a little sooner or a little
later, over all the attempts directed
against it.

From the time this letter reaches you,
you will oblige me by reckoning me.
ten copies of the Revue Encyclopedique.
among the number of your subscribers for

distinguished consideration. J. BOYER.
Receive, sir, a new assurance of my
Port-au-Prince, 15th August, 1821.

18th Year of Independence.

It affords us pleasure to learn that the press is unshackled in Hayti, and that a system of civil liberty governs that noble island.

MEDICAL

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MEDICAL REPORT.

REPORT of DISEASES and CASUALTIES occurring in the public and private Practice of the Physician who has the care of the Western District of the City Dispensary.

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Grandmamma (the good ladies that go under this name are too often the determined enemies, both to the physical and moral well-being of young people,) grandmamma had ordered the child in question something" comforting and supporting" in the shape of solid meat, of no inconsiderable quantity, just before bed-time: in the night the fearful noise and frightful strug gle were again heard and witnessed; and death, on this second attempt, succeeded in the seizure of its victim at about the same period in the evening of the ensuing day that the "doctors" had been laughed at for their caution, and practically derided and opposed on the preceding.

In the second case, the recurrence of the croupal inflammation was plainly caused by an injudicious exposure to cold air. Here powerful measures are again promising success, but the fate of the patient will probably be determined long before the present paper is put to press.

A remarkable instance of aphonia has recently presented itself to the writer, which has been most successfully treated by galvanism, in combination with the nitras argenti. The subject was a young and amiable female, who had been deprived of her voice for nearly four months, and had taken steel, with other medicinals, without effect. In the course of three days from the commencement of the galvanism, and the drug just named, the voice began to return; and it has, at length, regained all its wonted clearness and energy.

* There is now reason to hope that this last case will proclaim the triumph of medicine.

It is not, perhaps, very easy to apportion the due share of respective credit to the two remedial agents thus simultaneously tried in this interesting case; but the writer conceives, that the galvanic influence might, in many cases, be brought to bear with more decided and permanent efficacy, by com. bining its exhibition with a substance, which we know is not only powerful, but often permanent in its effects. It is a remarkable fact, that the perception of a metallic impregnation of the frame from a particular taste is the same from galvanism as from the nitrate of silver. It ought to be mentioned, that Mr. La Beaume was the galvanic operator in the instance now referred to.

Renal affections the Reporter often finds to have been treated, and he is conscious of not having unfrequently treated them himself, as mere derangements of the stomach. This oversight and mistake may, in many instances, be partly ascribable to that indolent disposition, to generalize which the "digestive-organs" views of medicine are apt to engender. M. Majendie, a celebrated physiologist of France, expresses astonishment that so philosophical a nation as the English should rest in the empirical and delusive contentment arising out of this source. He, indeed, at least in the present writer's opinion, denies the stomach even its due operation in the manufacturing of maladies, which develope themselves more especially through the medium of the kidneys, giving to the latter organs their more than deserved share in the morbific processes; but, certain it is, that stomach ailments, even of a formidable cast and character, are often merely sympathetic sequels of renal derangement; and that, too, in cases where calculus is neither present nor in prospect, a circumstance to which the Reporter has thought it proper to call the reader's attention, in consequence of having lately had occasion to witness a more than ordinary proportion of lumbar and stomach complaints thus connected with, and closely simulating, each other. D. UWINS, M.D. Bedford Row, Sept. 20, 1822.

REPORT OF CHEMISTRY AND EXPERIMENTAL PHILOSOPHY.

MR. R. BABBAGE has made a very extraordinary discovery on the application of machinery to the purpose of calculating and printing mathematical tables. He states that the intolerable labour and fafiguing monotony of a continued repetition of similar arithmetical calculations, first

excited the desire, and afterwards suggested the idea, of a machine, which, by the aid of gravity (weight), or any other moving power, should become a substitute for one of the lowest operations of human intellect. The first engine of which draw. ings were made was one which is capable

4

of

of computing any table by the aid of differences, whether they are positive or negative, or of both kinds. With respect to the number of the order of the differences, the nature of the machinery did not in my own opinion, nor in that of a skilful mechanic whom I consulted, appear to be restricted to any very limited number; and I should venture to construct one with ten or a dozen orders with perfect confidence. One remarkable property of this machine is, that the greater the number of differences, the more the engine will outstrip the most rapid calculator.-By the application of certain parts of no great degree of complexity, this may be converted into a machine for extracting the roots of equations, and consequently the roots of numbers; and the extent of the approximation depends on the magnitude of the machine. -Of a machine for multiplying any number of figures by any number, I have several sketches; but it is not yet brought to that degree of perfection which I should wish to give it before it is to be executed. I have also certain principles by which, if it should be desirable, a table of prime numbers might be made, extending from 0 to 10 millions. Another machine, whose plans are much more advanced than several of those just named, is one for constructing tables which have no order of differences constant.-A vast variety of equations of finite differences may by its means be solved, and a variety of tables, which could be produced in successive parts by the first machine I have mentioned, could be calculated by the latter one with a still less exertion of human thought, Another and very remarkable point in the structure of this machine is, that it will calculate tables governed by laws which have not been hitherto shown to be explicitly determinable, or that it will solve equations for which analytical methods of solution have not yet been con trived. Supposing these engines executed, there would yet be wanting other means to ensure the accuracy of the printed tables to be produced by them. The errors of the persons employed to copy the fgures presented by the engines would first interfere with their correctness. To remedy this evil, I have confrived means by which the machines themselves shall take from several boxes containing type, the numbers which they calculate, and place them side by side; thus becoming at the same time a substitute for the compo. sitor and the computer: by which means all error in copying, as well as in printing, is removed. There are, however, two sources of error which have not yet been guarded against. The ten boxes with which the engine is provided contain each about three thousand types; any box havMONTHLY MAG. No. 573.

ing of course only those of one number in it. It may happen that the person employed in filling these boxes shall accidentally place a wrong type in some of them; as, for instance, the number 2 in the boxes which ought only to contain 7s. When these boxes are delivered to the superintendant of the engine, I have provided a simple and effectual means by which he shall in less than half an hour ascertain whether, amongst these 30,000 types, there be any individual misplaced or even inverted. The other cause of error to which I have alluded arises from the type falling out when the page has been set up: this I have rendered impossible, by means of a similar kind.—To bring to perfection the various machinery which I have contrived would require an expense, both of time and money, which can be known only to those who have themselves attempted to execute mechanical inventions. Of the greater part of that which has been mentioned, I have at present contented myself with sketches on paper, accompa nied by short memorandums, by which I might at any time more fully develop the contrivances; and, where any new principles are introduced, I have had models executed, in order to examine their actions. For the purpose of demonstrating the practicability of these views, I have chosen the engine for differences, and have constructed one of them, which will produce any tables whose second differences are constant. Its size is the same as that which I should propose for any more extensive one of the same kind: the chief difference would be, that in one intended for use there would be a greater repetition of the same parts, in order to adapt it to the calculation of a larger number of figures. Of the action of this engine, you have yourself had opportunities of judging, and I will only at present mention a few trials which have since been made by some scientific gentlemen, to whom it has been shown, in order to determine the rapidity with which it calculates. The computed table is presented to the eye at two opposite sides of the machine; and, a friend having undertaken to write down the numbers as they appeared, it proceeded to make a table from the formula x2+x+41. In the earlier numbers my friend, in writing quickly, rather more than kept pace with the engine; but, as soon as four figures were required, the machine was at least equal in speed to the writer. In another trial it was found that thirty numbers of the same table were calculated in two minutes and thirty seconds; as these contained eighty two figures, the engine produced thirty-three every minute. In another trial it produced figures at the rate of forty-four in a minute. As the M m

machine

machine may be made to move uniformly by a weight, this rate might be maintained for any length of time, and I believe few writers would be found to copy with equal speed for many hours together. Imperfect as a first machine generally is, and suffering as this particular one does from great defect in the workmanship, I have every reason to be satisfied with the accuracy of its computations; and, by the few skilful mechanics to whom I have in confidence shown it, I am assured that its principles are such, that it may be carried to any extent. In fact, the parts of which it consists are few, but frequently repeated, resembling in this respect the arithmetic to which it is applied, which, by the aid of a few digits often repeated, produces all the wide variety of number. The wheels of which it consists are numerous, but few move at the same time; and I have employed a principle by which any small error that may arise from accident or bad workmanship is corrected as soon as it is produced, in such a manner as effectually to prevent any accumulation of small errors from producing a wrong figure in the calculation.-Of those contrivances by which the composition is to be effected, I have made many experiments and several models; the results of these leave me no reason to doubt of success, which is still further confirmed by a working model that is just finished.

HA

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MONTHLY AGRICULTURAL REPORT.

ARVEST was finished in the southern and forward districts during the course of the last month; in the northern and less favoured, during the present. A tolerably accurate general estimate may now be formed. On all the best lands, wherever situated, the wheat crop is considerably above an average, the quality uncommonly weighty and fine; and the straw, although not so bulky as in some years, substantial and extremely valuable. The oat-straw, as fodder, will almost equal the hay of some years. The spring crops, it is now confirmed, are generally defective, but the quality is generally good; upon moist and productive light lands, however, some of these crops have reached an average ; and, with respect to barley, it is remarked in the barley counties, that the old stock on hand equals in quantity the new growth. Hays and grasses rather of fine condition than very great plenty, with exceptions of heavy crops and constant plenty of green food, particularly aftermath on various parts. On potatoes and turnips nothing new, the former a universally pro. ductive growth, the quantity greatly enhanced by superior quality, the latter de

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fective in both; as to Swedes, scarcely any quotable crop. The eagerness of the farmers, and the two growths, occasioned part of the wheat almost every where to be carted and stacked prematurely; whence heating, and a necessity of preventive measures. A great hop and fruit year, even to pears, in some parts. The greatest grape season of the last forty. The cider manu factory has commenced. The live stock and flesh markets, as well as that of corn, have of late made some stand and some advance in price; but autumn, the season of plenty and of overflow, is at hand. The fallows are backward for want of rain, and very little wheat has yet been put into the earth. The state of the farming interest is truly deplorable, in which the poor la bourer must necessarily share. greatly to the honour of Sir Henry Bunbury, that he has taken the lead in recom mending, by a circular to his Suffolk tenantry, the discontinuance for the present of the use of the threshing machine.

It is

Smithfield:-Beef, 2s. 4d. 10 38. 8d.Mutton, 2s. 6d. to 3s. 6d. Veal, 28. 6d. to 3s. 8d.-Pork, 2s. 6d. dairy do. 3s. 6d. to 48.-Lamb, 2s. 6d. to 3s.-English

bacon,

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