is, for inftance, quite as eafy to reduce our English measure to this as to the old Paris ftandard, and the decimal divifions render it more convenient for calculation. The only difadvantage attending it relates to the divifion of the quadrant into a hundred degrees, which is not so convenient for bilection as ninety-fix would be.

Highly, however, as we approve this fyftem of measures and weights, we cannot commend their new divifion of the year; which, as it is not attended with any advantages beyond the common mode of computing time, and is difgraced with the moft ridiculous appellations of party diftinction, we hope will never be suffered to introduce confufion into works of merit, nor be adopted by men of science, who ought to treat the prejudices of the great and of the fmall vulgar with equal contempt. Of every ufeful improvement we fhall always be the zealous promoters; because we confider it as a real acquifition of good to mankind: but innovation, which has neither philofophical principles nor general utility to recommend it, is an evil that every friend to man ought to oppofe. Of the latter kind is the new republican calender, in which the year begins with the autumnal equinox, and is divided into twelve. months; these are called Vendemiaire, Brumaire, Frimaire, Nivos, Ventos, Pluvios, Germinal, Florial, Prairéal, Meffidor, Fervidor, and Fructidor. Thus far the French are not fingular in their mode of denomination; for the Dutch, though they often use the common names, yet, in their own language, distinguish each month by an appellation referring to fome circumftance peculiar to it. The months in this new almanac confist of thirty days each, and are divided into three decades. The days of each decade are known by the names of Primidi, Duodi, Tridi, &c. to Decadi. The day which begins at midnight is diftributed into ten parts, and thefe are decimally divided and fubdivided. To the five fupernumerary days, which follow the thirtieth of Fructidor, the abfurd appellation of Sans Cullotides is given, which alfo ferves to diftinguifh the leap years.

In the Journal du Lycée, which is published twice in a week, and contains an account of every event that relates to arts and fciences, the public are informed that M. Baumé has discovered a method of whitening raw filk, fo as to render it equal in colour to that which is imported from China. This he does by expofing it to the action of alcohol and the muriatic acid, which last must be well purified from every mixture of nitric acid.

In the Appendix to our feventh volume, we gave a fhort account of a circle, ufed by M. M. Caffini and Méchain, for measuring angles, which was invented by M. de Borda; and

II

which,

which, by repeating the measure, divided any little error in the graduation of the inftrument among fuch a number of obfervations, as almoft to annihilate it. We find that this gentleman has contrived a circle to measure angles by reflection, on the fame principle with that of Hadley's octant, for obfervations at fea; in which an error may likewise be diminished by dividing it among a number of repeated measurements on different parts of the circumference.

SWEDEN.

Much as we abhor the manner in which Guftavus III. was removed out of the world, it is evident, from the confequences, that his death was a fortunate event for his country. In private life, we believe, his character was amiable; but his heart was too much enflaved by those regal prejudices, and by that ambition and love of power, which render the perfonal good qualities of monarchs of fo little advantage to mankind. Of thofe prejudices, and of that ambition, Sweden would, in all probability, have experienced the bitter effects, had the days of Guftavus been prolonged: but, from the moment of his death, a much happier profpect opened on that kingdom, from the wife adminiftration of the regent; who relinquished his brother's military quixotism, avoided the ruinous war in which Auftria and Pruffia have contrived to involve Europe, and, by cultivating liberty and peace, endeavoured to render the Swedes more happy than the reftlefs ambition of their former king would fuffer them to be.

Thefe ideas are prompted by the very firft article of Swedish literary intelligence that occurs; viz. the edict of the young. king concerning the liberty of the prefs, dated 11th July 1792, which, we are informed, deferves notice, not only as difplaying the liberal difpofition of the government, but as a piece of excellent compofition; in which the advantages refulting from this freedom, the manner in which it ought to be improved, and the dangers arifing from the abuse of it, are well difplayed, and affectionately enforced.

Of all the productions of the Swedish prefs, the most interefting to foreigners are the Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Stockholm. The thirteenth volume of this collection was published during the course of the paft year. Natural history appears to be the purfuit which moft engages the attention of the academicians. In this branch of fcience, M. Modier has diftinguished himself by two very fenfible memoirs on Entomology: the firft of which contains a general view of the fubject, fhewing that the notion of a regular and infenfible. gradation of natural beings is merely hypothetical, and not at

This

all founded in fact. The author explains the true ufe of all fyftematical arrangements, as intended only to introduce order into our studies; and laments the abuse of them by some who, overlooking the relations which the Creator has established, fo well fuited to the nature of each kind and to the preservation of the whole, confider animals, plants, and foffils in no other point of view than as they are diftributed in their feveral cabinets. After thefe, and other observations of a fimiJar kind, he proceeds to defcribe his first class, which is diftinguished by the appellation of Cryptozoa, containing animalcula which cannot be difcerned without a microfcope, and which are found in vegetable infufions, or in animal fluids. clafs he divides into two orders, the fimplicia and the fubarthrata, or thofe in which members are diftinguishable. The firft of thefe, which is again divided into turgida and complanata, contains eleven genera. The fecond order has also two subdivifions; thofe, ore caudaque obfcuris, in which the mouth and tail cannot be diftinguished, and those, ore caudaque diftinétis, in which thefe parts may be difcriminated. Under these two divifions nine genera are enumerated; and the whole class contains four hundred fpecies, which are here defcribed. The fecond clafs is called Gymneteia: the infects of which are more eafily difcernable than thofe of the first class, and appear to be furnished with a fkin. This is fubdivided into Helminthica and Alloidea, and contains thirty-nine genera. M. Modter has alfo enriched this collection with fome obfervations on the manna found on the leaves of the afh, and which the Italians call Manna di frondi. This differs very little from that which oozes from clefts or incifions in the bark of the tree: but the author aflerts that it is the excrement of a species of kermes, which fucks the juice of the tree, and depofits it on the leaves, or on the neighbouring grafs, in little globules which harden in the fun. He thinks that the common afh, Fraxinus excelfior of Linné, would furnish manna very little inferior to that of the Fraxinus ornus, or Italian afh.-In a memoir on the œconomy of bees, M. Aldermark endeavours to fhew that these infects build their cells in a cylindrical form, but that each, circle is reduced to a hexagon by the preffure of fix equal circles around it. The remaining articles are of lefs, and tome of them only of local, importance.

The memoirs delivered in the Royal Swedish academy of literature, history, and antiquities, and the Tranfactions of this fociety, fhew that the Swedes are making no fmall progrefs in their tafte for the elegant ftudies of eloquence and poetry. Some fpecimens of thefe compofitions have been given to our countrymen by M. Agander, which are not without merit,

though

though rather too declamatory: but, in this respect, the taste of the English is more fevere than that of most other nations; and there are few foreign productions which, to us, do not appear to have this defect.

DENMARK.

Of Danish publications, very few have come to our knowlege that are of importance fufficiently general to merit the attention of our readers. A new and improved edition of the Entomologia Syfthematica of Profeffor Fabricius is highly commended on the Continent; and M. Thaarup of Copenhagen has published an account of the prefent state of the kingdom, which contains information that will not be unacceptable to those who study political economy. It appears that Denmark contains 66 towns, and 5060 villages, and Norway 19 towns, and 197 parishes. The product of the iron mines is estimated at 450,000 rixdollars, and they employ nearly fifteen thousand perfons. The public revenue amounts to 6,400,000 rixdollars; and, in 1770, the national debt was about nine millicns, exclufively of four millions claimed by the royal treafury. The troops amount to feventy-five thousand, of whom nine thousand are cavalry. Under the head of Danifh literature, we must not omit to mention the edition of the annals of Abulfeda, with a Latin tranflation and notes, three quarto volumes of which are already publifhed at Copenhagen.

RUSSIA.

Among the literary articles of this empire, we meet with two which we conceive will not be uninterefting. The one is a tranflation, into the Ruffian language, of Mr. Kirwan's Syftem of Mineralogy, by M. Waffily Sewergin. As this work is intended as a text book for public inftruction, the tranflator has inferted the later difcoveries in this fcience, together with the ufes to which the feveral articles are applied, and the experiments that have been performed with them he has alfo added Bergman's theory of the formation of crystals, and has given the appellations of moft minerals in the English, French, and German, as well as in the Ruffian and Latin languages. The other work, which we fhall here notice, is written in German, and entitled, New Memoirs relative to northern Discoveries, by M. Pallas. This gentleman had before published four volumes on the fame fubject. The prefent contains, among other articles, an account of a voyage made by Captain Tfchitfchagoff, at the command of the Empress, with a view to discover whether there be any paffage from the northern ocean into the fea of Kamtfchatka; for which purpose he was to fteer his courfe between Greenland and Spitzbergen. It is almoft

almost needless to add that no paffage was found: the Captain is of opinion that the frozen mountains, in those feas, will fe increase by the annual acceffion of new ice, that the paffage between Greenland and Spitzbergen will ere long be entirely clofed. In the course of the work, the author has given a variety of interesting particulars concerning the natural hiftory of the northern parts of Afia, and the cuftoms of its inhabitants. [To be continued.]

MONTHLY

For

CATALOGUE,

MARCH, 1794.

EAST INDIES.

Art. 18. Debate at the Eaft India Houfe on the Expediency of cultivating Sugar in the Territories of the Company. With the Speeches for and against that-important Tranfaction. Reported by William Woodfall, late Editor of the Diary. 4to. 1s. 6d. White, &c.' 1793. R.Woodfall, to whofe uncommon talents we paid our just acknowlegements in the Review for Nov. 1793, p. 354, has prefixed the following advertisement to this report of an important and interesting debate:

MR

The editor flatters himself that he has no need to apologize to the public for the introduction of this pamphlet; he has, in fact, printed it by defire of feveral Eaft and West India proprietors, as well as of gentlemen concerned in the SUGAR TRADE, who naturally wished to preferve the first public adoption of a branch of traffic, which has already increafed tenfold, and bids fair to become the most extenfive and productive commerce ever carried on between a parent flate and her colonial poffeffions.

The proprietors of Eaft India ftock will reflect with pleasure, that affertions which might, perhaps, at the time, have been imputed by fome to a warm and fanguine temper, have fince proved to have been founded on the most unqueftionable data, and that the flourishing ftate of their affairs has admitted of an ample provifion for the liquidation of the company's debt, a contribution of half a million per annum to the public fervice, and an addition of TWO AND A HALF per cent. to their own dividend.'

The collectors of pamphlets will do well to preferve this tract, as it will no doubt be a matter of great curiofity, hereafter, to recur occafionally to the mode of firft agitating a queftion of fo much novelty, and importance.-The fpeeches of Mr. Randle Jackfon and Mr. Dallas are good fpecimens of commercial oratory; the first, for correct argument, and a clear statement of facts; the latter, for manly and perfuafive eloquence.

POLITICAL and COMMERCIAL. Art. 19. Subftance of Lord Mornington's Speech in the House of Commons, January 21st, 1794, on a Motion for an Addrefs to his Majefty at

the