creafed in fize, till it draws down the lip, and this piece of wood, which fometimes equals a large faucer, appears like a trencher, and actually ferves as one, when the mouth is too full. In fummer they live on fhell-fifh, falmon, porpoifes, feals, and fea-otters; but, as they feem to have no method of preferving the flesh, our author fufpects that their winter diet is the inner fine bark of the pine-tree. The voyagers return to Sandwich Islands, and meet with Taboo-araa-nee, who was in Karakakooa bay when captain Cook unfortunately loft his life. He was killed it seems with a bayonet, and the chiefs were ftill apprehenfive of our vengeance. A number, he faid, were wounded by our fire, who died, except when the wounds were in the flethy parts. The ariftocratic oppreffion of the chiefs at Sandwich Islands is severe and inhuman. Our author next reaches Maçao, where he fees Tyaana, a Sandwich Inland chief. The anecdotes of this generous benevolent islander are curious. The following might even have a place in the writings of Voltaire without changing a word. His noble and generous spirit visibly discovered itself on va rious occafions. One time he went up to an orange-stall, and picking out half a dozen oranges, gave the woman who fold them a couple of nails for them, which in his eftimation was a very ample, and indeed a fuperabundant compenfation for her oranges; nails in his country being things of very great and precious value; obferving at the fame time that he had paid her for the oranges and made her a prefent befide; but the good woman was by no means fatisfied with fuch payment, and was about to raile a disturbance, by a loud, rude, offenfive clamour of her not being paid; when fome gentlemen luckily happening to be with Traana at the time, they readily pacified her complaint, by paying her to her fatisfaction." He had the greatest averfion for the Chinese, and feverely cenfured their custom of fhutting up the women; but, when on an entertainment, on board the ship, he faw fome poor Tartars in fampans, as ufual around, waiting for the refufe of the table, he was eager and clamorous in their behalf, procured all the remains of the entertainment, and divided it with the tricteft impartiality. He was forry to fee any perfon in want of food, it was a new fcene to him, for that they had no people of that defcription at Atoui.' Little of importance remains in this narrative; but we cannot conclude our article without paying a proper tribute of applaufe to the author. To every feaman-like precaution, in the conduct of the voyage, moderation, temper, and good fenfe, he feems anxious to give due commendation to the feamen un der der his care. He appears to have watched over them with a paternal anxiety, and is ever ready to acknowledge their diligence, their attention, their fobriety, and obedience. If he excepts three by name, it is only for their conduct in the river of Canton, and their only crime was drunkenness and the fickness attending it. In the whole voyage, if the account is to be trusted, and we have not the smallest hesitation in trufting it, no wanton oppreffion, no harth commands, no petty refentments, or petulant quarrels, feemed to have difturbed the crew either in their mutual communications, or with the people whom they vifited. Much credit is certainly owing to the officers and men; but we must give no inconfiderable share of praise to the captain: the volume is written with great perfpicuity, without any attempt to intereft the paffions, or affect the imagination, It feems a plain, honeft, and judicious narrative. Practical Elays on Agriculture. By James Adam, Efq. 2 Vols. 8vo. 125. Boards. Cadell. MR. R. Adam has been usefully employed in collecting agricultural remarks and obfervations from the most approved authors; but, with his wheat, he has transplanted Some tares, and has occafionally joined obfervations of very different and unequal value. His work, on the whole, is not, however, very erroneous; though, as agriculture has its fyftematics and its heretics, the errors will be magnified or diminished, as the opinions recede from or coincide with the fyftems of his readers. Of a profeffed compilation, with fometimes the addition of a few experimental remarks, our account peed not be very extenfive. We fhall give the outline of our author's work, and enlarge a little on those parts where the obfervations are either new or interefting. We ought to premife, that though the materials are collected, the ftyle is uniform, and does not, in the flightest degree, refemble profeffed compilations, the patchwork from different works, without connection of parts or fimilarity of language. The first effay is on agriculture and foils, and perhaps is too miscellaneous, without that fyftematic union which the fubject admits of. The various foils are enumerated, and the most improved methods of managing them explained with fufficient precifion. Some part of the language, even in the heft authors, wants a little correction: chill,' ' cold,' and ⚫ four' are too often repeated, without our being always able to annex an adequate idea to either term. The cold lands are undoubtedly the clays, or thofe where a fubfoil of clay prevents the water from paffing away readily, and water is not fo foon heated by the fun as earth: cold lands are fome times alfo thofe whofe unfavourable afpect admits only of the oblique rays, as ground falling from the fouth-weit to the north-eaft. Sour is very often connected with the term chilly, without any proper reftriction. We know but of two forts of this kind which deferve the name; the peat, where there is. often found a feparate acid, or the metallic clays, where the acid is combined with the calx; but we often find the epithet, when its propriety is not fupported by either circumstance; and it generally means a cold barren foil from any cause. The melioration of foils is a fubject little underflood in a fyftematic view. The clays must be divided by fand, or by triturated burnt clay, which anfwers the fame purpose, and as mechanically by interpofing particles not coherent; by frost, when it truly becomes what Virgil ftyles the putris gleba; or by the expanding power of lime. The effects of lime, however, are not clearly understood: fhells feem to act as calcajeous earth minutely divided, which, by the action of the heat and air, depofit an oily matter, the true principle of vegetation; as abforbents of acid, or in the cauftiç ftate, as we have hinted, by breaking the minuter maffes. But it is difficult to perceive with clearness any power except the firft, for fhells and calcareous earths are ufeful where there is no acid and no metallic falt, and they are not eminently ufeful where these bodies exift: lime alfo can feldom act as a manure till it has loft its expanding power by being in a great degree flaked. It has been greatly doubted whether the calcination of lime has any other effect than enabling it to be minutely divided; and the effects of marle, where this divifion is already effected, feem to fupport this opinion. If it be true, lime-fione, at a diftance from fuel, may be ufeful when divided by triturating mills: it must be owned, however, that the whole fyftem of foils and the true criteria of their fertility are not yet understood. We know that their confiftence must be equally diftant from tenacity and porosity; that they muft contain fome oily matter, without any metallic or acid alloy; and, after this, the particular proportion of clay or lime is of lefs importance: perhaps the proper proportions are requifite to produce the particular degree of tenacity required. The next object of our author is the management of moors, bogs, or moffes. The origin of thefe is yet obfcure. It is probable that springs iffuing only in a peculiar foil, have the power of nourishing that fibrous vegetable of which bogs confif, and that in thefe fprings its growth is rapid: when fuddenly produced, the mofs breaks, and quickly covers a very extenfive furface, which is foon filled with this vegetable: at times, the water paffes under the surface, and raises it in the confiftence of a bog; but we find in these instances the ufual ufual plants on the furface; and it forms the quaking bog. Mr. Mills' fyftem, which our author feems to adopt, does not explain the ufual appearances of peat-bogs: thefe certainly depend on a new vegetable which generally destroys the trees, and, if not fed with water, dies, affording a cheap and convenient fewel. The management of thefe moors, and the method of reclaiming them, is properly explained from the beft authors. The claffes which follow relate to marshes, to woodlands, to common heaths, and wafte lands; but, on these subjects, we meet with little that is new. Manures are next explained; and we think imperfectly. When we spoke of oily matters, as neceffary ingredients in fertile land, we included the phlogisticated air, which is an ingredient in nitre; and it is highly probable, that the expofure of the earth to the atmosphere is useful in attracting this gas only it afterwards becomes nitre, by the ingredients it accidentally meets with, without adding to its prolific powers. This we infer from obferving, that the influence of the air in England renders the ground equally fertile, as in other countries, though it never produces either the true or the calcareous nitre. Our author treats of foffil, vegetable, and animal manures, as well as the compofts refulting from a proper mixture of thefe different bodies. Under the former head, he fpeaks of all calcareous bodies, a fubject which we have in fome degree anticipated, fixed alkaline falt, ashes, foot, and fugar-fcum. Thefe are not, indeed, all ftrictly foffil, but an accurate arrangement is not of great importance; under the animal fubflances, our author fhould have added fish. The draughts of herrings are fometimes fo copious, that they afford an excellent and a cheap manure. M. du Hamel's account of a black peat, fimilar to a kind formerly dug at Newbury, we fhall transcribe. This foffil is a blackifh earth, like the foil of fome meadows. When burnt, it emits a thick, difagreeable, fulphu dus vapour. A certain degree of moisture helps to make it burn; though even then, it waftes but flowly. After it has once taken fire, it burns on of itfelf, but without producing any flame. It is of fo cauftic a nature, that it would flay the hands and feet of the men who knead it, if they did not take precautions to guard against that inconvenience. Its afhes retain this cauftic quality; for the hands of the peasants who trew them are hurt by it, if the air be at all damp. This earth, in its natural polition, runs in veins of different fizes; fometim s feven or eight feet thick, and thirty or forty feet long; and fometimes they extend four or five hundred feet; after which the vein tails at once, and is not found again till two or three miles off. Thefe veins generally lie pretty near the furface of the earth; feldom deeper than twelve or fifteen feet. This earth is found only in marfhy places, which must sometimes be drained before it can be come at. It fhews itself, by a flimy skin upon the waters around. Three pounds of this earth being distilled, produced about fifteen ounces of a bituminous oil, pretty much like that extracted from pit-coal; and the caput mortuum (or residue after diftillation) yielded, when washed, about half a pound of copperas. The method of preparing this earth, in order to render it fit for fertilizing land, is as follows: Water is thrown over it, and two or three men knead it with their feet, till they bring it to the confiftence of a paste, which is then made into cakes, of feven or eight inches diameter, Thefe cakes are laid by to dry; though not to fuch a degree, but that there still remains a little moisture in them; that being neceffary to facilitate their burning. The cakes thus prepared are piled up, in the form of a pyramid, with fufficient spaces between them, for the fire to penetrate; and under this pyra mid, which is made upon a kind of hearth; a little straw, and brufb-wood is laid to fet them on fire. Two or three days after, the afhes are fpread with a rake, that they may cool. Some veins of this earth yield white afhes, but they are not fo good as thofe of a reddish hue. From fifty to feventy pounds of thefe afhes are spread upon each acre of land, in April, or May; and, in about a week's time, the blades of corn, or grafs, if it be pafture land, affume a new verdure, and appear furprisingly frong, even in the coldeft foilst.' We Most of the falts our author ftyles forcers of the foil, and feems to connect this quality with an antiputrefcent virtue; but for this diftinction we find no fufficient foundation. have feen heavy crops taken for many fucceffive years from fields without any dreffing, which we could only account for by their being expofed to the fpray of the fea. For this purpofe, the foil must be clayey, fince fandy foils, expofed to the fpray, give but indifferent crops with the best manure. The third effay is on the cultivation of land; in other words, on ploughing and fowing. The laft fubject includes the choice of feed, its preparation, the time and manner of fowing, the change of feed and of crops. Our author is an advocate for the drill husbandry, and prefers Mr. Cooke's drill plough. He recommends too the changes of crops and of feed. As this effay is almoft wholly a compilation of facts, we need not enlarge particularly on it. The three following effays are on the culture of grain, pulfe, cabbage-plants, and roots, comprehending Where there is fo large a proportion of copperas, I fhould have thought it a very dangerous manure; ualefs corrected by calcination, or by long expofure to the air.' The elutriation first, and the calcination afterwards, must decompose the copperas.' • Wheat |