The acid of barberries is examined in M. Crell's chemical Annals, by M. Hoffmann, an apothecary at Leer. The juice was fermented, distilled, and the refidue cryftallized. From eightyone ounces of juice, nine drachms two fcruples of the effential falt was procured. The acid prepared for cryftallization, like the acid of lemons, would not, however, cryftallize: when the evaporation was carried farther, a little vitriolated tartar was depofited; and the liquor appeared, in its general properties, to resemble the faccharine acid. When deplogifticated with the affiftance of fpirit of nitre, he obferved the true prifmatic crystals of the acid of fugar; and another part of the juice, thus treated, when saturated with the vegetable alkali, gave cryftals refembling the effential falt of barberries, which, therefore, very exactly refembles the acid of wood-forrel. This was explained in our laft laft volume, page 450 and 451; and from M. Scheele's referring the acid of barberries to the malaceous acid, as we then mentioned, it is probable that these two acids may be the fame in different forms. The remainder, after the acids were feparated, our author examined, with the affiftance of nitrous acid, expecting, if the opinion was true, that the faccharine was only the nitrous acid, modified by phlogifton, that the reft might be alfo changed into an acid. A little faccharine acid appeared, probably involved with, or making a part of the mucilage, which remained not decompofed. But after this, no addition of nitrous acid would feparate any more. The whole that remained was refolved into air, water, and earth, probably of the flinty kind, except a few grains of selenite, occafionally depofited in the former experiments.

*

The little space which remains must be filled with fome mifcellaneous chemical information, fince we may not foon be able to return to this fubject. The difputes concerning the compofition of water continue to be carried on with the ufual fuccefs of debates each party preferves his own opinion, and defends it with an eagerness proportional to the number of attacks. We may again refume it when it has acquired fufficient magnitude to fix our readers' attention; but fhall now obferve, that we have met with nothing to change our opinion, that the weight of argument is, on the whole, in favour of Meff. Cavendish and Lavoifier. We have not found equally strong arguments in favour of the French chemists' opinion on the coally matter in preference to phlogiston. In England, we believe, he has few if any difciples; and on the continent oppofers continually arife. Very lately, M. Sennebier of Geneva has entered the lifts against him, in a very convincing memoir. Philofophers in France and Germany are now pretty generally followers of M. Morveau of Dijon, who adopts Lavoifier's opinions relating to pure air, and combines them with the former doctrines of the phlogistic chemifts. It is the opinion which we have pretty uniformly maintained and enforced in different part of our Journal. With great

regret,

regret, we hear the chemical Labours of the very refpectable college at Dijon are likely to be interrupted by internal diffentions. We know of no place where this fcience has been cultivated with more zeal and fuccefs; and are in daily hopes of hearing that they are compromiled. Their new volume is published, viz. that for 1784 the laft, even at the beginning of our undertaking, was too old for our notice: it would now become a ' tale twice told.'

We fhall finish this mifcellaneous account, with the extract of a letter from Mr. Creil to M. de la Metherie.

"I am overjoyed that you have appeared in public, a zealous partizan of the doctrine of phlogifton. I have no doubt but that this doctrine may be firmly established, and maintained against all its opponents. M. Wiegleb has decompofed the stone which Meff. Charpentier and Werner call the horn-fchiftus. In an ounce. he found five drachms forty-one grains of flint, one drachin fifty-five grains of argil, and feventeen grains of ion. The quartzy fchiftus, very frequent in the high mountains of Europe, is a little different: with the former ingredients, in dif-. ferent proportions, it fometimes contains chalk, magnefia, or I am, &c. &c."

both...

The rest of M. Crell's letter contains facts relating to the animal economy, and to electricity; but to them fome other new obfervations on the fame fubjects must be added, and the wholę will lead us farther than our limits will allow. They will be comprized in this department of our next Number.

Tertia Differtatio Botanica de Ruizia, &c. Auctore A. J. Cavanellus Hifpano Valentino. Paris.

T

HE third Differtation of our laborious and attentive author, has been published but a few weeks. It adds greatly to our newly acquired riches in the botanical world. Linnæus, in his earlier works, fuppofed that the greatest number of species of plants would not exceed 10,000; but the elder and younger Linnæus published defcriptions of 13,000; and, on a moderate computation, fcarcely lefs than double the number, which Linnæus first supposed, have been accurately defcribed, and in a manner that they cannot again be confounded or mistaken. M. Cavanilles has confined himself to the clafs monodelphia; and to omit no genus of this clafs, he has confulted many different herbaries, held correfpondences with men of fcience in various fituations. He has himfelf collected many different kinds, and executed the drawings with which his differtations are adorned. These are not lefs beautiful than exact,

In the third differtation, he defcribes thirteen genera, viz: the ruizia, affonia, dombeya, pentapete, malvavifco, pavonia, hi bifco, lagana, cienfuegofia, guaribea, pachira, hugonia, and monfonia.

The firft, fecond, third, fixth, eighth, and ninth, are the only new genera in this differtation. The flowers of the ruizia are polypetalous it refembles the m lva of Linnæus, contains four fpecies which rank among the shrubs of India. The affonia is a tree of India alfo: its flowers are, as ufual, polypetalous, and it 1efembles most the pentapete. The dombeya is a fimilar plant, and its fpecies, which are eleven in number, are fometimes among the fhrubs, fometimes among the trees of India. The pavonia contains fourteen fpecies; they are chiefly plants, and refemble the quatonia and urena of Linnæus. The laguna refembles in habit the pavonia, and contains but one fpecies. Of the cienfuegofia there is alfo but one fpecies, not very unlike the hybifcus of Linnæus.

Our limits will not allow us to enlarge even on the natural generic characters of each new genus, ftill lefs to enumerate the different fpecies: they are ninety-feven in number.

The greater number of the plants defcribed are engraved. The drawings, as we have obferved, are executed by himself; and the engraver has followed them with great exactness, and great elegance. This differtation is adorned with thirty-nine plates. On the whole, it is an elegant and an instructive work: the abbé has added greatly to botanical knowledge, and we have reason to expect ftill farther information from him.

TH

Defcription generale de la Chine, &c. (From p. 217.)

HE fecond book of this work concludes with the description of the ifland of Formofa, and a relation of the dreadful difafter which befel that island in 1782, a narrative written on the fpot, and fent to M. Bertin. The third book fpeaks of tributary states, fuch as the Corea, Tong-King, Cochin-China, Thibet, and feveral iflands. There are few towns in Tong-King which does not contain at least one temple, dedicated to Confucius. They place the ftatue of this philofopher, furrounded by those of his difciples, whom they regard as fo many demi-gods, in the moft honourable part of the temple. The difciples all have an attitude, characteristic of the respect and veneration in which they held their mafter. The magiftrates affemble, at the change and full of the moon, and there offer a small facrifice, which confifts in placing prefents on the altar, burning perfumes, and making genuflections. The adoration of the literati touards this philofopher is carried ftill farther, and degenerates rather into idolatry; fince, at certain feafons, as the two equinoxes, they offer him facrifices in the manner of the pagans, and immolate animals. Thus does veneration, which was originally juft and wife, intróduce the worship of idols; but it is fingular enough, that the idolators of Tong-King fhould be the literati and the philofophers.

The fourth book contains the natural hiftory of China. The provinces of this great empire vary in their productions according

to

to their latitude. The cold is fevere at Pekin, and the heat exceffive in the other provinces; the air, in general, is healthy, and men live to be very old,

The mountains of China are faid to contain mines of iron, tin, copper, quick-filver, filver, and gold. Prudent and political views have long prevented the opening of the latter. The enlightened chiefs of the first dynafties knew, that imaginary and factitious wealth was not the bafis of profperity; they dreaded the difcovering fources of luxury, and leading the people to neglect the natural riches of the foil, by applying themfelves to other labours than thofe of agriculture. The wifdom and knowlege of the Chinese, in profiting by the advantageous fituation of their rivers and lakes are worthy admiration. One of the most famous works of this kind is the celebrated canal, called by them the royal canal, fix hundred leagues in length, which reaches from Canton to Pekin, and communicates with both the northern and fouthern provinces. In this a great number of other canals terminate, which extend up the country, and pafs by the cities, towns, and neighbouring boroughs.

The population of this empire is indeed immenfe; and, from the moft circumftantial and careful calculations, it may be prefumed that it amounts to near two hundred millions; that is to fay, China contains nearly as many people as all Europe: the latter, however, has one advantage which the former wants, a fecurity from famine: fituated in the remote and farthest part of Afia, and furrounded by barbarous nations, China is obliged to find subsistence for its innumerable inhabitants in itself, This has always been one great object of the public administration. Granaries, and corn magazines are established in all towns of any magnitude, for the relief of the people in times of scarcity; but the delays of form often prevent its coming foon enough. When the harvest fails in one province, before the mandarines, who go vern it, have sent their memorials to court, and before they have paffed through all the offices, previous to their coming to the emperor, who must afterwards affemble the great and inferior tribunals, and appoint commiffaries for thofe provinces, the peqple are perishing by thousands.

Various fpecies of fonorous ftones are found in China, of which the Chinese have compofed a mufical inftrument, the most ancient and most esteemed among them, which they call king. The blackest species of these stones are the most fonorous. It appears the Romans were acquainted with a fonorous ftone; Pliny fays that the stone called chalcophonos. or brafs-founding, is black; Chalcophonos nigra eft, fed illifa æri tinnitum reddit. Our chemists have at length found the fecret of making from black marble, the · inftrument king, almost as fonorous as thofe of China.

Oranges are faid to have been brought from China by the Portuguefe. It is afferted that the first orange tree, and from which all the others in Europe have been produced, is ftill preferved at Lisbon, in the houfe of the count de S. Laurent. The Chinese

a fmall kind of a lemon, yellow within, and fweet, which they eat with the skin, as we fometimes do apples in Europe.

It has been affirmed that the Chinese leave part of their land upcultivated; they, how: ver, cultivate the very bottom of the wa ters: the foil of their lakes, ponds, and rivulets, yield them a harvest unknown among us. Their induftrious activity has found refources in a great number of aquatic plants, feveral of which are accounted dainties at the best Chinese tables. The government, to encourage and fet an example to the people, have taken care to plant the ponds, and other common waters which appertain to the state; and the emperor himself has ordered his canals to be thus planted. The flowers and verdure of these useful plants almoft cover the water which fall from the two immense cascades in the centre of Pekin, over which there is a public bridge, whence the magnificent gardens of the emperor's palace may be seen.

One of the extraordinary productions of China is the tallowtree, which is about the height of our cherry trees; its fruit is contained in a skin, which has three fpherical divifions, that open, when it is ripe, and yield three white kernels of the fize of a finall hazel nut. It is the skin of thefe nuts which poffeffes all the qualities of fuet; the colour, fmell, and fubftance are exactly the fame. The Chinese melt, and make candles from it, mixing only a fmall quantity of linfeed oil, to foften and render it milder: had they the art of purifying it, as we purify tallow in Europe, their candles would not be inferior to our's. The Chinese collect a wax, very fuperior to that of bees, which is produced by fmail infects, that depofit it in a fpecies of tree, proper for their nourish ment. The varnish-tree is ftill more precious. It has long been fuppofed the celebrated Chinese varnish was a compofition, of which they alone poffeffed the fecret ; at prefent, it is known they are indebted to nature and their climate for this fubftance which gives fo much luftre to many of their manufactures. It is, in fact, a kind of red gum, which drops from certain trees, and is a ftrong poison, fince the people who collect it can only defend themselves from its deftructive vapours by the ufe of preservatives, and many precautions.

The many curious circumftances related concerning tea, one of the most precious productions of China, muft be read in the work itself; we shall only relate one remarkable particular. The tea-tree, or fhrub, often grows on the fides of mountains, and among rocky clifts, to come at which is frequently dangerous, and fometimes impracticable. The Chinese, that they may gather the leaves, make ufe of a fingular ftratagem. Thefe declivities are often the habitation of troops of monkeys, whom they mow at, mock, and irritate, till the animals, to revenge themfelves, break off the branches, and flower them down on their infulters; which branches the Chinese afterwards ftrip of their leaves.

In fpeaking of the culture of trees, plants, and flowers, which embellish the Chinefe gardens, the author informs us, their garden

ers