place called i Zappei della Cagna, stratified sparry rock dipping to the fouth, and foon after appearing in a perpendicular fituation.. The ground founds hollow, and corroborates his notion, that, fome downfall and ruin of higher mountains must have taken place. Further, on the top of mount Trinita, which is granite rock, it plainly appeared that part of an oppofite calcareous mountain had tumbled down on this, and buried part of it.

At Bondione they obtain fky blue iron flags from a particular iron ore of Mont Pomel. He concludes this letter, with fumming up the refult of his orological obfervations in these vallies, viz. that rivers, "running between two mountains have often divided them, and cut and made their own beds; that water was to all appearances the greatest destroyer of moun tains; that the masses and elevations are conftantly diminished by the rivers; that mountains, being thus leffened, and the vallies raised, it is no eafy matter to form an idea of the prior ftate of the plains; and that the direction of mountains is very often crofled, by that of others; that orological maps would. greatly facilitate this kind of enquiry,"-for which a man's life. is rather too short.

On his journey to Zurich in Switzerland [Letter 5.], he obferved, that the flat country between Bergamo and Milano is an immenfe level of pebbles, which from Canonica to the Adda is, in many places, scarce covered with any foil. Towards Milano, and thence to Como, the ground, though better clad with foil, is of the fame nature. Near Como, a stratified mountain feems to have. undergone either a violent fhock of an earthquake, or the alterations arifing from a downfall; because its ftrata appear in fome places overturned, hanging perpendicular, or otherwife inclined. He had no opportunity to enquire into the origin of the famous Lago di Como; but hopes that the celebrated Spalanzani, who examined the adjacent mountains, may perhaps have found amongst them fome relative phenomena.

On the lake of Lugano he obferved fome fingular ftratifications, viz. fome of a circular form, leaning, as it were, with their convexity against the fide of a mountain."

Beyond Lugano the mountain is hard, fchiftous, or flate rock, which higher up feems to be, or to degenerate into, granite, and continues as far as Bellinzona more or lefs mixed with yellow, white, or black mica. Where the yellow mica.. difappears in the mixture of the granite, it begins to break into cubic, rather than into flaty or fcaly forms.

Near Stalveder the granite feems to be ftratified, and in perpendicular beds. There can be no doubt about its stratification, and fcaly or laty nature; as even the cottages of the inhabitants are fometimes covered with large and natu al rude plates of granite.

At Airole he examined the collection of a rock chryftal merchant, in which he obferved not only a great variety of curious crystals, but likewife of green and black fbirls in different forms and matrices. Some had a matrix of flate, which at the same time contained mica and garnets. There was a great variety of garnet dodecaedrons, of amianth, of afbeft and of talc, all found in the neighbouring higheft Alps, towards S. Gothard.

Near Airolo the road is almoft entirely paved with white quartz, filled with thirl, or with garnet flate.

On the afcent to S Gethard, beyond Airolo, the mountain is flaty; but the top, or the plain of S. Gothard, is granite of a milk white colour, with black or greenish spots of mica. This continues of the fame nature a long way, on the descent on the other fide; which downwards exhibits the fame fucceffion of granite, flate, and limeftone.

Although we have been at the trouble to climb up with the Author to this remarkable and high part of the Alps, from which many rivers run to oppofite parts of the compaís, we muft deprive ourselves of the pleasure of attending him through those many picturefque and romantic fcenes (which he, and many other travellers, have feen and defcribed) between S. Gothard, downwards to Altorf, Zug, and Zurich.

Of the last mentioned place the Author gives us a description which does credit to his heart and understanding; and which is very honourable to the many worthy and learned inhabitants with whom he was acquainted there. The botanical garden, that for œconomical experiments, the mufeum of thefociety of natural philosophy, thofe of Meff Gefner, Schultes, d'Hottingen, Hirzel, &c. the peat pits in the neighbourhood, and the ovens for drying corn, were the chief objects of his attention. We fee with concern that Mr. Gefner has dropped his idea of a great botanical work, in which he intended to defcribe all the plants according to the Linnean fyftem, and to have engraved the constituent parts and characters of every fpecies. He faw the original drawings of this botanical work, with a great colJection of drawings for other parts of natural history, in Mr. Gefner's library. Among other obfervations on this little republic, and its patriotic and polite inhabitants, he remarks, p. 76, That this fmall republican ftate, which produces no overgrown and purfe proud Mecenas's, and is not led away by ambition; which is under the neceffity of looking on commerce and trade as the chief fupport of its inhabitants; and in which every fubject, after having anfwered the cails and duties of his place, may indulge his own mind, and fpend his time as he pleafes.-That this little ftate abundantly proves, that principles, wildom, and difpofition determine the merit of individuals, and of whole nations and governments,"

At Bern, where he ftopped but a few days, he was not lefs pleased and entertained by the learned patriots, to whom he had access. Haller, though almoft reduced to the last extremity by that complaint, which foon after brought him to the grave, received him in his ftudy furrounded with books, and in as warm pursuit of knowledge and improvement, as if he had been but a young candidate for fame. He obferved to him, that in Switzerland "thofe farmers are the pooreft, who, poffeffed of the richest ground, plant it with vines; that those are richest who have the poorest ground and cultivate it for pafture, or grazing; and that there was another clafs between rich and poor, who hold a middle kind of land, and cultivate it for corn.

At Bafel on the Rhine he saw that famous Letter Foundery, whofe intelligent director has inferted in the Yverdun edition of the French Encyclopedia, a valuable differtation on various improvements of the art of cafting types. He mentions the China' manufactory at Straßburgh; but was not at all pleased with the Artists making a mystery of their furnaces.

On leaving Switzerland, one of the moft mountainous parts of the world, he fums up the general result of the orological obfervations he made there; which, backed and fupported by Scheuchzer's map of Switzerland, led him to conclude, that the Helvetic mountains have no regular direction, and that the rivers, following their direction, these mountains must be looked upon as having determined their courfe from the beginning; which perfectly agrees with our own obfervations, and is not very favourable to certain closet-philofophers, who have not fo much as dreamed of that irregularity, because they examined the mountains only as they faw them on maps.

We cannot follow our traveller to Manheim, to the quickfilver mines, and the Agate manufactories in the Palatinate, left we should be drawn into too many orological details; yet to oblige the few qualified mineralogifts, we obferve, that his hypothetical explication of the origin of the Variolites, fo common in those parts, and of the ftratification between Kirn and Oberflein, though, perhaps, a little too minute, is accurate and fatisfactory.

We haften with him to Paris and Verfailles; of the pleasures, fashions, and entertainments of which polite places, the common travellers, and chiefly the French themfelves, tell us, and have told us fo much, that we are the more obliged to Dr. Gualandris for paffing them over in filence, and for having entertained us rather with good accounts of more interefting, i. e. fcientifical fubjects. It would be impoffible for us, and inconfiftent with the confined limits of a Review, to enter here with him into details of the numerous magnificent collections of natural hiftory which he faw and admired in both places, as no

ble

ble inftances of that literary luxury now in fashion among the great and the opulent; nor can we fpare room enough for many of his accounts of the prefent purfuits of the moft celebrated. French chemifts and naturalifts.

It is very fingular, that there should be so striking a fimilarity between the nature, matrix, and accidents of the numerous Swedish iron ores, and those which are found in Corfica. Mr. Rome Delifle firft obferved this in an excurfion to Corfica; and this Author found it verified in the noble cabinet of Prince. Condè at Chantilly (which is remarkably rich in Swedish foffils), and in fome others at Paris and Versailles, which abound in the productions of Corfica.

The Author's apology for the filthy river water they drink and generally ufe at Paris, feems to be fatisfactory, and applicable to what the English drink near London-Bridge: tho' we own, that when formerly we heard the Parifians praife their nafty water, we could not help afcribing it to that narrow-minded partiality for their own country, which is not the most amiable trait in their character, and which expofes them fo often to contempt and ridicule; nor are we yet convinced that filth, owever innocent, and however decompofed, can make any water the more palatable and wholefome.

The Author's account of the Plafter quarries in Montmartre, is fuch as might be expected from so good a naturalist. In the clay-pits close by, near Zentilly, he oblerved "that the clay does not exhibit there any internal mark of ftratification, or of fucceffive accumulation, but that in the galleries, which are driven into it, it breaks down from the roof in large concave fcales, so exexactly inferted one into another, that their infertion is scarce diftinguishable. The common depth of these concave scales is about one foot; and, what is still more remarkable, their furface is externally striped and ftriated: both which configurations the Author afcribes to the particular nature of this kind of clay; in the fame manner as many other fubftances of the mineral kingdom, earths, clays, falts, ores, and ftones, have each a natural tendency to break rather in one determined form than into another."

We acquiefce with the Author in his warm affectionate respec for the aniiable character and the uncommon ingenuity of Mr. Sage, the celebrated chemift; and we are forry to be convinced, with him, that his brother chemifts in France have been rather too cautious in refpect to fome of his very curious and interefting discoveries and obfervations. Thefe are here partly reviewed p. 153, 169, and chiefly from p. 173-202, 216-219. where the Author very warmly efpoufes the caufe of Mr. Sage, in refpect to his fy item of mineralifing fubftances, and to his method of parting the gold from auriterous pyrites, rather by the

nitrous

nitrous acid than by vitrification. He feems to have been very careful in representing the undecided controverfy between Mr. Sage, and fome other philofophers about fixed Air, which we could wish to ftate here in the fairest and fulleft manner; that we may not be accused of any national partiality for fome of our best modern experimental philofophers, who were the first and most fuccefsful difcoverers in this new branch of natural philofophy but we must confine ourselves to a few remarks.

The questions chiefly to be examined are, 1. whether with fome of the ancients, we muft confider this elaftic fluid as air, and as an indestructible element, which is effentially the fame in all the bodies from which we expel it, and in the compofition of which it enters as a fubftantial part for their cohefion? Or 2d, whether this elaftic fluid be of a different nature in different bodies, though always to be confidered as one of their effential parts? Or 3d,. Whether it be only a mixture of common air, and of fome particles of those bodies from which it is expelled? We own, that after fo many experiments on this delicate fubject, we are ftill far from being fully enabled to decide upon it. There are yet difficulties and perplexing equivocations and contradictions on every fide. If elafticity be the characteristic quality of air, how can we form an idea of its fixity? The Author therefore adopts Mr. Sage's opinion, 66 that this elaftic fluid does not pre-exift in a state of fixity, but is produced or generated in the fermentations, effervefcences, and decompofitions, whatever be the means employed; and he frankly declares, that there is but one kind of air, which is apt to be alternately compounded and decompounded; and which, being a fluid, is accordingly apt to diffolve an infinite number of fubftances, and when diffolved, to carry them along in the fame manner as water, oils, and other fluids, which we make ufe of for folutions." What can poffibly be faid in favour of this opinion, and of Mr. Sage's hypothefis of phofphoric and marine acid, Dr. Gualandris has faid, warmly, modeftly, plainly, in fhort, in fuch a manner as does credit to his manners, under.ftanding, and chemical knowledge; and which muft recommend him to the candid perufal of every real friend of science.

The Author's accounts of the chalk pits near Calais, and on the oppofite Kentifh fhore, and of the flints horizontally dif pofed in their stratifications; and what he fays of the cabinets and collections of natural hiftory, and of the learned here at London, is lefs interefting to English than Italian Readers; but his obfervations on the mines about Matlock, near Afhover, and on Eton mine, are curious, instructive, and will ferve as confirmations of Mr. Whitehurst's fections of the Derbyshire mountains. Thefe, though not then publifhed, he mentions, and he owns, in many places, that fome rocks in the Derbyshire

mountains