dence, sensible of the difficulties which attend the structure of all the theories of the earth; but, if I should be thought to have failed in any of my inferences, I have still the fatisfaction to know that, without any view to system, I have endeavoured faithfully to collect and to record natural facts, of which others may probably make a better use than I have made myself, and to which the attention of scientific men may not unprofitably be directed. It is not for me to pronounce how far I have succeeded; but as Sir William Hamilton's object has been to trace the operation of fire in the formation of the great features of nature, so it has been mine to trace and to notice the operation of water; and, perhaps, when the power of these two mighty elements is duly confidered, great light will be thrown on a subject hitherto imperfectly investigated.

I shall be happy should my works, with their embellishments, be allowed the honour of standing as an invitation or introduction to the study of that part of the Alps, where the few flowers and ears of corn which I have gathered may serve as a specimen of their richness and fertility, as a field of science, and whose harvest I must leave to be reaped by others more conversant than myself in the philoso phy of natural history.

Immense herds of this animal roam at large, in interior America. From Green River to the Miffiffippi, the shores of the Ohio are lined with them. The hunters are too apt to destroy them wantonly: a circumstance much to be regretted, and not to be prevented. Frequently have I seen this fine animal killed; and, excepting the tongue and the tallow, left on the ground, a prey to the tygers, wolves, and eagles. The boss on the shoulders of the buffalo is, as well as the tongue, extremely rich and delicious, -fuperior to the best English beef. It is usual to cure the tongues, and transport them to New Orleans; where they are fure to meet with a good market.

There is a fingular, an affecting trait in the character of the buffalo, when a calf; and my feelings have severely felt it. Whenever a cow buffalo falls before the murdering lead of the hunters, and happens to have a calf, the helpless young one, far from attempting an escape, stays by its fallen dam, with figns expressive of strong and active natural affection. The dam thus fecured, the hunter makes no at tempt on the calf, (knowing it to be unnecessary) but proceeds to cut up the carcafe: then laying it on his horfe, he returns towards home, followed by the poor calf, thus inftinctively attending the remains of its dam, I have seen a fingle hunter tide into the town of Cincinnati, between the Miames, followed, in this manner, and, at the same time, by three calves, who had lost their dams by this cruel hunter.

Since I have expressed a wish.to fee the buffalo domesticated on the English sarans, I will now mention a fact concerning it, within my own knowledge. A farmer, on the great Kenhawą Kenhawa, broke a young buffalo to the plough; having yoked it with a steer taken from his tame cattle. The buffalo performed to admiration. Enquiring of the man, whether he had any fault to find with the buffalo's performance, he anfwered, there was but one objection to it; the step of the buffalo was too quick for that of the tame steer. "My friend," faid I, the fault lies not in the buffalo, but in the steer: what you term a fault in the former is really an advantage on its fide." Till this moment, the man had laboured under one of those clouds of prejudice but too common among farmers. He had taken the ox of his father's farm, as the unit whence all his calculations were to be made, and his conclufions drawn: it was his unchangeable standard of excellence, whether applied to the plough or to the draught. No fooner was my obfervation uttered, thanconviction flashed on his mind. He acknowledged the fuperiority of the buffalo.

But there is another property in which the buffalo far furpaffes the ox:-his strength. Judging from the extraordinary fize of his bones, and the depth and formation of his cheft, I should not think it unreasonable to affign nearly a double portion of strength to this powerful inhabitant of the forest. Reclaim him, and you gain a capital quadruped for the draught and for the plough: his activity peculiarly fits him for the latter, in preference to the ox.

lord of the four rivers of Paradise, which an ingenious traveller* explains by Iuphrates, Tigris, Araxes, and Indus;" although in another place, he acknowledges his uncertainty, whether these were the ftreams that watered that happy garden; that the Euphrates and Tigris were the principal rivers of the terrestial Paradise, is allowed by all writers. The Jihoon, or Oxus, as we have just feen, is supposed by fome to have its fource there, but as to the river Shihoon, as written in the specimen, I must confefs my ignorance. I cannot affirm that it means the Araxes, which rifes in Armenia, to the west of the Cafpian fea; and I should rather imagine that the points over the first letters were fuperfluous, and that it fignifies the Shihoon, or ancient Jaxartes, between which, and the lower part of the courses of the Jihoon, or Oxus, lies that country called Tranfoxania formerly, and by the modern Afiaties, Mawer-ul Neher, "the land beyond the river."

But so little has been done on the geography of those countries, and fo ignorant are we still of the exact fituation of the rivers which we speak of, that a most learned writer takes particular occafion to remark the peculiar obscurity which yot hangs about them; and even the celebrated orientalift, M. D'Herbelot, only tells us, that perhaps (" peut-être") the Shihoon is only another name for that river, which the "Antients called Jaxartes, and the Arabs write Sihoon."

Of the river Tigris, so celebrated by the Greek and Latin writers, the ancient name is no longer ufed, and it is now called Dejleh; the

etymology of the former is traced to the Persian word Terr, an arrow, which the river, from its velocity, was faid to resemble. To this word the Greeks (according to their usual cuftom of adapting to their own idiom, all foreign, or as they styled them barbarous, words) added the common termination of the nominative case is, and the interpolation of the Greek gamma may be accounted for by the probable gutturality of pronounciation with which the Perfians uttered the letter R.

The rapidity of this river's course is alluded to by Sadi, in an elegy which has been published with a Latin tranflation. "The fame of my verfes," fays the prophetic poet, "shall spread over the world with greater impetuofity than the current of the Tigris;" and the river Dejleh is celebrated in a particular chapter of a most excellent geographical poem by Khacani.

The ancient Medes as well as Persians (according to Pliny) called an arrow Tigris, and a learned commentator on Plutarch contends that this is properly a Medic, not a Perfian word; but the two nations are confounded by most authors on account of their vicinity. Yet, though all ancient writers agree, that the name, whether Medic or Perfian, was impofed as expressive of the rapidity of this river's current, we find one traveller who calls them all in question, and alferts, that its ftream is less fwift, even than that of the Euphrates.

"

On the banks of the Dejleh, am I fallen," (fays the plaintive poct Jami) "unfriendeti, and remote from any habitation, whilst a torrent of tears, like that of the rapid stream, flows from my eyes." This river from its conflux with the

Euphrates, may be faid to water the plains of Babylon, and I could never read the above-mentioned paflage in the original Persian, without recollecting the beautiful beginning of that fine Hebrew psalm or elegy, composed in a fimilar forlorn fituation, and expressive of the fame feelings.

From the original Chaldaic name פרת The Greeks have formed their corrupt Ευφράτης; for it is vain to seek the etymology of this word in a Greek compound. The Perfians and Arabians still call the river by its ancient Hebrew name, which they write, as in the engraved specimen Frat.

The celebrated current of the Euphrates, was divided, according to the Arabian geographer, whom Bochart follows, into five channels or branches, one of which led to Cufa in Chaldea; and on the banks of another, was feated the " golden Babylon," once the proud mistress of the eastern world, being the capital of the Assyrian monarchy, which comprehended Syria, Mefopotamia, Chaldea, Perfia; in short, except India, all the great nations of western Afia.

On the banks of those celebrated streams, the נתרוה בבל Neheroth Babel, or " rivers of Babylon," of the royal Pfalmist, the perfecuted Jews hung up their useless harps, nor would gratify. << those who had led them captive into the strange land with melody, or with a fong." Those banks were fo thickly planted with willow trees, as the learned Bochart informs us, that the country of Babylon was thence ftyled "the vale of willows," and on those trees were fufpended the neglected and unstrung lyres of the captive Hebrens.

Obfervations

This roasted bran he wrapped up in a linen cloth; in the space of a few minutes there arose a strong fmoke through the cloth, accompanied by a fmell of burning. Not long afterwards the rag grew as black as tinder, and the bran now become hot, fell through it on the the ground in little balls. Mr. Rüde repeated the experiment at various times, and always with the fame result. Who now will any longer doubt, that the frequency of fires in cow-houses, which in those parts, are mostly wooden buildings, may not be occafioned by this common practice, of binding roafted bran about the necks of the cattle? The fire, after confuming the cattle and the thed, communicates itielf to the adjoining buildings; great damage enfues; and the ignorant look for the cause in wilful and malicious firing, confequently in capital crime.

a

Montet relates, in the Mémoires de l'Académie de Paris, 1748, that animal substances, under certain circumstances, may kindle into flame; and that he himself has been witness to the spontaneous accenfion of dung-hills. The woollen stuff prepared at Cevennes, which bears the name of Emperor's-stuff, has kindled of itself, and burnt to a coal. It is not unusual for this to happen to woollen stuffs, when in hot fummers they are laid in a heap, in a room but little aired.

high, and trodden down, that more might be added to it. That this combed wool, to which, as is wellknown, rape-oil mixed with butter is used in the combing, burnt of itself, was sworn by feveral wit neffes. One of them affirmed that, ten years before, a fimilar fire happened among the flocks of wool at a clothier's, who had put them into a cask, where they were rammed hard, for their cafier conveyance. This wool burnt from within outwards, and became quite a coal; it was very certain that neither fire nor light had been used at the packing, confequently the above fires arose from similar caufes.

In like manner very creditable cloth-workers have certified, that after they have bought wool that was become wet, and packed it close in their warehouse, this wool has burut of itself; and very ferious confequences might have followed, if it had not been difcovered in time.

The spontaneous accenfion of various matters from the vegetable kingdom, as wet hay, corn, and madder, and at times wet meal and malt, are already fufficiently known. Experiments have likewile repeatedly been made with regard to fuclt phenomena, and it will presently appear, that hemp, or flax, and hemp-oil, have frequently given rife to dreadful conflagrations. Montet fays: in the year 1757, a fort of failcloth, called prelart, hav ing one fide of it smeared with ochre and oil, took fire in the magazine at Breft, where it had probably kindled of itself. It is not at all unlikely that many fires in feaports have arifen from these felf.