from barbarity towards humanity and civilization; and though the generosity and virtues of untamed men are rough and tainted with blemishes, yet to the refined and contemplative mind, they muft ever be subjects of agreeable reflection, or pleafing curiofity.

"For these reasons, I fhall freely impart to you a piece of news from Africa, which has lately come to this ifland with fuflicient authority. "Among the jetty inhabitants of the Gold coaft, the Fantyne tribe, or nation which poffeffes an extensive district on the coaft, has been hitherto reckoned the moft powerful, and fuccessful in war. But the Afchantees, who live far up in the interior part of the continent, having been prevented felling their prifoners taken in war by the nations on the coaft, who had a fufficient number to fupply the markets, and their late king, a peaceful man, having had the borders of his realms intruded on by the Warrees, who live between them and the Fantynes, his fon, on his death, (a negro king of Prusfia) determining to revenge the injury, has fwore that his father's body fhall not be laid in the earth till he has conquered all the nations between him and the fea, and thrown into it his victorious faulchion.

"In confequence of this vow, he has embalmed his father's body, and with an army of thirty thousand men, has attacked, and entirely fubdued the nations of Warree, Akim, and Axim, and now has pitched his tent in the Fantine country, within seven miles of the fea-fhore. Victorious wherever he moves, he plays the Alexander, and, like Julius Cæfar, he carries along with him a number of penmen who write the Arabic language, and fet down, every night, his daily tranfactions. All the European fettlers on the coaft are impatient to receive him, and ftrive who fhall molt encourage and carefs him.

"It is expected, that as the Fantynes have guarded· ftrongly all the paffes of the ridge of mountains that feparate the flat maritime provinces from the interior VOL. VI.

I i

country, he will move along on the levels of the Warree country, and make his depredations there, in hopes of which the commiffioners and agents of the European Forts and fettlements are gone thitherward, and are now prepairing to erect fome forts in that country, that they may treat with the king in safety, for flaves."-Thus far the commentaries of my correfpondent on the African wars, which cleary evince that the barbarous traffic of Europe for flaves, is the fole caufe of the miferies of Africa, and that its continuance muft prevent the civilization of that great

continent.

I have read a great deal on both fides of the argument concerning the flave trade; but without the fmalleft impreffion having been made upon me by the reafonings of merchants, or planters. And it is clearly, and determinately my opinion, that the traffic is not only inhuman, but impolitic. That if fugar and indigo cannot be obtained without cruelty and injuftice, they ought to be given up, or cultivated and manufactured by those who are to receive the benefit of their labour and industry.

That notwithstanding the hard hearted, and hard headed doctrines of profligate philofophers, it is to be believed, that no truth can be more thoroughly eftablished either by theology, ethics, or experience, than "that there exifts in the economy and courfe of nature, an indiffoluble union between juftice and happinefs; between the genuine maxims of an honest, virtuous, and magnanimous people, and the folid rewards of public profperity and happiness ;" and that we ought to be perfuaded, That the propitious fmiles of heaven can never be expected on a nation that difregards the eternal rules of humanity, juftice, order, and right, which heaven itself has univerfally ordained.

I am Sir, your humble fervant,

S. A.

Difquifitions concerning the temporary Sufpenfion of the active Functions of animate Objects.

SIR,

For the Editor of the Bee.

CERTAIN plants and trees drop their leaves in au

tumn, and several species of animals remain in a torpid ftate during winter. Both these phenomena are ufually supposed to be occafioned merely by the coldness that occurs during that season; yet there are reafons to fufpect that this periodical change depends, in fome measure, on the natural œconomy of these organised bodies, or on fome circumftances that are only incidentally connected with cold, and may in fome meafure, in certain cafes, be disjoined from it.

Mr Thunberg, the celebrated Swedish naturalift, took notice, when at the Cape of Good Hope, that many plants and trees which have been transported thither from Europe, regularly fhed their leaves there in autumn, as they would have done in Europe, though the heat, at that season, at the Cape, be equal to that which is experienced in fome parts of Europe long before the leaves of these trees begin to fhow any fymptoms of decay.

In regard to animals, fome experiments that have been lately made by Dr Pallas in Siberia, feem to prove the position above stated in a ítill more decifive

manner.

The doctor kept a hedgehog in his apartment from December till the end of March, during which time the heat of the apartment, in which it lay, was feldom under 60 degrees, which is equal to our fummer heat, yet the animal continued in a torpid ftate, and took no food, except once or twice, when it was placed be

hind the ftove, in a heat from 77 to 80 degrees; when, roufed by that extraordinary heat, it did indeed awake, took a few turns round the room, and eat a few morfels, but foon lay down again, and fell into its torpid ftate.

On the other hand, a tame marmotte, which had become extremely fat during fummer, in the profeffor's houfe, continued awake during the whole winter, although it was expofed to the fame cold which threw all the reft of the fpecies into their torpid ftate; nor was the doctor able to render this particular marmotte torpid, even with the affiftance of the ice cellar, wherein he fometimes confined it several days.

From these facts, it feems reafonable to conclude, that it is not the operation of cold alone that produces thefe changes on animate objects. Before that cold can induce this temporary fufpenfion of fome of the most remarkable functions of life, the organs must be predifpofed to receive that impreffion by fome preparatory process that we are not yet in a condition to explain. Dr Pallas supposes, that, with regard to animals, the body requires to be prepared for falling into the torpid state by a gradual deficiency of nourishment, about the beginning of winter; but this hypothefis does not seem to be altogether free from objections, Many of the animals which fall into this torpid ftate provide stores of food, and are rendered torpid while they yet have abundance remaining; and almoft all the animals of this description are in the fattest state they ever experience at the period they fall asleep.They are all comparatively leaner when they recover life in the spring. Were it not from the fingle experiment of the tame marmotte above stated, which Dr Pallas fays had become extremely fat during the funmer, it would feem more natural to fuppofe that the body should be prepared for that torpid ftate by a surcharge, rather than by a deficiency of sustenance.

More accurate obfervations are here wanted before any general conclufion can be drawn,

Might it not be as natural to fuppofe, that the economy of the tame marmotte had been deranged in confequence of its having been sustained by food that was not naturally adapted to its conftitution, and that in confequence of that derangement, it could not be made to undergo its natural changes, as that this effect was produced merely by the abundance of the fuitenance it had received, and the degree of fatness that had occafioned?

The bee is the only animal I recollect which falls into a torpid state, that may be said, in one sense, to have been domefticated by man. Upon the fuppofition that cold alone produced that torpor, and that heat to a certain degree diffolved it, certain rules for the management of bees have been devifed, with apparent probability of fuccefs. I wish to know if any experiments have been made to afcertain the facts respecting this industrious animal. With that view, I will be much obliged to any of your readers for a solution to the following queries:

ift, Do bees invariably fall into a torpid state when they are made to experience a certain degree of cold, and recover life again when they are fubjected to a certain degree of heat? If so, what is the degree of cold that renders them inanimate, and the degree of heat that revives them?

2d, Is any degree of cold capable of depriving the bee of life irrecoverably, after it has been thrown into its torpid ftate, in maffes, as in a hive, and what is it?

3d, Do bees, in the torrid zone, ever fall into the torpid ftate? If so, what is the degree of cold they must be made there to experience before they undergo this change?

4th, It appears, from the travels of Mr Pages, that in the Biffayan ifles there are many bees, and great abundance of honey. Are the bees which hang their nests upon the branches of the trees, of the fame fpecies