your interpofition, I am confident will do a great deal. It will be very illiberal indeed, if fuch a communication were refufed. My Lord Stormont (by whose attention I have been much honoured) would not decline to give his aid, were that neceffary. But if your court refembles that of Spain, I am afraid every propofal from an ambaffador is received with fome degree of jealoufy. Your own private application will, I apprehend, be more effectual. As it is probable a fecond edition may go to prefs early in the winter, it will add to the favour, if you can foon inform me concerning the fuccefs of your negociation. As this is fomething in the ftyle of the Corps Diplomatique, allow me to recommend one of its members to you. Mr. FulTarton, the new fecretary to the embaffy, is a particular friend of mine. He is a young man of fuch qualities both of head and heart, that I am fure you will efteem and love him. Please remember me to him. I have the honour to be, with great refpect,

Your obliged humble Servant,
WILLIAM ROBERTSON.

Sir William Jones to Mr. Gibbon.

Lamb Buildings, June 30th, 1781. › DEAR SIR,

I HAVE more than once fought, without having been fo fortunate as to obtain, a proper opportunity of thanking you very fincerely for the elegant compliment which you pay me, in a work abounding in elegance of all kinds.

My Seven Arabian Poets will fee the light before next winter, and be proud to wait on you in their English drefs. Their wild pro

ductions will, I flatter myself, be thought interefting, and not venerable merely on account of their antiquity.

In the mean while, let me requeft you to honour me with accepting a copy of a Law Tract, which is not yet published: the fubject is fo generally important, that I make no apology for fending you a profeffional work.

You must pardon my inveterate hatred of C. Octavianus, bafely furnamed Auguftus. I feel myfelf unable to forgive the death of Cicero, which, if he did not promote, he might have prevented. Befides, even Macænas knew the cruelty of his difpofition, and ventured to reproach him with it. In fhort, I have not Chriftian charity for him.

With regard to Afiatic letters, a neceffary attention to my profeffion will compel me wholly and eternally to abandon them, unless Lord North (to whom I am already under no fmall obligation) thould think me worthy to concur in the improved adminiftration of juftice in Bengal, and fhould appoint me to fupply the vacancy on the India Bench. Were that appointment to take place this year, I fhould probably travel for fpeed, through part of Egypt and Arabia, and hould be able, in my way, to procure many eaftern tracts of literature and jurifprudence. I might become a good Mahomedan lawyer before I reached Calcutta, and, in my vacations, fhould find leifure to explain, in my native language, whatever the Arabs, Perfians, and Turks, have written on fcience, hiftory, and the fine arts.

My happiness by no means depends on obtaining this appcint

ment,

Some Particulars in the Anatomy of a Whale. By Mr. John Abernethy. From the Philofophical Tranf actions, Part 1.

THERE are fome particulars in the anatomy of the whale, which, I believe, have either entirely efcaped, or have not been as yet communicated to the public. The parts which in the whale correfpond in fituation and office with the mefenterie glands of other animals, differ confiderably from thofe glands in ftru&ture. These peculiarities are not only curious in themselves, but are illuftrative of circumftances hitherto efteemed abfcure, in the anatomy and economy of the lymphatic glands in general. I therefore take the liberty of fubmitting the following account of them to the infpection of this learned society.

The animal, from which the parts that I am going to defcribe were taken, was a male, of the genus named by Linnæus balæna.

Being defirons of making an anatomical preparation, to thew the diftribution of the mefenteric veffels and lacteals of the whale, I procured for this purpose a broad portion of the mefentery with the annexed inteftine; and proceeded

in the first place to inject the blood velel. The mefentery had been cut from the animal as close to the fpine as poffible: had a lefs portion been taken away, the parts which I am about to defcribe would have been left with the body, for they are fituated upon the origin of the blood veffels belonging to the inteftines; and this, perhaps, is the reafon why they have not been obferved before.

When I threw a red-coloured waxen injection into the mefenteric artery, I faw it meandering in the ramifications of that veffel; but at the fame time I obferved it collecting in feveral feparate heaps, about the roots of the mefentery's which soon encreafed to the fize of eggs. At the time, I imagined that the veffels had been ruptured, and that the injection in confequence had become extravafated; but I was confcious that no improper degree of force had been uted in propelling the injection.

I next threw fome yellow injection into the vein, when fimilar phænomena occured; the branches of the vein were filled, but at the fame time the maffes of wax near the root of the mefentery were increafed by a further effufion of the injection. These lumps had now acquired a spherical form,

and fome of them were of the fize of an orange.

After the injection had become cold, I cut into the mefentery, in order to remove these balls of wax; when I found that they were contained in bags, in which I alfo obferved a flimy and bloody-coloured fluid. On the inner furface of these bags a greater number of fmall arteries and veins terminated; from the mouths of which the injection had poured into their cavities. There were feven of these bags in that piece of mefentery which I had to examine; but I am not able to determine what number belonged to the animal; for I do not know whether the portion of mefentery that I poffeffed was complete. Having removed the injection from thefe bags, I obferved on the infide of them a foft whitish fubftance, apparently containing a plexus of lacteal veffels. This fubftance entered the bags at that part of them which was nearest to the intestines, and went out at the part next to the fpine. I now poured fome quickfilver into thofe lacteals which appeared to lead to this foft fubftance; the quick filver foon entered the veffels which were contained in it, and thus its nature was ascertained. A number of lacteals having entered one of thefe bags were obferved to communicate with each other, then again to feparate, and form other veffels, which went out of the bag. It was fome time before the quickfilver paffed through the plexus of veffels contained in the first bag, but after having pervaded it. it paffed on to a fecond bag, in which was concealed a fimilar plexus of lacteals. The quickfilver perme.

ated thefe laft veffels with much greater facility than it did the former, and quickly ran out of the large lacteals which were divided at the origin of the mefentery. Befides thofe abforbents which paffed through the bags in the the manner described, there were great numbers of others, which terminated by open orifices in every part of them. When quickfilver was poured into any of the lacteals, which were found near the fides of the bags, it immediately ran in a ftream into their cavities. I introduced about a dozen bristles through as many lacteals, into different parts of two of these bags. These were doubtless few, in comparifon to the whole number which terminated in them, but as the mefentery was fat, and the vessels were fmall, more could not easily be paffed.

I afterwards ftuffed two of the bags with horfe-hair, dried them, and preferved them as an anatomical preparation. In this ftate great numbers of arteries and veins, but chiefly of the former veffels, are feen terminating on their infide, in the fame indiftinct manner as the foramina Thebefi appear when the cavities of the heart are laid open: the briftles alfo render vi-, fible the termination of a certain number of lacteals. I examined the fides of thefe bags, which were moderately thick and firm; but I did not fee any thing which, from its appearance, I could call a mufcular ftructure.

From the circumftances that have been related, it appears, that in the whale there are two ways by which the chyle can pafs from the inteftines into the thoracic dact;

one

one of these is through thofe lacteals, which pours the abforbed chyle into bags, in which it receives an addition of animal fluids. The other paffage of the chyle is through thofe lacteals which form a plexus on the infide of the bags; through thefe veffels it paffes with fome difficulty, on account of their communications with each other; and it is conveyed by them to the thoracic duct, in the fame ftate that it was when firft imbibed from the inteftines, The lacteals, which pour the chyle into the bags are fimilar to thofe which terminate in the cells of the mefenteric glands of other animals there is also an analogy be tween the diftribution of the lacteals on the infide of thefe bags, and that which we fometimes obferve on the outfide of the lymphatic glands in general. In either cafe, a certain number of the vafa inferentia, as they are termed, com municate with one another, and with other veffels, named vaja efferentia.

By this communication, the progrefs of the fluids contained in thefe veffels is in fome degree checked; which impediment increases the effufion into the cavities of the gland made by the other lacteals: but fhould thefe cavities be obftructed, from disease, or other causes, an increased determination of fluids into the communicating absorbents muft happen, which would overcome the refiftance produced by their mutual inofcultations, and the contents of the veffels would be driven forwards towards the trunk of the fyftem. In the whale, as in other animals, we find that the impediment, occafioned by this communication of lacteals, is greatest in the first glands

at which they arrive after having left the intestines.

The ready termination of fo many arteries in the mefenteric glands of the whale, makes it appear probable, that there is a copious fecretion of the fluids mixed with the absorbed chyle; and, as I have before obferved, a flimy blood-coloured fluid was found in them. As the orifices of veins were open, it appears probable that the contents of the bags might pafs in fome degree into thofe veffels.

The eminent anatomifts, Al binus, Meckel, Hewfon, and Wrisberg, were of opinion, that the lymphatic glands, were not cellular, but were compofed of convoluted abforbing veffels. This notion feems, however, to have been gradually declining.

Mr. Cruikshank has of late publicly maintained a contrary opinion; and has fhewn, that the cells of these glands have tranfverfe communications with each other; which it is not likely they would have, if they were only the fections of convoluted veffels. Some additional obfervations have occurred to me, confirming this opinion, and which, as I believe they have not been publicly noticed by others, I beg leave to relate to this fociety. I have injected the lymphatic glands of the groin and axilla of horfes, with wax, and afterwards destroyed the animal fubftance, by immerfing them in muriatic acid. In fome of thefe glands the wax appeared in very fmall portions, and irregularly conjoined; which is a convincing proof, that it had acquired this irregular form from having been impelled into numerous minute cells. But in fe