employed in the amalgamation of the minerals, or the preparatory labour. A great number of these individuals pass their lives in walking barefooted over heaps of brayed metal, moistened and mixed with muriate of soda, sulphate of iron, and oxid of mercury, by the contact of the atmospherick air and the solar rays. It is a remarkable phenomenon to see these men enjoy the most perfect health. The physicians, who practise in places where there are mines, unanimously assert, that the nervous affections, which might be attributed to the effect of an absorption of oxid of mercury, very rarely occur. At Guanaxuato part of the inhabitants drink the very water in which the amalgamation has been purified [aqua de lavaderos] without feeling any injury from it. This fact has often struck Europeans, not intimately acquainted with the principles of chymistry. The water is, at first, of a grayish-blue colour, and contains in suspension black oxid of mercury, and small globules of native mercury, and amalgamation of silver. This metallick mixture gradually precipitates, and the water becomes limpid. It can neither dissolve the oxid of mercury nor the muriate of mercury, which is one of the most insoluble salts which we know. The mules are very fond of this water, because it contains a little muriate of soda in dissolution."

We shall now direct our attention to the character and condition of the Indians, generally, a race of men, in our opinion, much more injured than our author seems willing to allow. Nevertheless, whether they have cause to rejoice in the prospect of a political revolution, we cannot pretend to determine. Happy should we be did circumstances allow us to flatter ourselves that that portion of the human race which is appointed to inhabit these countries, would benefit, as we wish them, by such an occurrence. The following extracts contain matter of mingled gratification and sorrow; that Mexico should have taken so small a

share in the slave trade, we rejoice; wras maintained by Christian missionaries, is much

but, to see

more afflictive than the contemplation of those scenes of distress which Africa was formerly compelled to witness almost incessantly.

"The kingdom of New Spain is, of all the European colonies under the torrid zone, that in which there are the fewest negroes. We may almost say that there are no slaves. We may go through the whole city of Mexico without seeing a black countenance. The service of no

house is carried on with slaves. In this point of view, especially, Mexico presents a singular contrast to the Havanna, Lima, and Caraccas. From exact information procured by those employed in the enumeration of 1793, it appears that in all New Spain there are not six thousand negroes, and not more than nine or ten thousand slaves, of whom the greatest number belong to the ports of Acapulco and Vera Cruz, or the warm regions of the coast [tierras calientes.] The slaves are four times more numerous in the capitania general of Caraccas, which does not contain the sixth part of the population of Mexico. The negroes of Jamaica are to those of New Spain in the proportion of 250 to one! In the West India islands, Peru and even Caraccas, the progress of agriculture and industry in general, depends on the augmentation of negroes. In the island of Cuba, for example, where in twelve years from 400,000 to 1,000,000 the annual exportation of sugar has risen quintals, between 1792 and 1803 nearly 55,000* slaves have been introduced. But in Mexico the increase of colonial prosperity is no wise occasioned by a more active since Mexican sugar was known in Euslave trade. It is not above twenty years

rope; Vera Cruz, at present exports more than 120,000 quintals; and yet the progress of sugar cultivation which has taken place in New Spain since the revolution of St. Domingo has not perceptibly in74,000 negroes annually furnished by creased the number of slaves. Of the Africa to the equinoxial regions of America and Asia, and which are worth, in the colonies, the sum of 111,000,000 francs,t not above 100 land on the coast of Mexico.

"By the laws there can be no Indian

slaves in the Spanish colonies; and yet, by a singular abuse, two species of wars very different in appearance give rise to a state very much like that of the African

annually.

† 625,370% sterling.

slave. The missionary monks of South America make, from time to time, incursions into the countries possessed by peaceable tribes of Indians, whom they call savages [Indios bravos] because they have not learned to make the sign of the cross like the equally naked Indians of the missions [Indios reducidos.] In these nocturnal incursions, dictated by the most culpable fanaticism, they lay hold of all whom they can surprise, especially children, women, and old men. They separate, without pity, children from their mothers, lest they should concert together as to the means of escape. The monk who is chief of this expedition, distributes the young people among the Indians of his mission who have the most contributed to the success of the Eutrados. On the Orinoco, and on the banks of the Portuguese Rio Negro, these prisoners bear the name of Poitos, and they are treated like slaves till they are of an age to marry. The desire of having Poitos and making them work for eight or ten years, induces the Indians of the missions to excite the monks to these incursions, which the bishops have generally had the good sense to blame, as the means of attaching odium to religion and its ministers. In Mexico the prisoners taken in the petty warfare which is carried on almost without interruption, on the frontiers of the provincias internas experience a much more unhappy fate than the Poitos. They are generally of the nation of the Mecos or Apaches, and they are dragged to Mexico, where they languish in the dungeons of a correction house [La Kordada]. Their ferocity is increased by solitude and despair. Transported to Vera Cruz and the island of Cuba, they soon perish, like every savage Indian removed from the high, table land into the lower, and consequently hotter regions. These Mecos prisoners sometimes break from their dungeons, and commit the most atrocious cruelties in the surrounding countries. It is high time that the government interested itself in these unfortunate persons, whose number is small, and their situation so much the easier to be ameliorated."

What is the condition of the Indians already under the Spanish government, we learn from our author in different parts of his work.

"The Indians, or copper-coloured race, are rarely to be found in the north of New Spain, and are hardly to be met with in the provincias internas. History gives us several causes for this phenomenon.

When the Spaniards made the conquest of Mexico, they found very few inhabitants in the countries situated beyond the parallel of 20°. These provinces were the abode of the Chichimecks and Otomites, two pastoral nations, of whom thin hordes were scattered over a vast territory. Agriculture and civilisation, as we have already observed, were concentrated in the plains south of the river of Santiago, especially between the valley of Mexico and the province of Oaxaca.

"From the 7th to the 13th century, population seems in general to have continually flowed towards the south. From the regions situated to the north of the Rio Gila issued forth those warlike nations who successively inundated the country of Anahuack. We are ignorant whether that was their primitive country, or whether they came originally from Asia or the northwest coast of America, and traversed the savannas of Nabajoa and Moqui, to arrive at the Rio Gila. The hieroglyphical tables of the Aztecks have transmitted to us the memory of the principal epochs of the great migrations among the Americans. This migration bears some analogy to that which, in the fifth century, plunged Europe in a state of barbarism, of which we yet feel the fatal effects in many of our social institutions. However, the people who traversed Mexico, left behind them traces of cultivation and civilisation. The Toultecks appeared first, in the year 640, the Chichimecks in 1170, the Nahualtecks in 1178, the Acolhues and Aztecks in 1196. The Toultecks introducd the cultivation of maize and cotton; they built cities, made roads, and constructed those great pyramids which are yet admired, and of which the faces are very accurately laid out. They knew the use of hieroglyphical paintings; they could found metals, and cut the hardest stones; and they had a solar year more perfect than that of the Greeks and Romans. The form of their government indicated that they were the descendants of a people who had experienced great vicissitudes in their social state. But where is the source of that cultivation? where is the country from which the Toultecks and Mexicans issued?

"The Indians of New Spain bear a general resemblance to those who inhabit Canada, Florida, Peru, and Brazil. They have the same swarthy and copper colour, flat and smooth hair, small beard, squat body, long eye, with the corner directed upwards towards the temples, prominent cheek bones, thick lips, and an expression of gentleness in the mouth, strongly cons

SEVERAL years having elapsed since the first volume of this translation was published, we almost despaired of its continuance; but we were glad to perceive that our fears were unfounded, and to have it in our power to announce its completion. The present volume, like the former, consists of a number of unconnected treatises on different branches of natural history, the chief interest of which depends on the microscopical observations for which the author is so justly celebrated. We shall mention the subjects of the different articles in the order in which they stand, enlarging on some of the most curious of them.

The first essay is on the formation of different kinds of wood, elm, beech, willow, alder, &c. accompanied by plates of the appearances which they exhibit, when highly magnified; the principal object being to point out the relative size and situation of the perpendicular vessels, as affected by the annual growth of the tree. We have next some observations on the herring, particularly on its food; and afterward an essay on the ant. In his account of the latter, the author combats some opinions which have been generally adopted respecting it, and which still form a part of the popular belief. He was led to conclude "that the ant, as well as the weevil and other minute animals (in these cold regions) does, in the winter season, lie without motion, and does not take any nourishment; and that the collections of food which ants are observed to make, and to heap together in their nests, during the summer season, is for no other purpose than to feed their young." This opinion is rendered very pro

bable, by many of the facts which are adduced. Respecting the bodies vulgarly called ant's eggs, it is remarked, that they are found nearly as large as the ant itself, and, therefore, must have grown after they left the body of the parent. This consideration led the author to examine more particularly into their nature, when he found them to be maggots, in which the rudiments of the future animal may be perceived; the proper eggs are much smaller, and may be detected in great numbers in the nests. It is for the supply of these maggots that the old ants carry food during the summer, the maggots being themselves incapable of motion. M. Leeuwenhock conjectures that the food is first received into the stomach of the ant, and there undergoes some change, which renders it more proper for the support of the young animal. This, altogether, forms one of the most curious articles in the volume, and announces information, which has not, perhaps, been sufficiently noticed by subsequent naturalists.

re

An amusing paper occurs specting the flea. As soon as the young worm leaves the egg, it spins for itself a web, in which it lies for some time quite concealed; and it appears that there is an immediate necessity for this process, because a minute insect of the mite kind exists, which would prey on the worm, if it had not this protection. Perhaps no animal exhibits a greater display of curious mechanism; and the author seems to have examined and described it with the most minute accuracy. The succeeding observations are on the seeds of some different kinds of trees, on the genera tion of eels, and on the eye of the

beetle. So far from the last animal possessing an imperfect 'sight, according to the vulgar proverb, it is furnished with above 3,000 eyes, each of them possessing a distinct lens and optick nerve. The same essay contains some remarks on the brain of the gnat, and the circulation of the blood in the crab. The next object that is described, is, the proturberance which is occasionally found on the leaf of the willow; and which is the work of an insect that lays its eggs on the surface of the leaf, and, at the same time, seems to penetrate into its substance, and act on it in such a way as to produce this excresence, which serves as a receptacle for the future animal. A section on the loadstone follows, which is less interesting than some other parts of the work, because our knowledge of the properties of this substance is very much extended since Leeuwenhoek wrote. We cannot assent to an opinion advanced by the translator, that any analogy subsists between the loadstone and the polypus, merely because every fragment of a magnet becomes itself a perfect magnet, in the same way as the parts of a divided polypus each form a perfect animal.

The next essay, on the brain of the turkey, the sheep, and the sparrow, is particularly to be noticed, as containing many observations on the size of the particles of the blood. The hypothesis which the author formed of a descending series of globules, which was afterward taken up and embellished by Boerhave and the other humoral pathologists, seems to be one of the few instances in which M. Leeuwenhoek suffered his fancy to warp his accuracy of observation. He informs us in his essay, that he saw a fluid issue from the vessels of the brain, "composed of very minute globules, 36 of which would not be equal in size to a globule of the human blood;" and that, "besides

these small globules, there were some larger ones, of which," he says, "I judged that six would be equal in size to one globule of human blood." Some curious remarks follow on the minute fleshy fibres. The author was able, by means of his glasses, to detect them when of so small a size, that a million occu pied only the size of a square inch. He particularly examined the muscles of a flea's foot; and, by comparing them with those of the larger animals, he inferred that the ultimate fibres of all were of the same size.

"I continued my observations," he says, "by examining the flesh taken out of the feet of a flea, and I saw no difference between the formation and figure of the fibres, taken out of the breast and the feet, and I saw more than twelve of such fibres in the foot of a flea, joining to each other, and also many smaller fibres, in wrinkles; these last I took to be exceed. which I could not distinguish the folds or ing small blood vessels and nerves.

"I also took the flesh out of the feet of small flies, and saw the fleshy fibres in them to be formed in the same manner as

beforementioned.

stance of a whale, I also found to be each "The fibres which compose the subenclosed in a membrane, and to be com. posed of still smaller filaments; and with regard to the size of these fishy fibres, each single fibre was no larger than in the fibres in some codfish, eight times the the smaller fish; and, indeed, I have seen

size of those in a whale.

"I also examined the component fibres in the flesh of a mouse, a calf and a hog, and found their formation to be the same as before described, namely, each surrounded with a particular membrane, and composed of smaller filaments: the fibres in the flesh of all these animals was nearly of the size I have before laid down, so that I may say, the fleshy fibres composing the body of an ox are not, singly taken, larger than those which go to the substance of a mouse, though, as I have computed, the one animal is thirty thousand times the size of the other."

From some interesting remarks on the external membrane of the human skin, it appears to consist of a continuous layer of proper scales,