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RAPHAEL-Very recently, so says a writer in the Edinburgh Phrenological Journal, the skeleton of Raphael has been examined, in the tomb which he erected for himself; and as the skull had not been detached from the bones of the neck, it is very certain that a cast has never been taken, and therefore, those which have been sold as genuine are positively spurious. We believe that several of them belong to cabinets in this country. By another account, we learn that, by an exact measurement of the skeleton, that distinguished painter was five feet and six inches high.

NAUSCOPY.-Many persons in the Mauritius possess, or pretend to have the power of discerning the approach of ships at vast distances from land, and wholly beyond the ordinary sphere of human vision. Of late, this power has been questioned, and Mr. Telfair, a gentleman of close observation, has clearly demonstrated that this pretended art of nauscopy is a mere chimera, which has imposed upon the very persons who pretended to have discovered it.

CHINESE LANGUAGE-According to Sir George Staunton, there are scarcely fifteen hundred distinct sounds in this language; yet Chinese scholars make use of eight thousand characters to express all their ideas. The original object was to have the letter represent the thing; as for example, an upright mark was the picture of a The character expressive of happiness includes land; and moral enjoyment a row of lines representing children.

man.

MECHANICS IN THE CITY OF CANTON.-There are supposed to be in that city, 50,000 cloth manufacturers, 7,300 barbers, 4,200 shoemakers, beside a multitude of other mechanics, amounting, according to the most accurate culculations, to 246,000 in the whole. Two thousand persons are engaged in the practice of medicine. The entire population of the city cannot be far from 1,000,000.

PHILLIP BARATIER, who died in Halle, in 1740, at the age of five understood the Greek, Latin, German and French languages, and at nine, he could translate any part of the Hebrew Scriptures into Latin,-could repeat the entire Hebrew Psalter, and at ten, he completed a Hebrew Lexicon of difficult words.

HEIGHT OF MOUNTAINS.-It has been determined that the Himalaya mountains are the highest on the globe. On the borders of Thibet, one peak is 27,000 feet, which is a little more than five miles high, and visible 230 miles. In the moon, several mountains have been measured which exceed twenty miles perpendicular height.

MOSAIC.-A mosaic pavement, a great curiosity, has recently been discovered at Rome. It is eighteen palms square. The following inscription, in Greek characters, was easily read :- Heraclius executed the work.'

EGYPTIAN ANTIQUITIES.-The cost of transporting the obelisk of Thebes to Paris will not be far from two millions of francs. An offer was made to convey Cleopatra's needle to England for nine thousand pounds.

JUPITER. It has been asserted by an astronomer, that the planet Jupiter might contain within itself a thousand globes as large as the earth. The sun is a thousand times larger than both.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

IN looking over the mass of papers which have accumulated since the last number was published, we are free to acknowledge our satisfaction. Certainly, there must be a goodly catalogue of well-trained, writers, interested in the character and success of this publication. Heretofore, a passing notice has been given of each communication, but the very idea of making a particular acknowledgement to each contributor, to day, would be unreasonable. As fast as room can be made, such as are most appropriate will be published in turn. Thus far, owing to the industry and liberality of our correspondents, scarcely ten pages have been printed in the present series of the Scientific Tracts, that have not been purely original matter; and were this journal twice its present size, and issued once a week instead of semi-monthly, an abundance of original manuscript would be procurable.

We ask a continuance of favor from correspondents, and solicit articles on any subject to which the writer chooses to devote a leisure hour. Though we sometimes exercise the constitutional right of VETOING, it is only in extreme cases, where the rules of syntax are shockingly violated, the subjeet barbarously unphilosophical, or some personal abuse lurks in ambush.

The communication handed in just as the proof was being corrected, on the Report of the Boston Infant School Society, must necessarily be postponed

till the next number.

AND

FAMILY LYCEUM.

JUNE 1, 1834.

PHRENOLOGY.

An Abstract of six Lectures on Phrenology, recently delivered at the Temple, by WILLIAM B. FOWLE, Esq.

A VERY interesting synopsis of these lectures having been given in the Mercantile Journal, we have availed ourselves of the principal part of what appeared there, because it was utterly impossible to prepare a condensed report, that would compare with the Editor's in point of interest. An article is in preparation on the utility of the study of Phrenology, which will be read by instructors of youth and by parents, with satisfaction.

In the first lecture Mr. Fowle began with a fair statement of his claims as a phrenologist. He did not pretend to be more than an inquirer into the truth of a science which laid claims to the candid examination of all men, and especially of those who, in any way, guide, govern or instruct their fellow-men. He only proposed to give a plain statement of these claims, as he understood them, without any intention to contend with anti-phrenologists by research, who were few in number, or by education, who were, of course, not prepared to argue the contested points. He slightly alluded to the alarm which the new science had created in many timid and worthy minds, but he considered these apprehensions as having in a great measure subsided. He alluded to the opposition which phrenology had encountered, but seemed to think its progress had been unusually rapid. He considered phrenology as a natural science, as capable of demonstration as botany, or any other science. He took it for granted,

that the brain was the organ by which the mind manifested itself. He did not pretend to say what the mind was, but he thought it absurd to suppose that it could act without an organ. Phrenology was based on practical anatomy, but anatomy alone could not prove or disprove phrenology. It was necessary to study the physiology of the brain also. It was by observing the coincidence between certain developements of the brain and certain peculiarities of mind, that Gall was led to discover truths which anatomy and more careful examination have since confirmed.

He then proceeded to show, by numerous drawings of the brain, that there not only was nothing in its structure opposed to phrenology, but many things to lead us to doubt whether the brain can be a single organ, as anti-phrenologists maintain. He gave an anatomical description of the formation and increase of the brain, and then of the formation of the skull, which is moulded upon the brain, and which, by means of the arteries and other vessels with which its bones are filled, is capable of enlarging as the brain is enlarged. He stated that Gall and Spurzheim, in examining the structure of the brain, pursued the opposite course to that usually followed. Instead of beginning at the top of the brain and slicing it off, and describing its mangled appearances, they began at the spinal cord, and followed up its fibres through the substance of the brain, until they terminated in the convolutions on its surface. Both modes of dissection were illustrated by large paintings. He remarked that phrenologists considered the brain as a product of the nerves, or an addition to them, and not the brain as the origin of the nerves. He then, by another series of paintings, showed the progress of the nervous system towards perfection, by a comparison of the ganglions of a caterpillar, which has a nervous system, but no brain, with the brains of a variety of animals in the different orders up to man, the brain becoming more complex as the animal became more intelligent. He alluded to the various methods which had been adopted for comparing the intellectual developement of one man with another, particularly, that of the facial angle, which he proved to be

unsatisfactory. He showed a copy of an ancient drawing, where something like a phrenological division of the head was attempted, and he gave an amusing specimen of the unsettled state of mental philosophy, before the days of Gall and Spurzheim, concluding, as well he might, that any attempt to improve the science of intellect should be received with candor, and every real discovery, be welcomed with gratitude.

In the second lecture, after recapitulating the general views of the first, Mr. Fowle gave some further illustrations of the nervous system. He explained Dr. Bell's discovery in regard to the two classes of nerves, and their separate functions of feeling and motion. He entered more particularly into the description of the brain, described its texture, the course of its fibres, the formation of the convolutions or irregularities on its surface, the means of communication between the two hemispheres, and of course, between the several pairs of organs. He thus amply refuted the objection that if the organs are double the sensation must be so. He alluded to the optic nerves, which are known to communicate with each other before

they enter the brain. Indeed, his explanation of the mode and places in which all the nerves of the senses unite with the brain, led to important inferences favorable to phrenology. Mr. F. thought man's proper study,' Himself, had been too much neglected. Dr. Gall was bewildered in his researches until he left the theories of metaphysicians, and turned his attention to the actions, anatomy, and physiology of his species. Dr. Gall did not pretend to know what the mind itself is; he could no more tell what a man had done by inspecting his brain, than an anatomist could tell what the eye had done by dissecting it he could only judge what it was capable of doing. Some philosophers had taught that all ideas were innate, others, that they were all acquired; phrenology taught neither extreme. Mr. F. considered the unsettled language of metaphysics as a strong presumption that the truth had not been attained. Language becomes fixed when knowledge is certain. His description of their mode of applying the term instinct to so many various operations

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