people were in that ftate of barbarity, or very little better, at the time the author wrote; for he fays, he himself faw fome of them t He further tells us, that one of the Incas found men that preyed on one another like wild beafts, attacking their fellow creatures for no other purpose than to eat them. These the Inca hunted on the mountains, and in the woods, like fo many beasts

But the communication and intercourse that has been betwixt the feveral parts of the old world on this fide of the globe, and likewife betwixt the old and the new world discovered by Columbus, during thefe last three hundred years, has made fo great a change of the manners and way of living of men in those countries, that it is not there we are now to look for people living in the natural state, but in another part of the world, as yet very imperfectly discovered, and with which we have had hitherto very little intercourfe, I mean the countries in the South Sea, and such parts of the Atlantic Ocean as have not been frequented by European fhips. What I fhall here fet down of the wild people found in thofe countries is taken from a French collection of voyages to the South Sea, printed at Paris in the year 1756, in two volumes 4to. The author's name, as I am informed, is Labroffe.

Americus Vefpucius, who made the difcovery of the continent of America for the King of Spain, and gave his name to it, was afterwards employed by the King of Portugal, in whose service he made a voyage in that great ocean which extends from Brazil eaftward, towards the Cape of Good Hope; and in this voyage he dif covered a great tract of country, which he calls a continent, where he found a people who, though living together in herds, had neither government, religion, nor arts, nor any property; and every one of them had as many wives as he pleafed. Americus was among them feven and twenty days, which was long enough to have obferved what he affirms of their manner of living. Vol. 1. p. 96. of Labrosse's Collection.

Jack the Hermit, a Dutch traveller, affirms, that the people of Terra del Fuego live entirely like brutes, without religion, or policy, or any the leaft regard to decency, vol. 1. p. 445. And the fame is faid of them by an English traveller, Sir John Narburgh, vol. 2. p. 33. They are befides cannibals, and have not the leaft idea of honesty or good faith in their dealings, vol. 1. p. 445.

Another Dutch traveller, one Roggeveen, came to an island in the South Sea, where he could not find out that the people had any kind of government; but fome way or other they had got a religion, in which they were very zealous, and trufted to it for their defence, in place of arms, against the Europeans, vol. 2. p. 235.

Many people in thofe countries have been found without almost any of the arts of life, even the art of defending themselves, or attacking their enemies; for but few of them have been found that have the use of the bow and arrow. Most of them, like the Ouran Outangs, ufe nothing but fticks and ftones; and the laft-mentioned

+ Lib. 9. c. 8.'

•Lib. 8. c. 3. See alfo c. 6 & 7, of the fame book, where there are other acCounts to the fame purpose.'

people,

people, who had fo much religion, ufed no arms at all. Sir Francis Drake difcovered certain islands in the South Sea, to the North of the Line, where he found inhabitants who had the nails of their fingers about an inch long, which he understood ferved them for offenfive arms, vol. 1. p. 197. And Le Mere met with a people in New Guinea, who used their teeth as an offenfive weapon, and bit like dogs, vol. 2. p. 396 & 397. Among fuch a people, if there was any government or civil fociety, it must have been very imperfect, and of late inftitution.'

Having fhewn very clearly, as he apprehends, that civil fo ciety, which alone could produce a language, is not from Nature, or coeval with the animal, but must have had a beginning, our Author proceeds to examine how it began; it being evident, that there muft have been fome caufe of a change fo great as from a folitary, or at leaft an animal not political, to a Jocial and political animal. Now the fame caufe, we are told, that firft produced ideas, and made men rational creatures, did alfo make them focial and political, and in process of time produced all the arts of life; and this caufe is no other than the neceffities of human life. The neceffities he means are, either the want of fubfiftence, or of defence against fuperior force and violence, without one or other of which caufes, there never, he tells us, would have been fociety, language, or arts, among

men.

He now proceeds to answer the following objections; viz. that inftinct was fufficient to provide men with all the necessaries of life, and to defend them against their enemies ;-that there could be no fociety without language ;-and that the law of Nature, as it is treated of by modern writers, fuppofes men to have been originally rational and political.

In anfwer to the fecond of thefe objections, he endeavours to fhew, both from theory and fact, that animals may affociate together, form a community, and carry on in concert one common bufinefs, without the ufe of fpeech. For this purpose nothing elfe is neceffary, he obferves, than that there should be among fuch animals fome method of communication. If therefore there be other methods of communication, befides that of articulate founds, there is nothing to hinder a fociety to be confituted without the use of speech. Now that there are other methods of communication, is a fact that cannot be doubted; for there are inarticulate cries, by which we see the brutes communicate to one another their fentiments and paffions; there are imitative cries; and, laftly, there is the expreffion of looks, that is, the action of the face, and the gestures of the body.' In one or other, or all of thefe ways, it is evident, we are told, that animals may understand one another so far at least as to act in concert, and carry on fome common business,

which, according to Ariftotle, is the definition of a political animal.

The examples he produces of animals acting in concert, and by communication, without the use of speech, are the beaver; an animal, called by the Poles Banbacis, mentioned by Cardinal Polignac, in his Anti-Lucretius, and which the Cardinal fays he himself faw fomewhere in the Ukraine, upon the banks of a river which he calls Danafris; and the Sea-cat, of which we have an account, that our Author thinks may be depended upon, from the Ruffian academicians in the defcription they have publifhed of Kamchatka, which they went to vifit by orders and at the expence of the Czarina. The account given of the Sea-cat, and the Ouran Outangs, is as follows:

• This animal (the Sea-cat) is amphibious, and, fo far as appears, does not form ftates or republics like the beaver, but lives in families, which are fometimes very numerous, amounting to a hundred and twenty, old and young for the male keeps a feraglio, fometimes of fifty females, of whom he is as jealous as the Grand Signior is of his. They keep up a very ftri&t family-difcipline, punishing their wives feverely for neglecting any point of duty, fuch as the care of the offspring, for which they fhew great love and tenderness; and the confequence of this difcipline is, on the part of the wives, very great fubmiflion to their lord and mafter, whom they endeavour to pacify when they have offended him, by every mark of humiliation and contrition; all which he receives with the utmost stateliness and fullenness. They have almost all the paffions and fentiments of men. They are jealous, proud, quarrelfome, and revengeful; and when they have fuffered any injury, and cannot refent it, they, like Achilles in Homer, shed tears. They are as brave as any Spartan, and will rather die upon the fpot than yield, or quit their ground and their military difcipline in this point is fo fevere, that if any of them runs away, or even is fufpected of doing fo, the reft fall upon him as fiercely as they would upon an enemy, and destroy him. Yet this animal has no ufe of fpeech, nor, fo far as I know, organs proper for it but it appears, that without it he can practife the most difficult of human arts, that of government, and of government over females, in which most men have failed; and even the legislator of Sparta, who, as Ariftotle tells us, wanted to regulate the lives of the women as he had done thofe of the men, but found it fo difficult a work that he was obliged to give it over.

• But I think it unneceffary to give more examples of this kind from the brute creation, fince it appears to me that our own fpecies furnishes sufficient for my purpose. And, firit, there are the Ouran Outangs, who, as I have faid, are proved to be of our species by marks of humanity that I think are inconteftable; and they have one property more of the fpecies than the quadruped favages above-mentioned, which have been found in different parts of Europe, that they walk erect. They live in fociety, build huts, joined in companies attack elephants, and no doubt carry on other joint undertakings

for

for their fustenance and prefervation; but have not yet attained the ufe of speech.

• But fhould any one, after all that is faid, ftill doubt of the humanity of the Ouran Outangs, what can be faid to the example of dumb perfons among us, whom no body will deny to be capable of living together in fociety, and carrying on jointly any fort of businefs; fince we fee both men and women with that defect, not only capable of acting in concert with others, but of governing and directing.'

Our Author now proceeds, in his third book, to fhew whence language arofe, and to treat of the nature of the firft languages, &c. In this book the Reader will find many ingenious obfervations concerning barbarous languages-their progrefs towards improvement, the duration of language, and the facility of its propagation, the changes to which it is liable, efpecially in its paffage from one people to another,-together with fome very pertinent remarks upon etymology, and the derivation of one language from another. Such of our Readers, however, as are defirous of feeing what the Writer has advanced upon thefe curious fubjects, we muft refer to the work itself, which, though it contains fome fanciful and reprehenfible things, fhews evidently that the Author has read and thought much upon his fubject; and there are few Readers, we may venture to fay, very few, who will not find in it fome things new, and many things both entertaining and inftructive, which will, in a great meafure, atone for the pompous and unneceffary difplay of metaphyfical knowledge, the bigotted attachment to the Greek philofophy, the account which is given of the Ouran Outangs, and fome other matters of lefs importance, that will readily occur to every judicious Reader as blemishes in a work, which, upon the whole, has a very confiderable share of merit.

R.

ART. II. Experiments and Obfervations, &c. By Thomas Henry, Apothecary. 8vo. 2 s. 6 d. fewed. Johnfon. 1773.

HIS fmall volume contains many philofophical and che

Tmical experiments, conducted with ingenuity and accuracy, and judiciously applied to the improvement of pharmacy, and other branches of the healing art.

In the first chapter the Author relates the process of preparing Magnefta alba, in the greateft ftate of purity. This account has been already communicated to the public, in the fecond volume of the Medical Tranfactions, and is here reprinted as a proper introduction to fome of the fucceeding papers. Afhort extract from it may be seen in our 47th volume, October 1772, page 261.

In the next chapter Mr. Henry adds fome mifcellaneous obfervations relative to the fame fubject, in which he exposes the ignorance,

ignorance, or the interested views, of a certain vender of magnefia, who pretends that the preparation fold by him is made from the genuine falt obtained from the Epfom water; and on that account, in the usual oftentatious cant of empiricism, boasts that he has made an improvement in the preparation of that medicine," which is by the Learned efteemed one of the greatest acquifitions to the Materia Medica."-If Mr. Dale Ingram really procures his magnesia in this tedious and expenfive manner *, instead of precipitating it at once from the common, or artifi cial Epfom falt, he takes much pains to very little purpose, as the mereft tyro in chemistry can inform him that the refufe of a falt-pan contains as genuine magnefia, as the waters of Epfom, or any other fill more dignified fpring.

In the third chapter the Author gives a curfory detail of the medicinal properties of magnefia in its original state; and in the 4th and 5th, treats of the changes produced in this subject by calcination, and of its medicinal qualities after it has undergone this process. As the matter is of a curious and interefting nature, we fhall give an hiftorical view of the subject, to which we fhall add the fubftance of the Author's principal obfervations on the qualities of this ufeful addition to the Materia' Medica.

Dr. Black had formerly, in the profecution of his ingenious and philofophical enquiries into the chemical properties of this fubftance +, calcined it, and firft difcovered that fixed air conftituted about seven-twelfths of its weight, which was expelled. from it by the fire in the course of the operation. He observed that, in confequence of this lofs, was, like quick-lime, deprived of the power of effervefcing with acids; but differed from it in this effential quality, that it did not, like the calcareous earths, when calcined, become cauftic or acrid, or communicate any fenfible impregnation to water. This ingenious phyfician,

Mr. Henry calculates, from fufficient data, that in order to procure only a pound of magneɓa from the Epfom water, above fixty gallons must be evaporated down to five or fix pints, previous to the fubsequent tedious processes of edulcorating and drying the powder precipitated from it.

In the Edinburgh Phyfical and Literary Effays. Vol. ii. Art. 8. 1 Mr. Henry ingeniously acknowledges that he was led to draw a different conclufion from fome of his first experiments made with calcined magnesia, which he found to impregnate water very fenfibly, which acquired from it a lithontriptic power apparently greater than that of the ftrongest lime water: but on frequently repeating the experiment with different parcels of magneúa, he at length difcovered his error, and found that the impregnation was owing to fome calcareous