have known him. Ope of the lads gripped the face of the corpse with his finger and thumb, and the cheeks felt quite soft and fleshy, but the dimples remained, and did not spring out again. He had fine yellow hair about 9 inches long, but not a hair of it could they pull out, till they cut part of it off with a knife. They also cut off some portions of his clothes, which were all quite fresh, and distributed them among their acquaintances, sending a portion to me among the rest, to keep as natural curiosities. Several gentlemen have in a manner forced me to give them fragments of these enchanted garments; I have, however, retained a small portion for you, which I send along with this, being a piece of his plaid, and another of his waistcoat breast, which you will see are still as fresh as that day they were laid in the grave His broad blue bonnet was sent to Edinburgh several weeks ago, to the great regret of some gentlemen connected with the land, who wished to have it for a keepsake. For my part, fond as I am of blue bonnets, and broad ones in particular, I declare I durst not have worn that one, There was nothing of the silver knife and fork discovered, that I heard of, nor was it very likely it should; but it would appear he had been very near

run of cash, which, I dare say, had been the cause of his utter despair, for, on searching his pockets, nothing was found but three old Scots halfpennies. These young men meeting with another shepherd afterwards, his curiosity was so much excited, that they went and digged up the curious remains a second time, which was a pity, as it is likely that by these exposures to the air, and from the impossibility of burying it up again so closely as it was before, the flesh will now fall to dust.

These are all the particulars that I remember relating to this curious discovery; and I am sure you will confess that a very valuable receipt may be drawn from it for the preservation of dead bodies. If you should think of trying the experiment on yourself, you have nothing more to do than hang yourself in a hay rope, which, by the by, is to be made of risp, and leave or ders that you are to be buried in a wild height, and I will venture to predict, that though you repose there for ages an inmate of your mossy cell, of the cloud, and the storm, you shall set up your head at the last day as fresh as a moor-cock. I remain, my worthy friend, yours very truly.

JAMES HOGG Altrieve Lake, Aug. 1, 1823.

markable fact, that water can absorb all these salts without occupying on that account a greater space. The warmer water is, the more salt it is capable of holding in solution; boiling water will dissolve nearly its own weight of salt; while freezing water, on the contrary, deposits ever so small a portion of salt that it may have taken up.

This, however, is not all. Water contains also inflammable or sulphureous particles, which manifest themselves in its sediment, in its putrefaction, and in many chemical experiments which are recorded by the best writers. It must not be imagined that I here allude to the mineral waters only, some of which actually take fire. Common putrid water frequently inflames in the same manner; and moreover, the existence of caloric, or fiery particles, in water, cannot be doubted; for without them it would not be a fluid but a solid body. As soon as water is deprived of all its caloric, it contracts, becomes more ponderous, and acquires the solidity of stone. Muschenbroeck and Eller found that heat expands water about a twenty-fourth or twentysixth part and that in passing from the freezing point to the degree of heat at which it begins to boil, it becomes about a sixty-fifth part lighter. As then it is the caloric or fiery particles alone which keep the particles of water so slightly connected that they form a fluid body; the presence of caloric in all water must be incontestable. On this account Boerhaave called water a sort of glass, which melts at the thirty-third degree of heat, and the vapours of which are wholly composed of small glass globules.

That water contains air, is a point which no one will dispute. It has been observed that this air is expelled from the intervals between its particles, at a heat of 150 degrees of Fahrenheit's thermometer; but that it does not begin to boil under 212 degrees. As water, deprived of its air, occupies no smaller space than before, the air, like the dissolved salts, cannot take up any perceptible space in water, but must insinuate itself into the minutest interstices. Hence probably it is, that

the intermixture of air with water takes place so slowly; for if water that has been deprived of all its air, is exposed to the atmosphere, it takes several days, and even weeks, before the air again combines with it and to this end no shaking or agitation is required. This has been fully demonstrated by the most careful experiments of many eminent natural philosophers, as Mariotte, Boerhaave, Muschenbroeck, Nollet, and Hamberger; and Eller has calculated that the natural proportion of air contained by common water, amounts to a hundred-and-fiftieth part.

As then common water comprehends earth, salts, caloric, and air, it is evident that all the four elements are combined in every drop. But, methinks, I hear the inquisitive reader exclaim, how do you make out the three kingdoms of Nature?

The mineral kingdom I have already introduced. Earth, lime, chalk, selenitic matter, sea-salt, nitre, inflammable matters, caloric, iron, are all associated in a drop of water. We now want nothing but vegetable and animal matter.

All water must contain a vegetable principle, because all vegetables are solely and alone generated and nourished by it. That the earth contributes nothing to this effect, is almost incontestable. Many natural philosophers have found by accurate experiments, that a vessel full of mould, after a large tree has grown in it, loses none of its original weight; and hence it follows, that the water used in watering it, must have exclusively operated the developement, growth, and nourishment of the tree. This observation is very old, and has merely been confirmed by the moderns. As then it is inferred, that the earth contributes nothing to the principles of vegetables, philoso phers have also proved that water, considered per se, is not transformed into the substances of plants, or converted into a solid body, but that it is only the vehicle of the vegetable particles, and merely conveys them to the plants. Woodward, who thoroughly investigated this subject, has demonstrated that water itself, nourishes plants no more than earth, but that it is only the vehi

cle of the vegetable matter; and it is in this way that we must understand the principles of the philosophers, of Thales, Seneca, Cicero, Van Helmont, and others, when they regard water as the primary element of all things, or assert with Palissy, that without water nothing can say I exist. As then water is capable of communicating to all vegetables that by which they become what they are, it must be considered as the parent of the whole vegetable kingdom, and every drop of it must comprehend the elements of thousands of different plants.

The animal kingdom alone now remains and this too, inhabits the water. I shall say nothing of the fish, and the large aquatic insects that dwell in it by millions; for the very smallest drops of water have their inhabitants, which may be discovered with suitable optical instruments. Every body knows also how soon animalculæ are generated in stagnant water. In long voyages, the water on board ships becomes putrid, perhaps three or four times, and then contains innumerable small worms, which, when they have accomplished the period of their existence, die, and then the water again becomes drinkable. Soon afterwards, other species of similar animalculæ are generated, and the water again becomes foul. If we would preserve it from this impurity, or destroy the worms which infest it, we must have recourse to the assistance of art; and either burn sulphur in the vessels before they are filled, or drop into the water a few drops of vitriolic acid, which kills the animalculæ. There are good grounds for suspecting that the generation of these worms in water is chiefly owing to heat, and to the influence of air; for it is remarked in ships, that those butts which are placed in the warmest situations, generate worms the soonest; and that water, which is inaccessible to air, keeps perfectly sweet for many years. Clavius kept water sweet for twenty years in a retort, the neck of which was closed up by its accidental melting, without perceiving the smallest diminution. In the subterraneous city of Herculaneum, water was found after the lapse of near

ly as many centuries in strong crystal vases. The water of the Rhone is kept at Arles eighty years in earthen vessels placed in cool cellars. These observations, however, prove nothing more than that the developement of the spawn of worms in water may be prevented by external circumstances, by cold and by the exclusion of the air. The principle of these worms, the elementary matter of them, which belongs to the animal kingdom, nevertheless indisputably exists, though in a dormant state, in the water.

From all this it is evident how egregriously they are mistaken, who imagine that in water they are drinking a perfectly pure element. It is true, that if water were perfectly pure, it would be one of the finest beverages, and its indissoluble elementary parts would produce scarcely any medicinal effect on the human body. But when we consider in what manner water nourishes plants, we may easily infer, that in animals also it is not transformed into the rudiments of their bodies, but rather communicates to them the few nutritious organic particles which it contains. Hence it is that water, if pure, possesses no particular nutritious property; but, by means of its peculiar subtilty, it dissolves the nutritious parts of the alimentary substances, and conveys them into the minutest vessels. Of this subtilty of water some notion may be formed, when it is known, that a drop of water, when converted into vapour, occupies, according to Eller's calculation, a space 13,000 times greater than before; and that, as Leuwenhoeck found, the pores of the skin, by which water, in the form of vapour, is secreted in perspiration from the blood, are 24,000 times smaller than a grain of sand. By means of this astonishing subtilty, water can convey the alimentary particles, which it absorbs to the remotest points of the body; and so far it produces an incomparable effect in diet. We observe this effect in beer, which is nothing but water saturated with animal nutriment. At the same time, it is obvious how necessary it is to mix our solid food with a sufficient quantity of liquid in the stomach, that it may be subtilized by this sol

vent, and carried along with it into all quarters. In this point of view I regard water, with Pindar, as the most useful thing in life, because it is the vehicle that conveys our nutriment to its proper place; but of itself I do not imagine that it contributes in the least to the nourishment of the body, since it is not at all probable that it should change into a solid body, or that its pure particles should dissolve.

I consider water as an inestimable benefit to health, not as water, but inasmuch as it is a fluid. Without fluids we should not be able to digest any thing, and with a superabundance of the most nutritious, but perfectly solid food, we should dry up and inevitably perish. Fluids dissolve our food, and the water saturated with the liquefied animal particles of food is the chyle, which insinuates itself with this vehicle into the most secret channels and minutest interstices of all our parts. Here this viscous nutriment combines with the solid parts of our bodies, and the remaining water, leaving its companion behind, pursues its course into the most delicate vessels, till it arrives beneath the epidermis, where the air imbibes it, as it were, from the skin in the form of an infinitely subtile vapour, and gives it back to the world at large, as it does also in the case of plants. In this manner water promotes perspira

tion and urine.

I have already observed that water also absorbs salts, and even contains something oleaginous in its composition. Hence it is easy to conceive, how the water that mingles with our juices, imbibes a superabundance of acridity which exists in them, and laden with this fresh burden, must be voided from the body to return to its general home. The sweetest water, which passes off again in urine in the space of a few minutes, with scarcely any change of colour, nevertheless betrays, both in taste and smell, traces of salt and animal oil, and the perspiration carries with it a large proportion of both. Hence water is a good beverage for those who eat much salt meat, or who have upon the whole a superabundance of sharp humours. It is better for them than beer or any oth

er liquid that is already saturated with extraneous particles of a different nature, and herein consists the chief pre-eminence of pure water over other beverages.

A liquid, already saturated with particles of any kind which it is capable of dissolving, will not take up so large a proportion of particles of a different kind, as it would otherwise do. Eight ounces of water, in which nine ounces and a half of green vitriol have been dissolved, will be completely saturated with it: the water will nevertheless be still capable of taking up one ounce and a half of Epsom salt, four ounces of pure nitre, &c. Any water, therefore, which is already saturated with particles of a certain kind, is not so well adapted to the purification of our juices from insoluble impurities as that which is not so impregnated; consequently, no beer, no broth, no wine, and perhaps, too, no decoction for cleansing the blood, is so efficacious for this purpose as the very purest water.

As water can perform such great things, and at the same time, because it has no taste, it neither stimulates the appetite to excess, nor can produce any perceptible effect on the nerves, it is admirably adapted for diet, and we ought, perhaps, by right, to make it our sole beverage, as it was with the first of mankind, and still is with all the animals. Pure water dissolves the food more, and more readily, than that which is saturated, and likewise absorbs better the acrimony from the jui ces-that is to say, it is more nutritious and preserves the juices in their natural purity; it penetrates more easily through the smallest vessels, and removes obstructions in them; nay, when taken in large quantity, it is a very potent antidote to poison.

From these main properties of water may be deduced all the surprising cures which have been effected by it in so many diseases, and which I shall here pass over altogether. But as to the dietetic effect of water, I shall recommend it to my readers for their ordinary beverage on three conditions.

The first is, that they drink it as pure as possible. Impure water is of itself impregnated with foreign matters