the earth itself had folidity enough to render it habitable, appears to us a standing proof, that its axis has not fenfibly deviated from its prefent pofition, during a fpace of time much greater than can be thought fufficient to decompofe the bones of any animal whatsoever. In our opinion, all the folutions of this question, drawn from aftronomical confiderations of any kind, tend to afcribe a much greater antiquity to these bones, than can be warranted from the ftate of prefervation in which they are found. Some of the tufks from the Ohio, our Readers may remember, were, at Dr. Hunter's request, examined by several of the capital dealers and workers in ivory, and were fufficiently found to enable them to pronounce, from their grain and texture, though perhaps erroneously, that they were true or genuine elephantine ivory t.

Mr. Rafpe rejects likewise the systems of thofe, who suppose that these foffil bones may have been brought into their prefent fituation by the univerfal deluge; or who think that the animals to which they have belonged, may have been formerly brought from the fouthern countries, in which they were bred, to be employed in war, in the northern regions, in which they are now found. Upon the whole, he is of opinion that thole animals, whether elephants or not, have been of a particular fpecies capable of bearing the cold of thofe climates, where we now discover their remains; and that, from caufes unknown to us, their whole race has become extinct. To render the latter part of this opinion more probable, he produces fome, not perfectly parallel, inftances of the decrease or total extinction of wolves and feveral other fpecies of animals, in different and particular parts of the world.

Although every opinion which has hitherto been offered on the fubject of this enquiry, is attended with confiderable difficulties, yet a modern theorift, we fhall obferve, has, by one bold effort, nobly got rid of them all; by feriously fuppofing that the large foffil bones, which have been found in fo many parts both of the old and new continent, are nothing lefs than the remains of certain angelic beings, who, according to his fyftem, were the original tenants of this globe, in its primitive and glorious ftate; till, for their tranfgreffions, both were involved in one common ruin: after which, the remains of this fhattered planet were refitted for the accommodation of the prefent puny and degenerate race. This is the opinion of the author of the Effai fur l'Origine de la Population de l'Amerique, tom, ii. page 298. The work is now out of our hands; but we quote it on the authority of the ingenious but farcaftic author

+ Monthly Review, vol. xlii. February 1770, page 109, See Appendix to our xxxviith volume, page 531.

of

of the Recherches Philofophiques fur les Americains, vol. i. page 321 t. There is fomething laughable in the idea, that the numerous foffil skeletons, now lying in heaps in the marsh at the Salt Lick, on the banks of the Ohio, and which M. Raspe, and other naturalifts, foberly fuppofe to have belonged to a troop of Pfeud-Elephants, who accidentally funk into the swamp, and perished there, while they were gratifying their palates, fhould, by another writer, be deemed to be nothing lefs than the venerable remains of a company of fallen angels. Notwithstanding, however, the notable contraft between these two opinions, in the claffing of these remains, the title of Animal Incognitum, given by Dr. Hunter to the fubjects in question, is happily still perfectly applicable to both of them.

In the 7th article an account is given of a genuine specimen of native tin, which was found in the center of a beautiful tin diamond, of the rofin kind, fo tranfparent that the native metal appeared through it, refembling a piece of gold. It is now depofited in the museum of the Royal Society.

BOTANY and Z o oLOGY.

Article 1. A Letter from Mr. J. Moult to Dr. Percival of Manchefter, F. R. S. containing a new Manner of preparing Salep. The nutritious quality of this foreign drug is well known; but its dearnefs has hitherto prevented its being brought into common ufe as a popular article of diet. In this paper the Author gives an account of the fuccefs of his very laudable endeavours to prepare this kind of aliment from the roots of the Orchis morio mas, foliis maculatis, of Parkinfon; the Cynoforchis mori, mas, of Gerard, and the Cynoforchis major, vulgo, dogftones; all of which grow fpontaneoufly in this kingdom, where they may confequently be eafily cultivated; particularly in a dry, fandy, and barren foil. The preparation is very fimple. The roots are firft deprived of their thin fkin; are then kept in the heat of a bread oven 8 or 10 minutes, where they acquire a transparency like that of horn, and are afterwards removed into a common room, in which they grow dry and harden in a few days. We recollect that M. Geoffroy has formerly fomewhere propofed a fomewhat fimilar method of preparing the root of the Orchis or Satyrion, as an agglutinant and restorative.

Article 8. An Account of an Effay on the Origin of a natural Paper, found near the City of Cortona in Tuscany. In a Letter from John Strange, Efq; F. R. S. to Matthew Maty, M. D. Sec. R. S.

Some low grounds near Cortona having been flooded, were afterwards found covered with a fubftance greatly refembling a

Monthly Review, Appendix to vol. xlii. page 515.

finer fort of common brown paper. The Italian naturalifts were greatly divided concerning its origin; but according to the most prevailing opinion, the formation of it was attributed to a cafual aggregate of the fibres of different kinds of filamentous plants, collected together by the waters, and left on the furface of the ground after their retreat. This solution did not fatisfy the Author, who found it difficult to conceive that a paper, of fo delicate and uniform a texture as that of Cortona, fhould owe its origin to fo complicated and remote a cause.

On examining the threads of this paper with a good microfcope, he found that they confifted merely of filaments of the Conferva Plinii, or common fpecies of Conferva, without the admixture of any other plant whatsoever. He has fent fpecimens of this native paper to the Royal Society, together with an artificial paper manufactured from the fame fubstance, and a fpecimen of a much better and ftronger kind, made of the fame fpecies of Conferva by Sir Andrew Dick, near Edinburgh. Article 33. On a rare Plant found in the Ifle of Skye. By John Hope, M.D. F. R. S. &c.

This plant, which is of the aquatic kind, is here figured and defcribed under the tile of Eriocaulon decangulare. Article 52. Some Account of an Oil tranfmitted by Mr. George Brownrigg, of North Carolina. By William Watson, M. Ď. R. S. S.

As the object of this article promifes to be of great public utility, we fhall give the fubftance of this account, with a view of extending the information contained in it.

In our fouthern American colonies, and in the fugar islands, a plant is cultivated, principally, by the negroes, who use the fruit of it as food, under the name of ground nuts, or ground peafe. It is called by Ray Arrachis Hypogaios Americanus. Like a few of the trifoliate tribe, when in its flowering ftate, it bends towards the earth, into which the pointal enters, extending itself to a fufficient depth, where it forms the feed veffel and fruit; which laft is brought to maturity under ground, from whence it is dug up for ufe. In the fouthern climates vaft crops of it are produced from light and fandy land of small value.

From these feeds, firft bruifed and put into canvas bags, Mr. Brownrigg has expreffed a pure, clear, well-tafted oil which, in Dr. Watson's opinion, may be used for the fame purposes, both in food and phyfic, as the oils of olives or almonds. He obferves, however, that Sir Hans Sloane had formerly, in the first volume of his Natural Hiftory of Jamaica, made mention of an oil as good as that of almonds, which had been expressed from these feeds; and that therefore Mr. B. is not the firft who has produced oil from this vegetable production though he is intitled to our acknowledgments for reviving the remem

brance

brance of it, and profecuting this discovery. From specimens both of the feeds and oil, which were produced to the Royal Society, it appears that neither of them are fubject to turn rancid by keeping: the oil, particularly, which had been fent hither from Carolina eight months before, without any parti cular care, and which had undergone the heats of the fummer, being found perfectly fweet and good. But the principal merit of Mr. Brownrigg's communication, is the low price at which this oil may be obtained. The value of a bufhel of the ground pease in Carolina, the Doctor has been informed, does not exceed eight-pence, or thereabouts; and it appears that this quantity will, without heat, yield one gallon of oil; and with heat, a much larger quantity, but of an inferior quality. We need not enlarge on the obvious benefits which may refult to our Colonists, from a fuccessful profecution of this revived discovery; as they may hereby not only fupply their own immenfe confumption of olive oil, annually imported from Europe, but even export this article hither, or to any of thofe places where the oil of olives is usually carried.

This article is fucceeded by the catalogue of plants annually prefented to the Society by the company of Apothecaries. Article 11. Abstract of a Letter from Stephen de Vifme, Efq; at Canton in China, &c. containing an Account of an Earthquake at Macao, and a fhort Description of a fingular Species of Monkeys, &c. Communicated by Henry Baker, F. R. S.

There is nothing particular in this eaftern earthquake, which however is accompanied with a fhort description and figure of a very fingular animal of the monkey tribe, found in the interior parts of Bengal; from fome of which, that have been brought to Decca, the drawing which accompanies this article was taken. They are of the height of a man, have no tails, and, according to the Author, are thought to have been originally produced by an intercourfe with the human kind :-an opinion which the defigner seems to have been well inclined to strengthen, by the grotesque figure which he has given of one of these caracatura's of the human fpecies, represented in a kind of dancing or tumbling attitude. Dr. Maty, in a note, fufpects this animal to be the ape without a tail, defcribed by Buffon, under the name of Gibbon, in the 14th volume of the Hiftoire Naturelle, page 92.

Article 18. Obfervations on a particular Manner of Increase in the Animalcula of Vegetable Infufions; with the Discovery of an indiffoluble Salt arifing from Hempfeed, &c. By John Ellis, Efq;

F. R. S.

In the first part of this paper, the ingenious Author gives the refult of fome experiments made by him, at the request of Linnæus, on the infufions of mushrooms in water; with a view

to ascertain the truth of Baron Munchafen's theory, that the feeds of these fungi are firft animals, and then plants.' It appeared evidently to him, that the motion obferved in those feeds was not fpontaneous, but was produced by the innumerable and fcarcely visible animalcula, which teemed in the infufion, and by pecking at the feeds, put them in motion in a great variety of directions. We could, from our own experience, inftance. many fimilar appearances of life and motion, obferved in the minute globules, or other inanimated particles, contained in microscopical infufions, caufed by the numerous and invifible inhabitants of the drop; whofe concern in producing thefe motions could only be detected by using ftill greater magnifiers: and we have long been convinced that many of M. Buffon's organical particles owe their seemingly spontaneous motions to the fame cause.

The fatisfaction which the Author received in clearing up this point, led him to make many other curious and interesting microscopical obfervations, relative to thofe of the ingenious Mr. Needham, as given in the 45th volume of the Tranfactions, and in fome fubfequent publications. But to render the Author's obfervations on this fubject intelligible, to fuch of our Readers as are not acquainted with Mr. Needham's fyftem, (which however has made confiderable noife in the philofophical world) we shall extract from his writings a fhort account of it. According to this hypothefis, the microscopical animalcules, which appear in vegetable and animal infufions, are not the offspring of parents of the fame kind; but are the productions of a certain active force, with which every microscopical point of vegetable and animal matter is endued. He affirms that the fubftance employed in these infufions, firft, by its own innate energy, divides itfelf into filaments, and then vegetates into numberless Zoophytes, from which proceed all the different fpecies of microscopical animals; and that thefe very animals, after a certain time, become motionlefs, and fubfide to the bottom, where they are refolved into a gelatinous and filamentous fubftance, which shoots into new Zoophytes, yielding animals of a leffer fpecies. Among other inftances, to prove that this is the process of nature in their production, he refers us to the appearances obferved in the infufion of a grain of wheat; where the feed is obferved exercifing this productive force, by vegetating into numerous ftems, crowned with heads burfting, as it were, into life, and throwing out their animal progeny. This operation is fucceeded by the pushing forth of new hoots, and the forming of new heads, for the production of another generation.

Such are the general outlines of Mr. Needham's fyftem, as we collect them from his writings: but these filaments and ftems, the fuppofed vegetable parents of the animalcular race,

Mr.