Their induftry feems almoft equal to that of the bee; throughout the day they appear to be busily employed in carrying a fine fpecies of grafs, which is the principal material they employ for the purpofe of erecting this extraordinary work, as well as for additions and repairs. Though my fhort ftay in the country was not sufficient to fatisfy me by ocular proof that they added to their neft as they annually increased in numbers, fill, from the many trees which I have feen borne down with the weight, and others which I have observed with their boughs completely covered over, it would appear that this really was the cafe; when the tree, which is the fupport of this aëriel city, is obliged to give way to the increase of weight, it is obvious that they are no longer protected, and are under the neceffity of rebuilding in other trees.

One of these deserted nefts I had the curiofity to break down, fo as to inform myfelf of the internal structure of it, and found it equally ingenious with that of the external. There are many entrances, each of which forms a regular street, with nests on both fides, at about two inches diftance from each other.

The grafs with which they build is called the Bothman's grass; and I believe the feed of it to be their principal food; though, on examining their nefts, I found the wings and legs of different infects. From every appearance the neft, which I diffected, had been inhabited for many years; and fome parts of it were much more complete than others: this, therefore, I conceive nearly to amount to a proof that the animals added to it at different times, as they found neceffary, from the increase of the family, or rather I should say, the nation or community."

Thefe extracts will furnifh our readers with fome fpecimens of the many interefting and curious circumftances they may expect to meet with in this performance. Though we are ready to acknowledge we expected fomething more, yet this does not prevent our admitting that Mr. Paterfon has added to the number of philofophical facts; and that if he has been lefs minute in fome inquiries, his caution not to mislead his readers by uncertain conjecture, and his integrity in relating only what he faw, entitle him to no inconfiderable praife.

ART.

ART. XII. The Tour to York. A circumftantial Account of his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales's Vifit to that City; with a Defcription and Engravings of the Gold Box prefented to his Royal Highness by the Corporation thereof, Anno Domini 1789. To which is fubjoined a Sketch of the fuperb Entertainment given at Wentworth-House; and a Poetical Addrefs to the Royal Brothers, His Royal Highness, George, Prince of Wales, and His Royal Highness, Frederick, Duke of York. 4to. 2s. fewed. Robinfons, London. 1789.

THIS is a touch on the other fide of the queftion. In the Royal Tour' the acid predominates; but the Tour to York' is fo overloaded with feets, fo mawkifhly circumftantial, that it must ficken every reader. In the poetical addrefs the sweets are as abundant as in the profe. Thus fingeth John Parker, chaplain to the lord-mayor of York:

Illuftrious Wales! thy reverenc'd, much-lov'd name
Stands foremost in the facred lifts of Fame;
Where fhe's enroll'd each duteous, loving child,
Whose fympathifing, tender cares beguil'd
The heavy forrows of a fuff'ring fire!
The Saviour of the world did fure infpire
Thy heav'nly conduct, fo much like his own!
And seldom feen fo near an earthly throne!
The wond'ring world ftood gazing with furprife,
And Britons, on reflection, idolife

The pious, tender, filial heart that bled

O'er difmal woes-pour'd on his royal father's head!

This gleam, this sparkling ray of richeft light,

Shot thro' the gloom, and cheer'd their longing fight;
A joyful portent that (fhould Fate remove

His father to a diadem above)

This fecond fovereign of the British line
Would prove another glorious Conftantine!'

Reader, doft thou understand all this? we do not. How comes the Prince of Wales's 'name' to be 'fhe? Or what refemblance is there between the conduct of his royal highness, when beguiling the heavy forrows of a fuffering fire,' and that of the Saviour of the world?' He had no fuffering fire. Mr. Parker goes on to fay that the pious, tender, filial heart' of the Prince of Wales was a joyful portent' of his becoming a glorious Conftantine. The poet is here unhappy in his choice of an exemplar. Domestic tenderness was not the characteristic of this emperor; it was faid of him, 'qu'il aimoit à faire maifon nette, that he liked to make a clear houfe. He compelled his father-in-law to hang himself, strangled his brother-in-law, put

to

to death his nephew, beheaded his eldeft fon, and fmothered his
wife in a bath. We fufpect the author to be in the ftate he
first defcribes, confus'd my wand'ring brain!'
In his addrefs to the Duke of York he fays,

Bleft be the guardian angel's trembling hand
That turn'd afide, by heaven's divine command,
The whizzing ball, charg'd with thy death, O York!
By fanguinary Lenox!-murd'rous work!'

We had intended to have given more of this address, but it is murderous work indeed! and fo we will have nothing more to do with it.

ART. XIII. A General Syftem of Chemistry, theoretical and practical, digefted and arranged with a particular View to its Applicaian to the Arts. Taken chiefly from the German of M. Weigleb. By G. R. Hopfen, M. D. 4to. 11. 75. boards. Robinsons. London, 1789.

[ Concluded. ]

AS the early principles which men imbibe and first set out

with in purfuit of any fcience, tend materially to obstruct facilitate their progrefs in it; we confidered it as a duty incumbent upon us to be more particular and minute on that account in our review of the introductory or elementary part of this work. Having before led our readers through a rugged and obfcure path, a more fpacious and fruitful field now opens itself to our view. The fecond part of this work is called mixed, or applied chemistry, and comprehends upwards of three-fifths of the whole. This again is divided into technical, economical, and pharmaceutical, and laftly phyfical or philofophical chemistry. The firft chapter of this laft divifion is the editor's, as well as the general arrangement of the whole.

Technical chemistry is arranged under different heads or chapters, and fubdivided into halurgy, lythurgy, hyalurgy, metallurgy, zymotechny, phlogurgy, and lastly, fuch operations as have for their object the changing of the furface of bodies.

In the firft chapter, called halurgy, or the operations performed upon falts, an historical account of the different faline bodies is given. The method of preparing the different acids and alkalies, and the compounds refulting from their union to each. other, is well defcribed. The effects of the different acids upon the metals and the falts refulting from them, is alfo very accurately and copiously treated of.

The

The fecond chapter comprehends lythurgy, or the operations performed upon earths and tones. The application of these to the formations of cements or mortar, we fancy will by no means be approved of by those who are acquainted with Dr. Higgins's treatife on calcareous cement; which is probably the best that has hitherto appeared on the subject.

Hyalurgy, or the chemistry glass, as the author calls it, is the fubject of the third chapter. In this the general principles of vitrification is pretty accurately detailed, although we here and there meet with a few errors, fome of which the following quotation will serve to point out: Each metal,' fays our author, 'tinges glass of a particular colour. Munganefe colours glass red; cobalt imparts to glafs a blue colour; arfenic gives it no • particular colour, but is, in other respects, an useful substance for vitrifying various earths, and making the glafs clear, and remains pretty ftrongly united to it and fixed by it. Nickel produces a green; regulus of antimony and bifmuth a yellow colour; iron fometimes a green, at others a blue, red, or black • colour; lead a yellow; tin a milk white, and sometimes a hya❝cinthine colour; copper fometimes a green, at others a blue or a brownish red; filver a yellow, and gold a purple or violet ' colour.'

Now manganefe does not impart to glass a red colour, as our author afferts, but rather a violet; nor does gold impart to glais a violet but a red colour. Though arfenic may be faid to impart no colour to glafs, yet it frequently renders it white and opaque. The pure calx of iron renders glafs rather of a deepifh yellow red, and, if a large quantity of iron be used, it will render it black.

Metallurgic chemistry is treated of in the fourth chapter. Here the art of assaying, roasting, parting, and fmeting, is treated of very judicioufly, as well as extenfively. The calcination of the different metals is likewife accounted for; but we think the author's reasoning very fallacious, which the following quotation will teftify:

.

• The changes,' fays he, which the metals undergo by the bare action of the fire, depend partly upon the fubtraction of a portion of their phlogifton, when they are of fuch a nature as to be capable of parting with it; but, on the other hand, it may also be discovered from other properties that these changes may proceed from the matter of fire combined with them, where no lofs of phlogifton can be alledged. Upon this feems to depend the folubility, corrofiveness, colour, and increase of weight of mercurius precipitatus per fe, or calcined mercury, which therefore perfectly recovers its metallic appearance from volatile alkali only; and, on the other hand, imparts caufticity to this falt. I have elsewhere fhewn the improbability of ENG. REV. VOL. XIV. DEC. c. 1789.

Ff

the

the affertions of fome chemifts, that these changes are derived from the acceffion of air during the calcination. That various calces emit air during their reduction, cannot be admitted as a proof, as this may for the most part proceed from the reducing fubftances, which, without any fuch affittance, yield air of themselves; and indeed these calces are commonly diffolved without great effervefcence, and befides attract air from other bodies, and confequently have not this property, which yet they ought to have, on the improbable fuppofition of any acceffion of air having taken place. Might not the air, attracted by calcined mercury and lead, be derived from a fmall portion of thefe metals actually deftroyed by the fire? The following circumftance at leaft ought to be confidered, that the fame weight is never obtained in any metal as it had before calcination.'

The editor, in a note, endeavours to correct this doctrine of the author's:

The increase of weight in metals,' fays he, that are calcined, evidently proceeds from the abforption of air that takes places in them, either from their parting with their phlogifton, in a certain degree of heat, in exchange for this fubftance, as in combuftion; or in confequence of their decompofing water, and thus generating inflammable gas; or acids, and thus generating nitrous gas, fulphur, fulphureous gas, &c. The corrofive property and cauiticity of metallic calces proceed, as M. Berthollet has fhewn in the Mem. de The Fr. Acad. des Sc. 1780, from their attraction to phlogiston. other properties above mentioned have not as yet been fatisfactorily accounted for, either upon M. Wiegleb's or any other system.'

It may not be improper here to obferve that the author's idea of phlogifton is, that it is compofed of fire and the gravitating matter of inflammable air. The editor confiders phlogifton to be fire only. Thus he explains every thing on the same principle with the antiphlogiftians, excepting that he calls phlogifton what they call fire; and by changing the term he claims originality, and fuppofes he has advanced a new doctrine. That fire is attached and united to almost all bodies, and that it is wholly or in part difengaged during the more intimate union of those bodies to each other (excepting the compound, which fcarcely ever happens when a real chemical union takes place, fhould attract fire more forcibly, and in greater quantities, than its conftituent principles feparately), is what must be allowed by every experienced chemift. But are we to call this phlogifton? However, if Dr. Hopfon likes to call fire phlogifton, we have no objection against it, unless that it may tend to confufe the chemical tudent. According to Dr. Hopfon, therefore, all bodies contain phlogifton, if fire be fuch. Now, dephlogifticated air is univerfally allowed to contain more fire than any other air, and will of courfe, according to his idea, contain phlogifton; nay,