:

our morning hours, which are generally spent in pur-
suits that can scarce be called active, and which
therefore ought principally to be supplied with arti-
ficial heat, are cold and uncomfortable and our
rooms only begin to become agreeable at a time when
our various avocations call us abroad to use exercise,
which renders artificial heat unnecefsary. The useless
expenditure of fuel is also an inconveniency of the first
magnitude. It is not only so on account of the ex-
pence; but this expence which is not easily sup-
ported by people in ordinary circumstances, obliges
us to expend so much on our parlours, dining-rooms,
and even drawing-rooms, that our pafsages and bed-
rooms remain unheated, for the most part, during
the whole winter. On this account, even at home,
we are liable to the very danger so loudly exclaimed
against, viz. exposing our bodies to the cold air after
coming out of heated rooms.
This is particularly
the case on going into a cold bed-chamber, undress-
ing ourselves in an air which can be little different
from the atmospheric air at the same time, and must
partake of all its bad qualities. But even allowing
the salutary effects of cold air, and that the external
air is more pure than that which is artificially warm-
ed; I would ask whether we really enjoy these advan-
tages by sleeping in cold rooms. It the weather is
cold we uniformly load ourselves with a heap of bed-
clothes, which by accumulating our native heat en-
able us
to resist the atmospheric cold, or in other
words deprive us of the advantages supposed to be
derived from its application to our bodies. It is on-

Dee. 23. ly applied to our face and lungs, and casually to such parts of the body as may be exposed in sleep; but of the danger of this let medical people judge, who unanimously maintain, that a partial application of cold to a heated body, is a most fruitful source of disease. But luckily our senses teach us to avoid this as much as pofsible, and prompt us to draw our courtains; when, loaded with bed-clothes, and pent up in the narrow limits of a bed, we sleep completely immersed in the most destructive of all fluids, our own effluvia. On the contrary, when we sleep in a temperate room, we have no need of covering more warm than what we wear in the day: our curtains may be safely left open, and the hurtful effects of our effluvia are corrected by being diffused in a more extensive atmosphere.

Health, sir, undoubtedly is the reward of labour, and labour is the only sure means of procuring it: but labour is not all that is necefsary to attain it. The labourer will never be healthy unless he is well supplied with food, and protected against certain severities of weather, which even labour cannot enable his body to resist. It seems then an object of the last consequence to devise some means of protecting not only the bodies of the comparatively idle part of the community, but even of labourers, against cold, at a small expence. The only means that my intelligence or experience points out to me to obtain this end, is to communicate heat during the conflagration of fuel, to a body capable of retaining it for some time, and placing this body in such a manner as to communicate the heat it parts with in the procefs of cool

ing, to the atmosphere of the room. This is done in all countries where they use stoves; but there, on account of the severity of the climate, the room is not only heated by the stove itself, but by the charcoal left burning in it.. As our weather is never so severe, I imagine that the heat of the stove would be sufficient, and there would be no need of burning charcoal; which though I am well convinced, is perfectly innocent, may to many appear of a dubious nature. I would propose then that the opening in our walls left for the fire-place, should be continued to the ceiling, and this space be built up with bricks, and constructed in such a manner that the heated smoke fhould be led through them by a tortous vent, and detained anrong them as long as pofsible. By this means they would be heated; which having been done, the cinders or remains of the fire fhould be removed, and the vent stopped at top. By this means the heat of the bricks would be gradually diffused through the room, and occasion an equable but temperate warmth. As a contrivance of this kind if well executed, so as to detain the greatest pofsible quantity of the heat produced by a given quantity of fuel, would be a great saving of this article; we should be able to heat our houses in every part more effectually and at lefs expence, than we can a few rooms in the present mode, by open fires.

I know attempts have been made to introduce the use of stoves even in this country; but these are universally made of cast iron; and by the disagreeable smell they produce, will always be inexpedient. On the contrary, stoves that are constructed of bricks,

or of any of those mixtures which are used in certain species of earthen ware, when heated produce no smell, and can be arranged in such a manner as not only to be not ugly, but even to be made a most elegant ornament to an apartment.

I have to sollicit your excuse for entering transiently into subjects that to do justice to them would require greater qualifications than I pofsefs and more room than you can spare; and at the same time to exprefs how sincerely I am, sir, your humble servant.,

Edin. 13. Dec. 1793.

REDUX.

OBSERVATIONS ON NATRUAL HISTORY.

Continued from p. 64.

COLYMBUS Grylle:

Black Guillemot.

THIS bird is described by Linnaeus thus, "Corpore atro, tectricibus alarum albis.” This bird is found in the Frith of Forth, island of St. Kilda, the Faro islands, also in the Shetland islands where they remain all the year, but during the winter it changes its appearance very much, becoming almost perfectly white which controverts the opinion of Mr Hutchins of Hudson Bay in the Arctic zoology, who affirms that the old birds do not vary. The gentleman whom I mentioned before, hada specimen in its winter drefs prepared for me, which was unluckily lost; but I hope during the winter, I shall be able to furnish you with a specimen for drawing. They are gregarious during the am

morous season, they are then unco nonly active and lively. Their nests are generally collected in the cliffs of a rock, thirty sometimes in one place, and placed so near each other, that the vulgar afsert they have their eggs in common, but this is not the case, for each has its own nest. After incubation, the mother is always seen with two young ones. It may be here observed, that most of these sea birds, have three eggs, two of which are always productive, and the third is not, and is called the yaw egg. This bird dives well, but flies with difficulty, always low and never over land.

ELUCIDATIONS RESPECTING THE TURKISH EMPIRE.

WRITTEN BY

EATON ESQ. FORMERLY DUTCH

CONSUL AT BASSORA, WHO LIKEWISE RESIDED SOME
TIME IN CONSTANTINOPLE AND THE CRIMEA.-
COMMUNICATED BY ARCTICUS.

1 On the depopulation of the Turkish empire. WE know not what was the population of this vast empire formerly, From facts in history, it plainly appears that it was very considerable; at present it is far from being so. Without going farther back than the memory of those now living, it is easy to prove that the depopulation is astonishingly great.

The great causes are doubtless the plague, and those terrible disorders which almost always follow it, (at least in Asia): Epidemic maladies in Asia, which make as dreadful ravages as the plague itself VOL. Xviii.

F F