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Europeans, and desolated by war, or by slavery. p. 179.

It would be no easy matter to describe the hospitable reception which we found in the solitary mansions of these northern regions. Their masters exerted themselves in every possible way, to detain us among them for many days together. They sent to the distance of ten or fifteen leagues, invitations to their friends and relations, to come and assist them to entertain us. the cities, the principal inhabitants regaled us by turns. Amidst this hospitable conviviality, we made the tour of the cities of Finland, Wibury, Fredericksham, &c.

p. 185.

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Plants are not scattered about at random over the earth; it is impossible, in any one respect, to consider them as mere mechanical productions of heat and cold, of dryness and humidity. Our scientific systems have brought us back precisely to the opinions which precipitated barbarous nations into idolatry, as if it were necessary that the

perfection of our illumination should be the recommencement and return of our darkness; conformably to the well grounded censure of the Author of the book of wisdom : "They could not out of the good things that are seen, know Him that is; neither by considering the works, did they acknowledge the work Master; but deemed either fire, or wind, or swift air, or the circle of the stars, or the violent water, or the lights of heaven to be the gods which govern the world."---All these physical causes united, could not have determined the port of one single moss. p. 186.

The pyramids of Egypt are crumbled into powder; but the grasses which clothed the soil, while the Pharaohs filled the throne, subsist to this day. p. 188.

The Danes, the Norwegians, the Swedes, the Hamburgers, the English, the Irish, and some traders of the ports of France, particularly of Dieppe, fitted out vessels for the herring fishery, but in too small a number

for a fall of manna, so plentiful and so easily gathered. In 1782, at the mouth of Gothela, a small river which washes the walls of Gottenburg, 139,000 barrels were cured by salt, 3,700 were smoaked, and 2,845 casks of oil were extracted from what could not be preserved. The Gazette of France, which contains an account of this fishery, remarks, that previous to 1752, these fishes had entirely disappeared for 72 years together. I acscribe their desertion of this coast to some naval engagement, which had chased them away by the noise of the artillery, as is the case with the turtle of the island Ascension, which forsake the road for weeks together, when vessels passing that way discharge their great guns. p. 201.

Why should beasts of prey exist? Supposing me incapable of resolving this difficulty, nature must not be accused of cruelty because I am deficient in mental ability. She has arranged what we do know, with such consummate wisdom, that we are

bound to give her credit for the same character of wisdom, in cases where we cannot find her out unto perfection. p. 207.

O how steril is the imagination of man, compared to the intelligence of nature! he has produced no one thing, in any line whatever, of which he has not borrowed the model from her works. p. 217.

In every country that which is best is always most common. p. 223.

The quails which annually take their departure from Europe, on their way to Africa, have such a perfect knowledge of the Autumnal equinox, that the day of their arrival in Malta, where they rest for twenty-four hours, is marked on the Almanacs of the Island, about the 22d of September, and varies every year as the equinox. The swan and wild duck have an accurate knowledge of the latitude where they ought to stop, when every year they reascend in spring, to the extremities of the north, and

can find out, without the help of compass or octant, the spot where the year before they made their nests. The frigat, which flies from east to west, between the tropics, over vast oceans, interrupted by no land, and which regains at night, at the distance of many hundred leagues, the rock hardly emerging out of the water, which he left in the morning, possesses means of ascertaining his longitude, hitherto unknown to our most ingenious astronomers. p. 232.

I beg leave to ask, In what instance was an inclination to vice or virtue known to be communicated with the blood? Pompey, so noted for his generosity, was the son of Strabo, infamously notorious to the Roman people for his avarice.-What a difference is frequently observable in the same man, between his youth and his mature age; between Nero, saluted as the father of his country, when he mounted the throne; and Nero, execrated as its avowed enemy before his death. Between Titus, stigmatized with the name of a second Nero,

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