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NEW BOTANICAL WORK.

Professor Barton, of Philadelphia, whose publications on a variety of subjects reflect so much honour on his diligence and learning, is now engaged in preparing a large work on the plants of Pennsylvania and some of the adjoining States. A considerable portion of the manuscript, particularly that part which relates to the plants of the first fourteen classes of the Sexual Method, is nearly ready for the press. To render the work more interesting to the lovers and cultivators of Botany, Dr. Barton has engaged Mr. Turpin, a French gentleman, and one of the first delineators of plants now living, to draw and colour the new or more rare indigenous plants of the great tract of country which is to be embraced in this FLORA. Mr. Turpin is now actually engaged in this task in Philadelphia. From the drawings of this gentleman, engravings will be made by some of the first artists in the United States and in Europe. A number of the copies will be coloured, for those who may wish to possess such in preference to the simple engravings. It is proposed to print the work, which will necessarily be an expensive one, by subscription. The first volume will be put to press as soon as the plates shall be engraven. The work will, it is supposed, be printed in a quarto form.

We are persuaded this work will furnish a rich repast to the lovers of Botany, and advance the reputation of the United States in every country where science is cultivated.

BARYTES DISCOVERED IN NEW-JERSEY.

New-Jersey has long been famed for its mines of copper and iron. Latterly a quantity of terra ponderosa has been discovered. It is combined with sulphuric acid, and is of a very white colour, and of a laminated structure. This sulphate of barytes is from Sussex County, and the specimen possessed by Dr. Mitchill belongs to the third family of Kirwan's Barose lenite (1 Kir. Min. p. 140). It is of the foliated forin, and bears a strong resemblance to the white feldspath of LongIsland. This is the first specimen of American barytes which we have seen or heard of. The finder says there is a large bed or stratum of it.

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At a special meeting of the Philadelphia Medical Society, held on the 1st February, the following gentlemen were duly elected officers for the ensuing year; viz.

BENJAMIN RUSH, M. D. President.
CASPER WISTAR, M. D. ·
PHILIP SYNG PHYSICK, M. D.
CHARLES CALDWELL, M. D.

JOHN REDMAN COXE, M. D. (

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Vice-Presidents.

Corresponding Secretaries.

SAMUEL DAVIS HEAP, Recording Secretary.

JOSEPH HARTSHORN, Treasurer.

ISAAC CLEAVER,

SAMUEL TUCKER,

Curators.

JAMES HUTCHINSON, M. D. Orator.

EULOGIUMS ON DR. PRIESTLEY.

At a stated meeting of the Philadelphia Medical Society, held the 25th February, Charles Caldwell, M. D. &c. was duly elected to deliver an Eulogium on the late illustrious Dr. Joseph Priestley.

We understand that Professor Woodhouse has also been appointed to deliver an Eulogium before the Chemical Society of Philadelphia.

DR. BARTON'S PUBLICATION.

Dr. Barton's "Collections for an Essay towards a Materia Medica of the United States, Part II." has lately been issued from the press. In our next number a review of it will be presented to our readers.

DR. MEASE'S PUBLICATION.

Dr. Mease, of Philadelphia, has completed his American edition of Willich's Domestic Encyclopædia, or Dictionary of Facts and Useful Knowledge, &c. in five volumes, with a number of additions applicable to the present situation of the United States. A more particular account of this work will be given in our next number.

MEDICAL COMMENCEMENT IN NEW-YORK.

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On the first day of May, 1804, the two following gentlemen were admitted to the degree of Doctor of Physic in Columbia College; after having submitted to examination their Inaugural Dissertations on the subjects annexed respectively to their names.

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DANIEL D. WALTERS-on Inflammation.

EZEKIEL OSTRANDER-on Puerperal Fever.

OBITUARY.

Sketches of the late JOSEPH PRIESTLEY, LL. D. &c.

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N the morning of Monday, February 6, 1804, this venerable man paid the debt of nature, and was buried on the Thursday following, at Northumberland, in Pennsylvania, where he had lived chiefly since his arrival from Britain. He had been affected, as Dr. John S. Mitchell, of Sunbury, observes, with a stricture at the upper orifice of his stomach for some length of time, which rendered it impracticable for him to swallow any solid food. About two months before his death an inflammation of his stomach supervened, which had the effect of relieving the stricture, by discharging, at intervals, a large quantity of slimy matter. A little after this, cedematous swellings took place in his feet and legs; general debility came on; and he gradually became weaker and weaker, until death closed the scene.

Mr. Samuel H. Smith, editor of the National Intelligencer, published at the city of Washington, announced this affecting event in the following respectful terms.

"We have imposed upon us the painful duty of announcing the mournful intelligence of the death of JOSEPH PRIESTLEY, the favourite of science, the advocate of civil and religious liberty, the ornament of the land in which he lived, and the pride of the age from which he received, and on which he reflected glory. As in the life of such a man the world was interested, so nothing short of the tributary regrets of an universe can duly commemorate such departed greatness. For one, the editor of this paper challenges from those who occupy the sphere of its circulation the solemn admiration merited by hin whose career of terrestrial glory has drawn to a close without having been tarnished by the minutest reproach. It were vain, to attempt, in this necessarily concise notice, to delineate a character so -fertile of intellectual powers as that of Priestley, Few of the subjects in which mankind are the most interested escaped the pen of a writer, the philanthropy of whose heart never slept. There was scarcely a department of natural science not improved or enlightened by his research, and the creative power of his genius; and politics and theology, in their widest range, seemed almost too limited for faculties at once patient and profound. His associates in science will seize the VOL. I. 3 I

occasion to manifest that, whatever insensibility to merit may sometimes unfortunately attach to the political world, the warmest gratitude invariably embalms the memory of those who have eminently distinguished themselves in the walks of philosophy. To the American Philosophical Society, whose annals are brightened by his labours, we look for the memorial of his greatness."

At a special meeting of the American Philosophical Society, held at their hall the 24th February, Benjamin S. Barton, M.D. was duly elected to deliver an eulogium on the Rev. Dr. Joseph Priestley.

"His principal occupation through life," says one of his friends, "was to propagate the evidences of the truth of Christianity, and the belief of the one true God, as revealed by the divine mission of Jesus Christ.

"As a metaphysician, he stands foremost among those who have attempted the investigation of the abstruse controversies in this department of literature. The question of liberty and necessity, imperfectly understood by the ancients, and on which Bradwardine first threw a ray of scholastic light, was hardly understood by Hobbes, and Leibnitz, and Zanchius, and Jackson, and Clarke. Priestley was the first man who introduced into notice the immortal Hartley, and reduced the question itself within the comprehension of common understandings. When to his publications on this subject are added his disquisitions on matter and spirit, he ranks, beyond controversy, as the first metaphysician of the present age.

"As a politician, he has assiduously and successfully laboured, not merely to prepare the minds of his former countrymen of Great-Britain to adopt those gradual and salutary reforms in their own system of government, which the democratic part of it so obviously requires, but to extend and illustrate those general principles of civil liberty which are happily the foundation of the constitution of his adopted country.

"His profound attention to the belles lettres, and to the other departments of general literature, has been successfully exemplified among his other writings, by his lectures on oratory and criticism, and on general history and policy.

"Of the most important and fashionable study of Pneumatic Chemistry, he may fairly be said to be the father. His discoveries of the various gases, which his writings first announced to the world, exceed not merely in number, but in importance, even those of the illustrious Scheele, of Sweden, and the French Lavoisier.

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"He has contributed to make the present generation of readers think and investigate beyond any writer of his day. His life is closed. He has lived and died an example of the sublime simplicity of character, which has never been attendant but on the first-rate abilities, uniformly exerted for the benefit of mankind."

Since his illness in Philadelphia, in the year 1801, he never regained his former good state of health. His complaint was constant indigestion, and a difficulty of swallowing food of any kind. But during this period of general debility he was busily employed in printing his Church History, and the first volume of his Notes on the Scriptures, and in making new and original experiments. During this period, likewise, he wrote his pamphlet of Jesus and Socrates compared, and reprinted his Essay on Phlogiston.

From about the beginning of November, 1803, to the middle of January, 1804, his complaint grew more serious; yet, by judicious medical treatment, and strict attention to diet, he, after some time, seemed, if not gaining strength, at least not getting worse; and his friends fondly hoped that his health would continue to improve as the season advanced. He, however, considered his life as very precarious. Even at this time, besides his miscellaneous reading, which was at all times very extensive, he read through all the works quoted in his comparison of the different systems of the Grecian philosophers with Christianity; composed that work, and transcribed the whole of it, in less than three months; so that he has left it ready for the press. During this period he composed, in one day, his second Reply to Dr. Linn.

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In the last fortnight of January his fits of indigestion became more alarming, his legs swelled, and his weakness increased. Within two days of his death he became so weak that he could walk but a little way, and that with great ficulty; for some time he found himself unable to speak; but on recovering a little, he told his friends that he had never felt more pleasantly during his whole life-time, than during the time he was unable to speak. He was fully sensible that he had not long to live, yet talked with cheerfulness to all who called on him. In the course of the day he expressed his thankfulness at being permitted to die quietly in his family, without pain, and with every convenience and comfort that he could wish for. He dwelt upon the peculiarly happy situation in which it had pleased the Divine Being to place him in life, and the great advantage he had enjoyed in the acquaintance

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