fredi was both a learned astronomer and a good poet. Borelli has written several excellent works upon astronomy, mathematics, and philosophy, which are in high estimation among the learned. Guglielmini has, if we may use the expression, formed a new science in his work upon the nature of rivers and running waters; and he was also a skilful physician, and a great naturalist and mathematician. Father Boscovich (whom I knew at Pisa, and who has written some Latin poems upon the abstruse sciences with the elegance of Virgil), by the profundity and the extensive ness of his knowledge, deserves to be mentioned immediately after Descartes, Newton, and Leibnitz. And what shall we say of the celebrated La Grange, of Turin, unrivalled in Europe for algebra and geometry; who at the age of nineteen had published treatises which astonished both Euler and d'Alembert? I must not omit to mention Jean Baptiste Porta: to whom, notwithstanding his réveries, natural philosophy and history are indebted for several ingenious inventions; and among others, for that of

the camera obscura. I pass over in silence those great lawyers, Accursa, Bartolé, Alciat, and the metaphysicians Moniglia, Genevese but it would be a proof of either injustice or ignorance, to omit noticing Zabaglia, whose equally simple and scientific method in mechanics was so useful in the works which were entrusted to him at Rome and other parts of Italy.

It will be seen, that I have not attempted to make an exact enumeration of all the great men whom Italy has produced. It will, perhaps, be justly observed, that I have omitted some. I should have mentioned, for instance, the Abbé Fortié, a skilful naturalist; Doctor Toaldo, professor of astronomy at Padua ; Tiraboschi, the learned author of a History of Italian Literature, in twelve volumes quarto; Count Alfieri, of Turin, a great tragic poet; Marquis Gagliani, the learned editor of Vitruvius; Abbé Gagliani, his brother, author of a Dialogue upon Corn, which was much approved at Paris, and of a treatise in Italian upon money, too little known; Goldoni, the Moliere of his country; Father Frisi ;

Marquis and Father Beccaria; the two Counts de Veri, of Milan; Count de Saluces, president of the Royal Academy of Turin, a learned chemist and naturalist; and Chevalier Andreani, who bas invented an eudiometer, to ascertain the salubrity of the air; most of whom are now living, and all of whom I have seen and known: but the list of them would be too long, and I stop here.

87. ARRANGEMENT OF A CABINet of Natural HISTORY.

The Cabinet of Natural History at Vienna was formed at Florence, by the Chevalier Baillou; who sold it to the Emperor Francis I., and was appointed director of it. The description which was given of it by Joannon de St. Laurent, a disciple of Baillou, at Lucca, in 1746, in quarto, having become very scarce, I have made an extract from it, which the amateurs in that science will not be displeased at finding here.

Mineralogical Principles.

These are divided into three grand divisions: Petrefactions, Metals, and Jewels.

Petrefactions are: 1st. Bodies penetrated or covered with the matter of stones; 2d, Bodies in or about which, this matter is exactly moulded; and so confounded with the parts of these bodies, that they appear only as stones. Of the first order of these bodies are fossil woods and bones; and some stones, on which are represented vegetables, fish, &c. Of the second order, several crustaceous and testaceous, such as crabs, and an infinite number of shells of all sorts.

Bodies become petrified by admitting a strong juice into their pores. Teeth, bones, and more compact bodies, are not petrified till after a sort of natural calcination, which consumes their oils, and disposes their contexture to receive the petrifying juice.

The homogeneous parts of a petrified body, considered as dependant upon the mineral kingdom, are the earthy, stony, chrystalline, and metallic parts, contained in the contexture of the fossil. The heterogeneous parts of the same body (heterogeneous to the mineral kingdoms), are its fibres, its skeleton, and, in a word, all those

parts of the fossil which have preserved their original contexture. This is to be understood as applied to the mineral kingdom simply the contrary would be the case, if fossils were considered in another

sense.

In a cabinet, it is proper to endeavour to have the analogous bodies of the petrified bodies, to determine what are the heterogeneous parts relative to the mineral kingdom.

The nine collections of analogous bodies are: 1st. Marine ligneous plants of horny substance; 2d. Marine, stony, and porous plants; 3d. Corals; 4th. Crustaceous; 5th. Shells; 6th. Marine petrified plants; 7th. Earthy petrified plants, wood, leaves, and shells; 8th. Petrified crustaceous, and shells; 9th. Petrified fishes and their parts, with those of some other animals.

Metals are mixtures of vitriscible earth, vitriolic salt, and sulphur. From these mixtures they form dissolutions, which colour the chrystalline bodies exposed to their action, and make them serve as the