only to the few. Mr. Smith, with the zeal and industry of a scholar, appears to have fully mastered his materials and his subject, and has presented the argument and his conclusions, strongly, clearly, and' in a popular form. He has illustrated his work with maps, and by carefully comparing the descriptions and the notes of times and distances in these old chronicles, with the outline of our coast, and the actual face of the country, he is very confident in designating the points of territory which those adventurers visited, and temporarily occupied. Having little knowledge of the subject, except such as we have derived from Mr. Smith's book, we are by no means competent to say that he has established his positions beyond controversy; but he has supported them with much ability and ingenuity, and made out a very strong prima facie case. He is an adept in this curious old lore, an indefatigable inquirer, and a good reasoner; and if he is wrong, it is not every reviewer or historian that is qualified to prove him to be so. The subject of this volume, however, possesses not so much an historical, as an antiquarian interest and importance. The enterprise of those Northern navigators led to no permanent results. No fruits remain. They came and went, and left no sure traces of their presence behind them. The fact of their coming, if it be a fact, is an insulated one, and is hardly to be regarded as a link in the historic chain which connects the new world with the old. To Columbus will still belong the honor of having accomplished that enterprize, the first of an uninterrupted series, by which this continent was so rapidly put into the possession of its new inhabitants, and brought so completely within the range of European civilization. The names of Columbus and Cabot are, and must continue to be, at least more fortunate ones than those of Heriulfson, Thorvald, and Thorstein; yet these last are worthy of all honor, and the story these hardy old Northmen, now first put within the reach of the general reader, has in it enough of daring and romantic adventure to reward a perusal, and to procure for Mr. Smith the thanks of scholars and the public. Third Annual Report of the American Physiological Society, together with the Proceedings at the Annual Meeting, June 1, 1839. - So far as it is the object of this Society to reduce the diet of the human race to hasty-pudding and milk, or bran-bread and pea-soup, to compel us all, by the moral despotism of opinion, to eat our meats without gravy, our bread without butter, our cake without eggs, or to renounce eggs, cakes, and meats altogether, so far do we hold the Physiological Society to be a very just object of ridicule. It deserves no more mercy at the hands of the wits than do the temperance reformers, when they would bind down all men by solemn pledges to the use of cold water, as the only healthy or moral drink. An association, the object of which should be to reform the costume of the day, and simplify the dress of summer to a single envelop of factory cotton, and the dress of winter to a double one of woollen blanketing, would be quite as worthy of our respect. Such a society would never succeed in changing the prevailing fashions, however a few individuals might parade our streets, decked in their more economical, more natural, more philosophical attire. Neither is there any better prospect, we apprehend, of converting our community to the adoption of potatoes, or bread and salt, as the only article of food, nor to the use of cold or warm water as the only beverage, if we may apply so rich a word to so thin a drink. The temperance cause, as it was in the hands of those, who, in this city, first started it, was a project as wise and noble as wise and noble men ever set on foot. It was not only a project which approved itself to the soundest reason, but it was, at the same time, a legitimate exemplification of the principles of genuine Christianity. What the wise began, the weak and foolish took up and carried on; and by their ultraism have done almost irreparable injury to a cause, which still has too much of the divine in it ever to be more than temporarily obstructed in the accomplishment of its great work. It will shake itself free of its false friends, by and by, and take up its march again on its original principles of a rational Christian moderation. We do not believe there has been, or is, the same occasion for a" Physiological Society," as for a temperance society. Meats are not so dangerous as drinks. There is no alcohol among solids. Still, we doubt not it may be of great service, - not, however, by prescribing minutely as to particular articles of diet, - but by disseminating by books, periodicals, and reviews, useful information, or rather information the most necessary and essential, concerning the "house we live in." So far as this is a principal object of this association, it has our respect, and our best wishes for its success. But, that our readers may judge for themselves, we offer them a few extracts from the present report. On the fifth page, it speaks as follows; "We, therefore, aim and design to open among ourselves and the community generally, a new and powerful interest in the all-important subject of human anatomy, physiology, and pathology, -a knowledge of the living body, of its organization and structure, and the great and immutable laws of life and health. We expect to show that all disease, of whatever kind, in the body or mind, is the result of a violation of some of those laws of the Creator, which are as fixed, as wise and as benevolent as the law of gravitation; and that we can no more violate the former with impunity, than the latter. "We lay down the grand principle, too, that every violation of the laws of our physical being is, in some measure, an injury to our intellectual nature, and our moral powers; that, however imperceptible to common observation, it is yet true, that such an intimate and insuperable connexion exists between our physical and our moral natures, as renders every injury done to one, is in some kind and degree an inroad and outrage upon the other. - "If this be true, and we have satisfied ourselves on this great point, we may well be pardoned for attaching a great and indescribable importance to the cause of physiological inquiry, and may with propriety be released from any charge of temerity and presumption, in asking for this cause a place in the affections and sympathies of all those who are struggling in any department of moral reform and human improvement." And again, in conclusion; "In closing our Report, we must be permitted once more to caution the public against two errors, very widely received. That our efforts are limited to a reform in the mere matter of dietetics, and that we have a peculiar system to which, as to the iron bed of Procrustes, we would trim, and pare, and compress the whole community. Both these errors we repel with our whole souls. We aim at a reform in the department of physical education, and physical management generally, but especially do we urge this upon Parents and Teachers, — they, to whom God has committed the destinies of the young. We urge them to a strict attention to the importance of air, temperature, clothing, exercise, sleep, the state of the mind and heart, and a thousand other things besides diet and drink, and this, too, not so much for the sake of bodily health alone, as an end, as for the sake of that spiritual health, which we are sure must always come far short of what might be, as long as we are the tenants of crazy and miserable bodies; and especially as long as we are trained to be so. But, as to imposing on the world any system, even the 'Graham System,' excellent as we believe that to be, a system, by the by, in which the subject of dietetics makes about as conspicuous a figure, as Massachusetts in the Federal Union, - we have never intended it. Our object is to excite one and another, and the world, to make diligent inquiry, what truth is in this great department; and to practise what of truth they already know. We expect them to seek to know and obey the whole law of God, natural and revealed, and to labor to glorify him 'in their bodies and spirits, which are his.'" ERRATA. Page 28, 8th line from bottom, for Taber read Faber. |