the banks, where they remain, until by evaporation, they are rendered fufficiently folid to be laden in boats and carried away.

3. A third fource of disease affects particularly thofe vessels lying in the vicinity of the fhore. Those incalculable masses of filth of every defcription, which are conveyed into the open bay which forms the harbour of Batavia, by the canals and rivers, after their mixture with the fea, especially during calm weather when it is not agitated by healthful breezes, remain for a confiderable time nearly in a state of stagnation in shallow water; they of course produce a peculiar exhalation, increafing that already exifting from fo many other fources.*

Unfavourable as the fituation of Batavia is to health and life; and numerous, almost univerfal and uncontrollable as the caufes are of its unhealthinefs; it ftill, in a great degree, admits of improvement, and yields to human industry and ingenuity. It has already been remarked that the grounds towards the northeaft of the city are most fertile in the production of injurious exhalations yet, even many gardens fituated in this district, but particularly many of thofe that are fituated fouth or fouth-west of Batavia, have been, of late, rendered much more wholefome by numerous expedients, which were principally suggested by Dr. Ducos, one of the best informed and most respectable phyficians of Batavia. Thefe confifted chiefly in the removal of immenfe quantities of filth and putrid fubftances, which had accumulated in the courfe of many years; in draining and evaporating many marfhy places; in repairing the banks and fides of the canals and rivers, and in directing and confining them to one unlimited course. The difference in the degree of healthiness, in the different gardens and country refidences, dependant on thefe circumstances, is extremely ftriking in the fame feafon, while one of them shall be entirely exempt from disease, in another, every inhabitant, without exception, fhall be affected by

I frequently obferved the water, drawn for various purposes, from alongfide of fhips, above two miles from the shore, to be impregnated with a highly offenfive odour.

the remitting fever. A remarkable inftance occurred during our continuance at Batavia. The captain, and two of the supercargoes of the ship China, and three other American gentlemen, for the fake of retirement, hired a country houfe for their private ufe; this, although at the time not known to them, was in a fituation notoriously unhealthy; to this they retired every night and flept in it. Within the courfe of one month, every one of these fix gentlemen was attacked by the bilious remitting fever two died, two narrowly escaped death, and the remaining two had fevers of very confiderable violence and malignity, while of those American gentlemen, who retired every evening to the garden of the keeper of the public hotel, a confiderable proportion escaped the bilious fever.

I fhall close these curfory remarks on the climate and fituation of Batavia with two obfervations.

1. The Chinese who annually emigrate from China to Batavia, are as liable to the diseases of the country as the Europeans or Americans.

2. The Malays and Javanese who are born and dwell from from their infancy in the vicinity of Batavia, are but rarely affected with violent cafes of bilious fevers. They are very fubject to a common difeafe of the country, which will be mentioned hereafter, and which is owing to the fame caufes as the bilious fevers; to fwelled and fore legs and ankles. They are a feeble, lazy, fhort-lived race: by their indolence they avoid many of the exciting caufes of difeafes, but they rarely arrive. at the age of forty years.

A TABLE

Of the comparative Temperature of the Air and of the Water of the Ocean, as indicated by Farenheit's Thermometer, at 12 o'clock at Noon, in a Voyage from Philadelphia to Batavia. By Mr. THOMAS RODMAN.

Mean Temperature of the Air by 66 Obfervations-76 7 Mean Temperature of the Water by 62 Obfervations-74 5

The experiments were not continued to the end of the voyage. As fo much leifure muft neceffarily occur in fo long a voyage, it might confiderably diminish its tediousness, if gentlemen would keep an accurate fet of meteorological obfervations, on the thermometer, barometer, hygrometer, wind and weather; interspersed with remarks which may occur to them, and obfervations on the magnetic variations, &c. in different latitudes and longitudes. As the thermometer already is found to ferve a useful purpose in indicating an approach to foundings, it is not improbable, that accurate obfervations may aid confiderably the progrefs of navigation.-Editor.