In 1707, was published the firft account of the preparation of magnefia alba, from the mother ley of faltpetre, by Mich. Bernh. Valentini, which had before been made at Rome by one Domhern, and called Count Palma's powder.

The year 1710 produced the difcovery of the fal amarus in the mother ley of falt water, by Dr. Hoy.

In mentioning Hales's works, in 1727, the author had an excellent opportunity of fhewing, that nearly all the principles of the new chemistry are in the works of Mayow and Hales, with, for the most part, adequate experiments. He should alfo have particularly noticed the pneumatic apparatus of Hales, In 1709, Fahrenheit publifhed his experiments of the intense cold produced by a mixture of fnow or ice with acid of nitre. Gmelin's account of carmine made with cochineal, was published in 1730.

Geoffroy and Boulduc, in the fame year, viz. in 1731, difcovered the compofition of Seignette's falt, afterward called Ro

chelle falt.

In 1750, we had the important invention of manufacturing, in the large way, oil of vitriol from fulphur, fully described. Ward, the empiric, is faid to have learned from Cornelius Drebbell, a Dutchman, that five ounces of oil of vitriol might be had from eight ounces of fulphur. The fulphur, mixed with a little nitre, was burned in the largest glafs veffels that could be blown, which contained fome water. The author does not feem to have been acquainted with the fubfequent improvement of burning this mixture in rooms lined with lead; in confequence of which method, this article was reduced in price, from 4 fhillings, to lefs than 4 pence, per pound.

The manufacturing of fal ammoniac, and, at the fame time, of Glauber's falt, by the two brothers, the Gravenhorfts, of Brunswic, is mentioned to have been in 1759: but M. WIEGLEB does not explain of what materials thefe articles were made. We fhall endeavour to fupply this deficiency. Vitriolic ammoniac is mixed with marine falt; and, in a due degree of heat, a double affinity takes place, which unites the marine acid of the marine falt with the volatile alkali of the vitriolic ammoniac, and the foffil alkali of the marine salt with the vitriolic acid of the vitriolic ammoniac; whence fal ammoniac and Glauber's falt are formed. This manufactory is carried on, in a peculiarly profitable manner, by feveral persons in England.

In 1769, Scheele communicated his difcovery of the tartareous acid, to the Stockholm Academy: but his paper being fuppofed to contain nothing that had not been found out before by Margraaf, or from invidious motives, it was not printed.

Afterward,

Afterward, Retz gave in the fame obfervations, which were printed; and thus we learned, from Margraaf, that tartar con tained an alkali combined with fome other body; and, from Scheele, that this other body was a peculiar air.

More than half of this work contains the hiftory of chemistry, from 1770 to 1790; and, confidering the great number of difcoveries in that period, the proportion of pages allotted to it is reasonable.

We fhall juft obferve, that a tolerably complete history of chemistry cannot perhaps be written by any one person. It must be done either by a fociety, the members of which agree to write certain parts, or to write the whole history by a comparifon of their feveral hiftories :-—or, after various works of this kind have been written fucceffively, by different perfons, at laft a good history may be collected from the whole.

ART. XIII. Les Ruines, &c. i. e. The Ruins; or, Reflections on the Revolutions of Empires. By M. VOLNEY, Deputy to the National Affembly in 1789. 8vo. pp. 410. Price 5 Livres, fewed. Paris. 1791.

THIS

HIS volume contains only the first part of M. VOLNEY'S intended work. He here traces the causes of the diffolution of empires, and inveftigates the origin of the differences and difputes, which, at various periods, have agitated the minds of men, and have fpred mifery over every part of the globe. The plan of this publication, he obferves, has been long in his thoughts; and allufions to it may be found in the preface to his Travels in Syria and Egypt*, as well as at the end of that work. Its appearance was delayed by the late public and highly important occurrences in France; in which the author, not contented with being the fpeculative obferver, or the theoretical abettor of liberty, affifted in person, and lent his arm to the support of freedom. The fame wish to promote public benefit, which impelled him to fufpend his literary exertions, induces him, now that he is returned to the rank of a private citizen, to resume them; and though his work may not poffefs the fame merit as if it had appeared under the circumftances which caufed it, yet he imagines, that at a time. when new paffions must neceffarily influence and give activity to the religious opinions of men, it is of importance to promulgate thofe moral truths, which may ferve to correct and restrain the wanderings of error or of prejudice. That fome readers

* For our account of thofe Travels, fee Rev. vol. lxxvii. pendix.

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will be shocked in their prejudices, and alarmed concerning their creeds, he is aware: but he declares, that his work, far from being the effect of an irregular and unsettled mind, arifes from his love of order and of humanity.

After an invocation to thofe deferted fcenes of ancient fplendor, which have afforded a title to his book, M. VOLNEY introduces himself as having, in the year 1784, travelled through the empire of the Ottomans, and as traverfing the country where formerly flourished the kingdoms of Egypt and Syria. Attentive to whatever concerned the happiness of men in a social state, he entered the cities, and ftudied the manners of their inhabitants: he penetrated into palaces, and obferved the conduct of thofe who governed: he vifited the country, and examined the ftate of those who cultivated the earth; and finding, throughout, nothing but plunder and barrenness, tyranny and distress, his heart was agitated with forrow and vexation. Each day brought him to fields that were abandoned; to villages that were deferted; and to cities in ruins. He often met with ancient monuments, with the remains of temples, of palaces, of towers, of fuperb columns, of aqueducts, and of mausoleums; and the fight turned his thoughts to paffed times, and raised in his mind folemn and ferious ideas: -till, arriving at the banks of the Orontes, and finding himself in the neighbourhood of Palmyra, he refolved to enter the defart, and to behold those ruins, fo celebrated, and so much in concert with his prefent feelings.

The contrast between the former population and abundance of this country, and its present nakedness and poverty, induced a long and forrowful meditation; in which, recollecting that, in the term of its profperity, it was the refidence of idolaters and infidels; of the Phenician offering human facrifices to Moloch; of the Chaldean, proftrate before a ferpent; and of the Perfian, adoring fire: while, in after times, in the hands of the faithful and holy, it was fterile and a folitude; he laments that the destiny of man depends on chance and on a blind fatality; or, otherwife, that the decrees of a mysterious and incomprehenfible God have entailed a fecret curfe on that country; and, in vengeance to paft generations, had inflicted punishment on the prefent race.

This foliloquy is interrupted by the appearance of a phantom or genius, who reproaches man for accufing providence, or fortune, of fubjecting him to evils, which arife from his own misconduct. "Where,' he asks, is that blind fatality which, without law or rule, fports with the deftiny of mortals? In what confifts thofe heavenly anathemas? or, where is the divine malediction which perpetuates the wretchednefs of thefe deferted countries?

countries? Have the laws of nature changed? or, is it the God of nature who has caused these ruins? Is it his hand that has overturned these walls, that has fapped the foundations of · these temples, and that has mutilated these columns? or, is it the hand of man? Was it the arm of God that carried fire and fword into the city, that murdered the inhabitants, and that deftroyed the harvefts and the plantations? or, was it the hand of man? When famine fucceeded to devaftation, was it the vengeance of God that produced it; or the fenfeless fury of man? No The caufe of man's mifery is not to be fought in the heavens; it is nearer to him; it is on earth: it is not hidden in the breaft of the Deity; it refides in man himself, and its feat is his own heart.

• What are thefe murmurs, that infidel nations have enjoyed the benefits of heaven and earth? If infidels observe the laws of heaven and earth, if they regulate their judicious labours according to the order of the feafons and the course of nature, fhould God deftroy the government of the world to defeat their prudence? What is the nature of that infidelity, which, by its wifdom, has founded empires, has defended them by its courage, and has ftrengthened them by its juftice; which has raised powerful cities, and has dug out deep harbours; which has drained peftilential marshes, has covered the fea with veffels, and the earth with inhabitants, and, fimilar to the creative mind, has fpread vigour and life over the world?'

After this difcourfe, in confequence of the traveller's with to know by what means empires are raifed, and overturned what are the caufes of the profperity and misfortunes of nations; and on what principles can the peace of focieties and the happinefs of mankind be fecured; the Genius elevates the author above the earth, and points out to his fight, (which is ftrengthened by fupernatural affiftance,) the principal countries of Afia, Africa, and Europe. He then informs him of the condition of man in the univerfe: that when the fecret power, which directs all things, formed this globe, he impressed on the component parts of it certain effential properties, which became the rule of their individual movements, the law of their relative actions on each other, and of the confequent harmony of the whole: to fire, he gave motion and activity; to air, elafticity, &c. while to man, intending to expofe him to the fhock of fo many furrounding beings, yet defiring to preserve his fragile existence, he gave the faculty of thinking, In confequence of this faculty, every action, unfavourable to his existence, produces a fenfation of evil and of pain; while every favourable action excites a fenfation of pleasure and happiness. By thefe fenfations, man, being turned afide from

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that which offends him, and being drawn forward to that by which he is gratified, is compelled to love and preferve his life. Thus felf-love, the defire of happiness, and the averfion from pain, are the effential and primary laws impofed, by Nature herself, on man,

The effects of these laws are next traced in the original state of man; in their action in removing him from a barbarous and favage condition, and in placing him in fociety:-it is argued that, afterward, thefe fame laws, being carried to excefs, and blindly followed, were the fource of all the evils to which men, affociated together, were exposed; and that these evils, affecting mankind, again gave new activity to the laws in queftion, and were the origin of government.

With refpect to the general caufes of the profperity of ancient kingdoms, it is urged, that wherever a people are powerful, or an empire is profperous, it is because the laws of convention are there conformable to the laws of nature; and that where a nation falls to decay, the laws are either vicious in their conftruction, or have been infringed by a corrupt go

vernment.

A view is here taken of the general causes of the revolutions and overthrow of ancient states. It is faid, that because one man was stronger than another, that inequality, which was an accident in nature, was taken for its law; and because the ftrong man could deprive the feeble man of his life, and avoided doing it, he therefore claimed an unjuft property in his perfon; and thus the flavery of individuals was the fore-runner of the flavery of nations;-that, because the mafter of a family could, among his domeftics, exercise abfolute authority, he wifhed to exercife it elsewhere; and the defpotifm of parents laid the foundation of political despotism ;-that, in focieties formed on these bases, under the appearance of union and peace, there would exift an inteftine contention, in which the citizens, divided into oppofing bodies of different ranks, claffes, and families, would conftantly strive to appropriate to themselves, under the appellation of the fupreme power, the ability of defpoiling all, and of fubjecting every thing to the dominion of their paffions;-that this fpirit of invafion, manifefting itself in different forms, would, fometimes, under the name of anarchy, torment the ftate with the paffions of all its members;— that, at other times, the abuses of agents, appointed by a people jealous of their liberty, would plunge the state, agitated by the cabals of the ambitious, by the corruption of the rich and factious, by the venality of the poor and idle, by the difputes of orators, by the boldnefs of the wicked, and by the timidity of the virtuous, into all the mifchiefs of democracy that where

the