the real state of the case. Mr. Moore has placed this passage in poor Sheridan's life in its real light, and has drawn from it a most salutary warning for the benefit of those "who put their trust in princes."

One word to our friend at parting. Michael O'Kelly, you are really a very amusing sort of person," a fellow of infinite jest;" and there are very many pages in your Reminiscences' which would disturb the composure even of a Quaker. But, Michael, have you not invented somewhat? when facts failed you, have you not borrowed the wings of poetry, and raised yourself beyond the sphere of reality? Nobody can tell a story, or cook a dinner, better than you. Your corned mutton is a most luxurious dish, and your punch incomparable. But have you ever read Sterne's description of Corporal Trim?" The fellow loved to advise, or rather to hear himself talk; his carriage, however, was so perfectly respectful, 'twas easy to keep him silent when you had him so; but set his tongue a-going, you had no hold of him; he was voluble; the eternal interlardings of Your Honour, with the respectfulness of Corporal Trim's manner, interceding so strong in behalf of his elocution, that though you might have been incommoded, you could not well be angry. Such was Corporal Trim." Such is Michael O'Kelly.

ART. II. Antediluvian Phytology, illustrated by a Collection of the Fossil-Remains of Plants peculiar to the Coal-Formations of Great Britain. By Edmund Tyrell Artis, F. S. A. F. G. S. 4to. Printed for the Author. London. 1825.

TH

HE fossil-remains of vegetables are widely dispersed through many of the secondary strata of sand-stone and bituminous shale in various parts of the world, and no where more abundantly than in the strata of the coal-formation of England and Wales. The study of these vegetable remains has hitherto been little attended to, because they present few circumstances that interest the geologist, beyond certain general facts and conclusions, and these once ascertained, he consigns to the botanist the task of discovering new genera or species, and noticing the corresponding genera of plants that may exist at present. It is very different with the fossilremains of the animal kingdom: some of these make known to us the existence of creatures of appalling magnitude, whose structure and modes of life were in many respects different from those of any of the present tenants of the globe; in other instances we may trace a succession of living beings, that have existed in past ages of the world, varying in form,

and

and presenting a gradation from the most simple to the most complex organization. Such facts as these, accompanied with a circumstance not less remarkable, the entire absence of the fossil-remains of man in any of the regular strata, cannot fail to excite in a powerful degree the curiosity and interest of the public; whereas the discovery of a class of plants in which the minute parts of fructification differed entirely from those on which the modern botanical systems are formed, would not be regarded with particular attention by any but professed systematic botanists. It happens also, unfortunately for the study of fossil-phytology, that the parts of the plant are generally broken and widely separated, and the organs of fructification are so delicate, that their forms have in almost all instances been obliterated. This difficulty is well described in the preface to the present volume.

'The imperfect state in which fossil-plants are found, in consequence of the catastrophe of which they have been the victims, is such, that the ordinary characters by which recent plants are referred to their congeners, can scarcely ever, or indeed it might be more justly said can never be detected in them. The sexual organs on which the systems of Linnæus, Jussieu, and all modern authors are founded, and also the integuments of the organs just mentioned, while in the state of flowering, have uniformly disappeared; the external parts of the seed or fruit are indeed found in the fossil-state, but they are entirely insulated from their other organs. Are leaves found, then it is almost certain that scarcely any fragment of the stem is preserved attached to them. If the external parts of a stem are found, they are more frequently bare and devoid of leaves. Can traces of the internal organization be discovered, then the external character of the stem is rarely to be traced. In consequence of this great deficiency of the charac ters on which the determinations of the botanist are founded, there exists a necessity for going further than has yet been done, into the structure of recent plants: their habits of growth, the cicatrices left in the stem by the leaves that spontaneously fall off, the different appearances which their fruits exhibit in the progress of their growth, must be minutely studied, before any certainty can be obtained respecting the identity of the fossil and recent plants.'

The most valuable part of fossil-phytology is not, we conceive, that which attempts merely to class the remains of fossil-vegetables with existing species, but that which discovers their modes of existence as aquatic or terrestrial plants, and the soil and situation in which they have flourished. The remains of terrestrial plants indicate, that when the strata containing them were deposited, part of the surface of the earth had emerged from the deep, and that dry land existed in the vicinity. In some instances we have good reason to

believe

believe that the plants grew in the situations where their remains occur, and had their roots in the lower part of the stratum. Hence we learn that parts of our present continents were dry land before the deposition of the upper calcareous formations that cover the strata containing vegetable-remains; and as the latter most frequently repose on lower beds of limestone abounding in remains of marine animals, we have decisive proofs of three great revolutions of the globe: in two of these the ocean covered the present continents for ages, during which the numerous tribes of marine animals existed, and left their exuvia where they are now found. The relative levels of these marine strata have since been greatly changed, and we frequently find them forming the summits of the loftiest mountain-ranges. Beside the vast revolutions which have changed the bed of the ocean, other revolutions more limited in extent, but of more frequent occurrence, may also be traced in the alternations of certain strata, containing remains of terrestrial plants or animals, with strata containing exclusively the remains of marine animals. These alternations are more frequent in the strata that cover the chalkformation. It is with reference to these changes that the study of fossil-plants becomes interesting, and we regret to see it directed chiefly to nomenclature and classification, which seem to have been the chief objects of Mr. Artis's labours. We think it necessary to premise these remarks, as the present work is the first that has appeared in this country exclusively confined to fossil-phytology. On the Continent there have been several works published on this branch of natural history. The earliest that we are acquainted with, entitled "Herbarium Diluvianum," by Scheuzer, was published at Zurich in 1709, folio; in which work are described six hundred and sixty-eight species of fossil-plants; and we are somewhat surprized that it has not been noticed by Mr. Artis, as he has given a short abstract of the modern systems of Baron Schlotheim, Count Sternberg, Professor Martius, and M. Adolphe Brogniart. What our author's own system is we are not informed; but the outline of it is promised in a second volume, together with observations on the fossil-plants of the coal-formation, and on the system promulgated by Dr. Martius.

This volume contains plates of twenty-four species of fossilplants, with one page of description annexed to each; there are also ten pages of preface; but if the following volumes are only to contain the same number of species, we cannot calculate at what period the work may terminate. The plates are well executed, and very correctly represent the forms of parts

parts of the fossil-plants described. To study fossil-plants with advantage, we should visit the great repositories of vegetableremains and examine them in situ, to ascertain whether they grew in the situations where they now are found, or whether they have been transported from a distance: had Mr. Artis done this, he might have rendered the present volume more generally interesting. Some of the specimens represented and described were sent him from a stone-quarry at Altofts, near Wakefield, in Yorkshire: in this quarry we observed, in 1819, numerous large stems of fossil-plants in a vertical position, penetrating several of the strata, evidently indicating that the plants had grown in the situations where they are now found mineralized. A similar instance of the vertical position of fossil-plants in a coal-mine at Treuil, near Saint Etienne, in France, was described by M. Brogniart in a small pamphlet, entitled Notice sur des Végétaux Fossiles traversant les Couches du Terrain Houllier, 1821. The plate which accompanies this publication is almost an exact representation of the fossil-plants in the quarry at Altofts. Such facts are worth whole volumes of technical description and nomenclature. Mr. Artis, in his preface, regrets that the study of fossil-organic remains has been impeded in this country by religious prejudices.

The rigour with which this connection (between religion and philosophy) is insisted on, in respect to geological theories, is the more remarkable, because it is but as yesterday that the similar difficulty arising from the scriptural account of the motion of the sun round the earth was abandoned; the philosophical theory of the motion of the earth round the sun, as stated by Copernicus, substituted; and the scheme of Tycho Brahe to reconcile philosophy and Scripture, by taking a middle course, unnoticed even in the schools of the clergy. May it not be hoped, that in a liberal and scientific age, a free scope at least will be given to philosophical enterprize, and that the geologist will be no longer constrained, upon pain of incurring the charge of irreligion, to adopt the ancient Chaldean cosmogony, further than may be consistent with more recent and careful observation.'

It is but justice to Mr. Artis to observe, that several of the fossil-plants of which plates are given in the present volume belong to species that have not been before described.

ART. III. The Art of rearing Silk-Worms.

Translated from

the Work of Count Dandolo. 8vo. pp. 365. 9s. 6d. Boards. Murray. 1825.

THE early part of this year was remarkable for the extraordinary number of joint-stock companies to which it gave birth. Some of these were devised merely to answer the temREV. Nov. 1825.

R

porary

porary purposes of the persons who planned them; - some were for no better end than to increase the incomes of directors, actuaries, secretaries, and solicitors; and some for the express purpose of making fraudulent profits by the sale of shares. Besides these unworthy projects, there were, however, some which, we have little doubt, will turn out at once honourably and profitably to the parties concerned, and prove publicly beneficial. Among these distinguished exceptions we are disposed to class the British, Irish, and Colonial Silk Company, whose aim it is to introduce silk-worms into this country.

The work the title of which stands at the head of this article is translated from the treatise of the amiable Count Dandolo, who, after devoting many years to his favourite subject, died of an apoplectic fit, at his villa at Varese, lamented as a father by every one residing in his neighbourhood. It comprizes the whole system of rearing silk-worms, according to the improved practice, which the Count contributed materially to introduce and extend both in Italy and Dalmatia; and it has been published by the Company above mentioned, in order to familiarize the subject to the British public; that being assured that the rearing of silk-worms upon an extended scale is not so impracticable an undertaking as it has been generally supposed, the people of this country may purchase shares, and thereby enable the Company to bring the subject to a fair trial of profit and loss.

Having stated the motives for the publication of this work, we shall proceed to lay before our readers the chief obstacles, and the principal facilities to the attainment of success, with a few data, on which the opinion is built, that the creation of silk in this country would be of vast importance to the proprietors of land, in the first instance, the owners of cocoons and the spinners of silk in the second, and the country at large in the third.

*

It appears, that the exportation of silk, and articles therewith connected, from Italy, amounted

In 1807 to 78,331,250 Milan livres.

1808 to 50,511,759

1809 to 61,597,624

1810 to 84,796,438

In four years 275,237,071

*Cocoons are the oval balls of silk which are spun by the worm, and within which, at its completion, the insect is found transformed into a chrysalis.

The