diator, flayed in different points of view. His object, in this perform ance, is to render the work useful to the study of the imitative arts, and principally those of painting and sculpture. He has taken advantage of the means furnished by the military hospital, to which he is attached, to place, in the attitude of the gladiator, different human subjects, and to model all the muscular parts in such a manner, that the spectator may discover, at first sight, the mechanism of the muscles, which produce the movement of that beautiful figure. He has, in this manner, represented the gladiator flayed in different points of view, in each of which the figure is developed from the skeleton to the skin. To enable the pupil to understand this anatomy, he intends to publish some engravings, containing the principles of the bones and muscles, the head of the Apollo Belvidere dissected in profile, and a front view of the bones of the head of the same figure; and these will be succeeded by feet and hands, designed after antiques. The commission composed of Monge, Berthollet, Fourier, Castaz, Desgenettes, Conte, Girard, and Laucret, have drawn up a report on the progress of the work on Egypt. One hundred engravings are already finished; of these, fortyseven represent some of the ancient Egyptian monuments, seventeen represent modern monuments, eight relate to the arts known in Egypt, and twenty-eight represent different objects of natural history. One hundred and sixty other plates have been begun. The designs of temples, palaces, and tombs, are not confined to those of ancient construction: engravings have been made of a great number of idols, statues, amulets, and likewise of the papyrus found in the tombs, under the coverings of the mummies. The small number of architectural engravers at Paris has prevented the editors from procuring many engravings of modern edifices. They have, however, given two of the gates of Cairo erected by Saladin, and two mosques, one of which is highly venerated by the mussulmans, and appears as old as the foundation of the city. Baron Aretin discovered lately, in the electoral library at Munich, a Latin manuscript, containing a description of the method of preparing the Greek fire. Since that time, two manuscript copies have been found in the French national library, at Paris, of a work entitled, Liber ignium ad comburendos hostes, auctore Marco Græco.-Treatise on Fires proper for destroying Enemies. This treatise has been printed, and forms eighteen pages in quarto. The librarians have given a faithful copy from the two manuscripts, without remark or commentary. Some passages in this performance do not possess even novelty, as they may be found in a little work, entitled, De Mirabilibus Mundi, attributed to Albert the great. From various passages in the works both of Je rome Cardan and his antagonist, Julius Cæsar Scaliger, both those writers appear acquainted with the piece ascribed to Marcus Græcus. The writing of the oldest of these manuscripts cannot date farther back than the latter half of the fourteenth century, and the other is not anterior to the conclusion of the fifteenth. M. Wildenow, professor of botany at Berlin, has, since 1801, been employed in making judicious alterations in the botanic garden belonging to the king. All the hedges, bushes, and other indications of the French manner, have been removed. The garden, with the court and buildings, occupies twenty-seven acres, and has, in the centre, an oval pond, another of an oblong form, in the back part, and on each side ditches have been dug to take off the water: these ponds and ditches are devoted to the cultivation of aquatic plants. Seven greenhouses have been built, and they are already full of plants; each of them contains a thermometer, to indicate the proper degree of heat. The plants of the south of Europe, the north of Africa, the temperate regions of Asia, and those of Carolina and Florida, are here cultivated in the ground, without pots. One greenhouse is embellished with a lofty palm-tree, a magnolin grandiflora, twenty-two feet in height, and other trees equally rare. It also contains several hot-beds for other exotic plants. The whole garden has been laid out in the English taste, and to each plant has been assigned a congenial soil and situation. The number of species exceeds five thousand, among which are the strelitzia reginæ, sarracenia purpurea, hedysarum gyrans, rhododendron caucasicum, azalea pontica, parkinsonia aculeata, and many species of erica, protea, and other vegetable products equally rare. M. Eckberg has lately discovered titanite at Karinbricka, in Westmannland, imbedded in quartz and mica, and mixed with black tourmalins. He has lately announced a very curious property of the new earth called yttria. When the muriate of yttria is heated to redness, it gives out oxy-muriatic acid, nearly in the same proportion as when muriatic acid is treated in the same way with the oxide of the new metal called cerium. Hence it is probable that yttria is a metallic oxide. M. Gahn, in his attempts to reduce the oxide of cerium, heated it with a mixture of oxide of lead, charcoal, and linseed-oil. He obtained a black, porous, brittle, dull mass, which he considers as a carburet of lead. It acquired the metallic lustre when rubbed upon hard metals, and deposited coal. The metal called cerium was discovered by Hisinger and Berzelius, in the mineral known by the name of bastnastungstan. Their experiments were published in the new Berlin Journal der Chimie, from which it was translated into the Annales de Chimie. M. Rose has published an account of white powder which separates from the concentrated juice of inula helenii. It resembles starch in several of its properties, but differs in others. 'It burns like sugar, is insoluble in cold water, but soluble in hot, and the solution passes through the filter. Alcohol throws it down from water. Experiments on the solution of indigo, in different kinds of sulphuric acid, have been published by M. Bucholz, who found that the British sulphuric acid was a bad solvent, unless previously boiled with sulphur; that the acid manufactured in the north of Europe dissolved it well in its natural state; but, when deprived of the sulphurous acid gaz, it became as inefficacious as the English. Hence it appears, that the presence of this gas promoted the solution; of course, the common sulphuric acid, or, as it is usually called, the oil of vitriol, in the state in which it is employed by the dyers, namely, blackened with vegetable matter, answers their purposes better than the purest. It has long been known that metals precipitate each other from acids in their metallic state. Iron, for instance, may be employed to throw down copper, and copper to precipitate silver. But it has not been suspected, till lately, that the same precipitations may be obtained when the nietals are dissolved in alcalies; provided always that metals are employed whose oxides are soluble in alcalies. Klaproth has lately published a set of curious experiments on this subject. Lead was precipitated in the metallic state, by introducing a cylinder of zinc into a solution of oxide of lead in potash. The same result was obtained when zinc was put into solutions of oxides of tin and tellurium in the same alcali, and into the solutions of oxides of copper of tungsten in ammonia. This last result points out an easy method of reducing the very refractory metallic oxides to the metallic state. Great expectations are formed of the History of Russia, now in great forwardness, by Karamsin. Several periodical works have been commenced, in the present year, in Russia. Among these, one entitled "Notices of the North," by M. Martignoro, well known for his translation of Longinus. This paper will exhibit the history of learning and civilization in Russia, and will contain the lives of the most illustrious men of that country. Another journal will be published at Moscow, by Kutosof, ancient curator of the university, entitled "The Friend of Illumination; or, Journal of the Sciences and Arts." There is also to be a journal for the fair sex, which will be a miscellany of prose and verse. A third letter from Mr. Humboldt, concerning his travels in South America and Mexico, was lately read in the National Institute of France. In the first, he stated the observations made in the Atlantic, at the top of the Peak of Teneriffe, and in New Andalusia. In the second, he described his operations in Venezuela, and the plains of Cazobozzo, where he made some curious experiments on the gymnotus electricus. In the third, he gives us a short account of his voyage on the Oroonoko, Rio Negro, and the Carsequaire, attended with great danger, to determine astronomically the communication of the Orinaro and Amazon river. His memoirs, which contain an account of the geography, botany, and mineralogy of those countries, as well as of the manners and customs of the people, will be shortly published. The king of Sweden is very desirous of adopting a proper system of education. A board, appointed for superintending public instruction, has lately commissioned a young Swede, named Brooeman, greatly distinguished by some critical pieces, and a treatise on education, to travel through Europe, to collect information on the subject. By an edict issued at Vienna, all lectures in the university of Vienna, on logic, metaphysics, practical philosophy, and physics must be delivered in Latin. By another edict, all private teaching, without a licence from the heads of the university, is forbidden; and those who are taught in this manner, and without such a licence, are prohibited from standing candidates for any situation which is to be decided by the literary attainments of the candidates. At Udursburg a machine has been invented, which turns a mill as a current of water does, but with less expence. The inventor, whose name is Oegg, has offered to government to produce such a machine, provided he receives a patent for the exclusive privilege of making them for twenty years. Richter is occupied in a series of experiments on nickel. In its pure state, this metal is very malleable, nearly as brilliant as silver, and more attractable by the loadstone than iron. It contains copper; but M. Richter has found a method of freeing it from this metal. The oxydes of the purified nickel are of a much more lively green colour than the ordinary oxydes, and their solution in ammonia is a pale blue. A number of engineers, under don Salvador de Ximenes, have, by the Spanish government, been engaged to prepare charts of the provinces of Spain, and plans of the principal towns. Two members have been selected for the geometrical and astronomical operations, who travel to all places to which the project extends, that the charts may be completed with the greatest accuracy. For the Literary Magazine. SUBSTANCE OF THE REPORT OF THE OPERATIONS OF THE MINT, DURING THE LAST YEAR. THE issues of silver coins, notwithstanding the mercantile embarrassments attending the importation of bullion, have greatly exceeded that of the year 1803; and the advantage of a public mint has long been sensibly experienced, by the greatest part of the deposits being issued in small coin, which has been found very beneficial to the citizens at large, under the late scarcity of Spanish dollars, occasioned by the great exportation of them, for mercantile purposes. The quantity of gold bullion has been equal to that of the last report, so that, in the past year, the coinage of the precious metals has amounted to 358,983 dollars. About eleven thousand dollars of the gold coin is the produce of virgin gold, found in the county of Cabarrus, in the state of North Carolina, where, it is said, a very considerable quantity has been found, since the last deposits, and will, in all probability, be forwarded to the mint. It is to be regretted, that this gold is melted into small ingots, before it is sent to the mint, for the convenience of carriage; but by which, there is reason to believe, a considerable proportion of it is wasted. It is also said, that the finest particles are neglected, and only the large grains and lumps sought after. The increased price of copper in Europe, and the quantity on hand, have been thought sufficient reasons to confine the coinage of cents to one press; and from the last account from Europe, copper is likely to be considerably increased in price, which will render the coinage of cents less profitable. The past year there have been issued, 756,838 cents, and 1,055,312 half cents, equal to 12,844 dollars, 94 cents. The coinage of the year amounts, in the whole, to the sum of 371,827 dollars, 94 cents, and the number of pieces to 2,046,839. The expences of the mint, for the last year, are reduced to a trifle more than sixteen thousand dollars. The director thinks it his duty to mention, that very considerable difficulty as well as danger_may arise to the public, from the officers and workmen of the mint being exposed to be called out to attend militia mectings, or on detachments. When large deposits of precious metals are passing through the mint, and particularly when in fu sion, it may be of the most dangerous consequence to have officers and men called away, or be liable to fines for non-attendance. It is too important a trust to be thus exposed. For the Literary Magazine. LONGEVITY. THAT instances of longevity are not so rare in modern times as is usually imagined, the subjoined list, collected from various sources, is a curious proof. None have been inserted who have not attained their 150th year, or whose longevity has not appeared to be well attested. Many more might, without doubt, be added, by those who have better opportunities for collecting such accounts. The date affixed to each name is the year in which each person died, when that has been ascertained, or when not, the last year in which each is known to have lived. 93 To these may be added a mulatto man, who died in 1797, in Frederick Town, North America, said to be 180 years old. The London County Chronicle, of December 13, 1791, stated that Thomas Carn, according to the parish register of St. Leonard, Shoreditch, died the 28th of January, 1588, aged 207. This is an instance of longevity so far exceeding any other on record, that one is disposed to suspect some mistake either in the register or in the extract. The following instances of unusual longevity have been recorded in the American papers, during the year 1804, viz. years. mo. John Quarterman, Penn. 108 8 Samuel Bartrow, Booth-bay Maine. 135 117 Abigail Edwards, Connecti cut Mary Hastings, Weston, 90 90 90 105 For the Literary Magazine. REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE RELATIVE TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF SCHOOLS THROUGHOUT THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA, IN SUCH A MANNER THAT THE POOR MAY BE TAUGHT GRATIS. TO encourage the promotion of literature generally, the children of all our citizens ought to be taught at the public expence. In this way, no inviduous distinctions of rich and poor would be exhibited, nor would the feelings of any be unnecessarily wounded. The existing law on the subject holds out those distinctions, which, it is presumed, is a princi |