Brooke, they assumed a threatening attitude, uttering a squeaking kind of bark:' they even, he tells us, when at Drontheim in 1788, put themselves into a posture of defence, against a whole regiment of dragoons! In their march they destroy every green herb in the fields and gardens, laying waste the whole surface of the country over which they pass.* They are found in the mountains of Lapland, Sweden and Norway, and even as far as the Ural chain, and migrate from place to place, sometimes in myriads together, probably in quest of food, which, according to Linnæus, consists of the mast of the dwarf-birch and the lichen, (rangiferinus.) When on their migratory expeditions, even the sea does not always stop them; they take the water fearlessly, and swim to the islands, as the ermines are said to do in search of sea-fowl's eggs. For this Mr. Brooke produces the authority of Mr. Knudtzon, a respectable merchant of Drontheim, who was an eye-witness of the fact.

( On arriving at the edge of the water, the foremost advance, and, swimming across, form a kind of floating, or, to use a military phrase, complete ponton bridge; the head of each supported by the hinder part of that before it. When a communication is thus formed between the shores, the remainder of the army pass rapidly over the backs of the supporters, and gain the opposite shore.-Strange as this may seem, the contrivances which naturalists agree are resorted to both by the marmot and gray squirrel, for the purpose of crossing rivers, appear as extraordinary, though well authenticated: and what has thus been mentioned concerning the lemming will, I doubt not, be received with attention by those, who have made natural history more particularly their study, and can the better judge of the extraordinary instinct and sagacity of the animal creation.'-p. 156.

If proof were wanting to show how many other circumstances, besides the degree of latitude, govern the climate of countries, we have an example on the islands of Sevjen and Tromsöe, which are situated nearly in lat. 70°, where our traveller found trees once more making their appearance, and observed, that forests of birch and aspen swept down to the water's edge;' that creeping branches of juniper, loaded with purple fruit, formed a tangled thicket, while underneath was spread a covering of the most beautiful verdure, equalling that which so often delights the eye in the green forests of Sweden.' This fertility has no doubt contributed to the superior population of Tromsöe, which is said to contain about 550 inhabitants.

Among the stories not the least wonderful which Mr. Brooke gleaned in the course of his navigation through the Norwegian

* Wormius has a curse against these poor lemmings, not quite so long, but full as bitter as that of Ernulphus.

Archipelago,

Archipelago, where all is wonderful, wild, and romantic, is that of the singular affection which the species of whale, known by the name of finner, has for cows and horses. I was acquainted,' he says, with a merchant at Tromsöe, who, having some of the former on board the boat, was so constantly pursued by them, that he was obliged to land, and put the cows on shore. At Röst is a small inlet or narrow creek, at the extremity of which are large cow-houses; and it happens that almost every year whales are taken in it, being attracted, it is said, by the smell of the cows or dung; when, not being able to return, they fall a prey to the fishermen.' We should not be much surprized if some of our whalers took the hint here offered to them, and put up a few cows with their harpoons and log-lines.

Hammerfest is a small town situated on Qualöen, or WhaleIsland, in lat. 70° 38′ N. having a church, several mercantile houses built of wood, and painted with red ochre ; a good deal of shipping in its port, and even a battery to defend it; and, what is more extraordinary in this dismal and desolate region, a tolerably good society. It would be better, Mr. Brooke thinks, if cards, smoking tobacco, and drinking strong punch, did not consume so large a portion of the men's time. The women, it seems, are of a superior kind, lively, fond of dancing, singing, and all sorts of merriment:' the advance of autumn, however, compelled him to tear himself away from these agreeable ladies.

On the 16th of August Mr. Brooke took his departure for the North Cape, in company with a young Bremen merchant; and was not long in reaching Mageröe, on the northern extremity of which this promontory is situated, and which he informs us, " completed his fullest impressions of wildness, gloom and wretchedness.' Yet here a merchant, with a handsome young wife, had fixed his abode; and the lady, who had been accustomed to good society, was satisfied and happy on this bleak and barren rock at the extremity of Europe, surrounded by an ocean never at rest, agitated by the most tremendous storms, overwhelmed in winter by continual darkness, and, in fact, quite cut off from the rest of the world;' but a young family demanded her care, and this alone will explain the contented situation of a good mother.

6

It required no great exertions to ascend the gradual slope of the island northwards to the Cape, which, at the distance of about two miles, rises like the back of a giant. Arrived at the edge of the precipice, we contemplated,' says Mr. Brooke, 'the fearful steep between us and the ocean'-less fearful, however, we suspect, than anticipation had led him to imagine: let the reader,' he continues, fancy a cliff exceeding in height that of Dover, and with Shakspeare's elaborate description of the latter,

he may form a good idea of the North Cape.'-Itane! if this be all to recompense a journey of two thousand miles, one half by sea, and two-thirds of that half in open boats, we shall certainly prefer a trip to Dover whenever we wish to acquire 'a good idea of the North Cape.'

Dreary, desolate, and barren, as this spot is, there are evident signs of its once having been the abode of a considerable population: The traces of four churchyards are still visible. At Keiling, where the only church is left standing, forty families resided little more than thirty years ago; and now there is but one. Our traveller thinks that the black death, want of fuel, and above all, the decayed state of the whale fishery, may have contributed to the depopulation of these northern regions. On the island are a few Laplanders, with about 200 rein-deer; these last, with the ermine, and occasionally the lemming, make up the scanty list of quadrupeds. Mr. Brooke, however, is determined to add the fox to the number, though every person he met with assured him that none were to be found on the island. We at once discern the drift of this pertinacity; it introduces a good story, with which he thinks it proper the people of Mageröe should be acquainted, and which he trusts will convince them that there really are not only foxes, but those of a very singular nature; singular indeed! and at any rate, as the story is no bad companion to that of the Norwegian poodles and the Greenland puffins, we shall here relate it.

In the vicinity of the North Cape, where the precipices are almost entirely covered with various species of sea-fowl, the foxes proceed on their predatory expeditions in company; and previous to the commencement of their operations, they hold a kind of mock fight upon the rocks, in order to determine their relative strength. When this has been fairly ascertained, they advance to the brink of the precipice; and, taking each other by the tail, the weakest descends first, while the strongest, forming the last in the row, suspends the whole number, till the foremost has reached their prey. A signal is then given, on which the uppermost fox pulls with all his might and the rest assist him as well as they can with their feet against the rocks; in this manner they proceed from rock to rock, until they have provided themselves with a sufficient supply.'-p. 387.*

We readily believe Mr. Brooke when he says, that nothing would have repaid him so well as to have beheld this very extraordinary trick of foxes, suspended from the tremendous clifts, and dangling midway between the ocean and their summits.' No

This story is of Iceland manufacture, and is told by Dr. Henderson :-but we have seen a version of it in an old French voyage to the East Indies, where it is told with admirable gravity and effect of a party of rats, who combined in this way to steal eggs out of the bung-hole of a barrel.

thing that the North Cape afforded was at all equal to it--but we must stop; and have only one parting word of advice to give to our traveller-to be very careful in relating what is marvellous, on the mere authority of common rumour, and never hereafter to suffer his eyes to be subservient to his ears. Abating this leaning to the credulous, we consider his work as a valuable acquisition to the stock of Travels.

The volume contains a number of prints, executed in a bad style of lithography, from drawings which evidently deserved to be better represented.

ART. VI.-1. Facts and Observations respecting Intermittent Fevers, and the Exhalations which occasion them, collected chiefly on a Professional Mission to inquire and report on the Cause of the Sickness of the Army in Walcheren, in 1809, and to Northfleet, to report on the Expediency of establishing a Dock Yard and Naval Arsenal at that Place, in 1810. In * Select Dissertations on several Subjects of Medical Science? By Sir Gilbert Blane, Bart. F. R.S. &c. &c. London. 1822. Svo. pp. 398.

2. De Regionibus Italia Aëre pernicioso contaminatis Observationum quas Munia Professoris ordinarii publici in celeberrimâ Universitate Berolinensi subiens Commilitonibus Prodromi instar ad Lectiones de Epidemiis et Contagiis habendas offert Johannes Ferdinand Koreff, Dr. Med. et Chirurg. &c. &c. Berolini. 4to. pp. 37.

3. Leçons sur les Epidémies et l'Hygiène Publique, faites à la Faculté de Médecine de Strasbourg. Par Fr. Emm. Foderé, Professeur à cette Faculté. Tome premier. A Paris. 1822. Svo. pp. 523.

4. Recherches Historiques, Chimiques et Médicales_sur l'Air Marécageux, Ouvrage Couronné par l'Académie Royale des Sciences de Lyon. Par J. S. E. Julia, Professeur de Chimie Médicale, &c. &c. Paris. 1823. 8vo. pp. 155.

FEW of our readers, perhaps, are ignorant that the exhalations

from marshy lands under certain circumstances give occasion to a variety of disorders, the principal of which are intermittent and remittent fevers. So extensive indeed is the influence of such exhalations, that it has been affirmed as a general truth, that the great difference of one country from another, in point of salubrity, consists in the greater or less proportion of that soil, which produces noxious effluvia. In England, the counties most subject to ague and to its grand exciting cause, the marsh mi

asma, are Essex, Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, and the East Riding of Yorkshire, although we are glad to see, from the last population abstract, that the disease is by no means so rife as it was formerly, owing in a great measure to the more extensive draining of the soil.

Respecting the nature of marsh effluvia we are unfortunately very much in the dark; their chemical components have never yet been discovered, nor are they likely to be so; every eudiometrical experiment hitherto instituted having furnished the same constituent principles, and the same quantity of them as are contained in common atmospheric air. M. Julia, who has paid considerable attention to chemical analysis, has sixty times subjected to trial the air of the marshes of Cercle, near Narbonne; of the pond of Pudre, near Sigéan; of Salces and Salanque, in Roussillon; of Capestang, not far from Béziers; and of the different marshes on the coast of Cette; and has constantly obtained the like results. Various speculations have been indulged regarding their nature; by some they have been pronounced to be azote, and by others, carbonic acid gas, hydrogen, carburetted hydrogen, and sulphuretted hydrogen; but all these suppositions have been proved to be unsatisfactory, and we still remain, as we have just observed, in utter ignorance of their composition. One particular, however, seems tolerably evident, that they are somewhat heavier than pure atmospheric air, as those who live in elevated situations are less exposed to them (except where such situations are the foci of the miasmata) than the inhabitants of plains: this observation will only apply, when the atmosphere is undisturbed by winds; as there are numerous proofs of the noxious effects of mal'aria upon the inhabitants of mountainous districts, where they have been situated under the lee of marshy lands. In the mission of Sir Gilbert Blane to Northfleet in 1810, he observed a somewhat strange anomaly in the action of the marsh miasmata, viz. that the inhabitants of those places which were situated on a level with the marsh whence the miasmata emanated were by no means subject to intermittent fever, whilst it was extremely prevalent on the adjacent hills. The spot upon which it was proposed to form the dockyard and arsenal is a marsh of about 700 acres. On the banks of the river, both above and below it, is a soil of a similar description, but not immediately adjoining it on either side; for higher up the river lies the village of Green Hithe, which rests on a chalky bottom, rising to within a few inches of the surface, and forming a projecting point of the chalky hills which compose the adjacent country; and lower down, on the bank of the river, there is a similar intervention of chalk, where the village