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our number for August last, we gave a view of the East front of the new range of buildings for the accommodation of the College of Justice. The present view exhibits the West end, which looks towards the High Street. This part of the building will contain a magnificent new library room, 136 feet in length, with other apartments, for the accommodation of the Faculty of Advocates. It will contain also a new Signet Office, with Hall, Library Rooms, and other accommodations for the Writers to the Signet. When the present jail and other old buildings adjoining shall be removed, this front will be in full view of the High Street, and will exhibit a noble specimen of Grecian archi

tecture.

ced the death of Thomas M'Grugar, Esq. Advocate, with a short notice of his character,-a correspondent having since favoured us with a copy of a letter which he wrote and addressed to a friend, within a very few days of his death, we now lay the same before our readers, not only as an interesting memorial of the writer, but as exhibiting a striking instance of affecting simplicity and of genuine superiority of mind, on the approach of the last and most awful crisis:

TO ANDREW STEELE, ESQ. W. S.
26th Feb. 1810.

DEAR SIR,

The dates shew that Mr M'Grugar survived this mental exertion only a few days, and his dying request was performed by the friend to whom it was addressed, in a manner creditable to both. His remains were consigned to the earth, in presence of a numerous, select company, among whom were to be found some of his professional brethren of the first eminence, who there signified their respect for a man whose merits were not sufficiently known to be universally acknowledged, and who has afforded another proof of a fact already well established, that good talents, a competent share of professional knowledge, as well as great science, joined with inoffensive manners, inflexible integrity, and persevering application, are insufficient, without the co-operation of other circumstances of a less personal nature, to procure for the possessor a just share of the enviable distinction of pre-eminent celebrity and popular fame. Zeno's Letters on the reform of the Scotch Burghs, written by this gentleman while he was secretary to the association for promoting that laudable and patriotic

Of the former, two species are found; the Common, and the Great Seal. The points of specific differ ence between these having never been sufficiently established, it might have been expected, that Dr Edmondston, possessing "fre quency and ease of observation," would have particularly illustrated them. This, however, he has not done; and I therefore venture to recommend more detailed specific descriptions of the Great and Com mon Seals, as valuable improve ments to a second edition of his book.

The Shetland otter, we are told, "partakes of the character and habits of the common and of the sea otter." The Sea Otter (Mustela lutris) is characterized by Lin næus as having the hind-feet hairy; the Common Otter (M. lutra) as having them naked. Only this last species (now named Lutra vulgaris) is to be found among the islands;

and

and it certainly never partakes of the character of the other. Mr Neill, in his Tour to Orkney and Shetland, has undoubtedly fallen into a blunder in marking the Mustela lutris as a native.

Dr Edmondston seems very willing to believe, that Dr Barry, the historian of Orkney, has committed a mistake in mentioning the White Shark, Squalus Carcharias, as having been occasionally cast ashore in that country. Barry is, however, perfectly correct; although our author may very possibly "never have heard of an animal in Zetland that answered the description." Mr Simmons, an active and intelligent naturalist, who visited Orkney about ten years ago, was there presented with the jaw-bones of one of the white sharks, which had been cast ashore, it is believed, in Sanda; and he carried them with him to Edinburgh. The jaws are of a very different structure from those of the shark tribe generally found in our

Beas.

I now hasten to a conclusion, without entering on the other departments of natural history. I have pointed out about a dozen of mistakes in ornithology. In doing so, I think I have rendered some little service to students of British natural history; and notwithstanding the author's uncommonly angry epistle in July last, I have confidence enough in his candour to expect that these will be rectified in his promised" Ornithologia Zetlandica," or that he will take care to bring forward satisfactory evidence of his being in the right.

After the general testimony which I have borne, in Letter IV., in favour of Dr Edmondston's book, I feel it requisite only to add, that those parts of the subject connected with the usual studies of a physician, seem to me to be very ably treated. I allude to the history of the diseases

prevalent among the inhabitants of the islands, and likewise to the account of the distempers to which the domestic animals of Shetland are liable. Oct. 1810 ORCADENSIS.

Monthly Memoranda in Natural
History.

October.-During the whole of the preceding month, and till the middle of this, the weather has been uncommonly fine. Little or no rain has fallen: the mercury in the barometer has generally stood 30 inches high; and the thermometer has varied from 56° to 68°. Such weather has been very favourable for the labours of harvest, and there is every prospect of plenty throughout the land. In the Western Highlands, in general, the crop is, this year, superior to what is commonly produced. In the island of Arran it is double.

15-18.-Some strong westerly breezes brought rain, and were ac companied with a good deal of lightning, without thunder.

25. The general warmth which has prevailed for many weeks, has made some apple-trees in this neighbourhood produce a second show of blossom, which is now expanding, to be nipt in the first frosts.

Water. The late uncommon drought has produced a scarcity of water in Edinburgh, which has more than ever evinced the necessity of introducing a supply by an additional pipe of large caliber. The Crawley Spring, near Glencorse Manse, is both copious and of excellent quality, and it flows from a level, which is understood to command the whole New Town. It seems to be generally wished, therefore, that the city should be supplied from this source. An additional reservoir will not be unacceptable to the citizens. Indeed,

THE

HE conclusions drawn by Mr Davy, in his late publication on the Muriatic Acid, will serve to Extend and enlighten the theory of themistry to a greater extent than any of the brilliant discoveries formerly made by this illustrious chemist. The following are his conclusions:

1st. That the oxymuriatic acid is (as far as our knowledge extends) simple substance, which may be classed in the same order of natural bodies as oxygen gas; being determined, like oxygen, to the positive surface in voltaic combinations, and like oxygen, combining with inflammable substances, producing heat and light.

2dly. That its combinations with inflammable bodies are analogous to oxides and acids in their properties and powers of combination, but they differ from them in being, for the most part, decomposable by water.

3dly. That hydrogen is the basis of the muriatic acid, and oxymuriatic acid its acidifying principle.

4thly. That the compounds of phosphorus, arsenic, tin, &c. with oxymuriatic acid, approach in their nature to acids, and neutralize amanonia and other salifiable bases.

5thly. That the combination of ammonia with phosphorus, acidified by oxymuriatic acid, is a peculiar compound, having properties like those of an earth, and is not decomposable at an intense red heat.

6thly. That oxymuriatic acid has stronger attraction for most in

flammable bodies than oxygen; and that on the hypothesis of the connection of electrical powers with chemical attractions, it must be highest in the scale of negative power; and that the oxygen, which is supposed to exist in oxymuriatic from water or oxides. acid, has always been expelled by it

The French chemists questioned the accuracy of the inferences drawa by Mr Davy from his electro-chemical researches, respecting the nature of the alkalies and the earths; maintaining that the metallic bodies obtained from these substances, in place of being simple, as asserted by Mr Davy, were compounds of the alkalies and earths with hydrogen; or, in other words, that the new bodies were hydrurets. Of this opinion were Gay Lussac, Thenard, and most of the French chemists. Berthollet, among the rest, warmly contested the correctness of Mr Davy's inferences, and maintained the accuracy of the French conclusions. At a meeting, however, of the French National Institute in the end of June, Messrs Gay Lussac and Thenard, read a notice contain ing the results of a great variety of experiments on the new metals; from all of which they concluded, after a most rigorous investigation, that Professor Davy was perfectly correct in his inferences; and, with a degree of frankness honourable to themselves, renounced their former opinion, that these new metals are hydrurets.

It is well known to mathemati cians, that the doctrine of solid angles was left in a very imperfect state by Euclid, and has been scarcely at all advanced by subsequent geometers; one of the latest commentators on Euclid, Professor Playfair, having remarked, that "we have no way of expounding, even in the simplest cases, the ratio which one of them bears to another." Dr. Gregory,

Gregory, of the Military Academy, has recently invented a Theory of Solid Angles, which is at once simple, satisfactory, and universal in its application. By means of this theory, the relative magnitudes of solid angles may be ascertained, not only when they are of the same class as those formed by the meeting of three planes, those by the meeting of four planes, the vertical angles. of cones, &c. but angles of one class may be compared with those of another, with respect to magnitude; and their mutual relations be determined by processes as obvious and elementary as the usual operations in plane trigonometry.

Mr William Walton, who has been long resident ir, st Domingo, is engaged in drawing up a statistical account of what called Hispaniola, to distinguish from Hayi, now governed by three chiefs, viz. Christophe, Petion, and Philippe Dos, a relation of Toussaint. This gentleman, whose research has been general, and whose labours promise to be of great utility to our trade, has, among other curiosities, brought aver a specimen of South American mythological sculpture, of great singularity; it is an idol of granite, of the hardest texture, and represents a disk gently curved at the bottom, so as to enable the image to roll, on which reposes a ring, out of which issues a sort of phallic stem, that is crowned with a fierce human head, and some appendages, that it is difficult to discover the meaning of; it is a mass balancing the head, that is divided into four compartments, by a cross. The head is capped by an ornament, representing a thunderbolt, or two tridents linked together by a bar. The whole is worked with great correctness and truth, like the Egyptian idols, but the character of the head is Mexican. He has also a specimen of their earthen-ware, very hard baked,

being the legs of a vase that represent a monkey's head; the whole much like Etruscan, or early Greek,, and manifesting great regularity in the mould, as well as a systematic: style of art that is very original, but approaches more to the Egyptian than any other.

An account of the great Sandstone Crystals, discovered by Dr Fox, at digging the Canal at Bristol, has lately been presented to the Geological Society.

The Copenhagen medal for last year has been adjudged by the Royal Society, to Mr Edward Troughton, for the account of his method of dividing astronomical instruments, printed in the last volume of the Philosophical Transactions.

It appears, by some recent experiments, that tiles are greatly improved, and rendered impervious to water and frest, by being rubbed over with tar before they are laid on the roof.

To take out Writing-When recently written, ink may be completely removed by the oxymuriatic acid, (concentrated and in solution.) The paper is to be washed over repeatedly with the acid; but it will be necessary afterwards to wash it also with lime water, for the purpose of neutralizing any acid that may be left on the paper, and which would considerably weaken it. If the ink have been long written, it will have undergone such change as to prevent the preceding process acting. It ought therefore to be washed with liver of sulphur (sulphuret of ammonia) before the oxymuriatic acid is applied. It may be washed with a hair pencil.

M. de Saussure lately made a se, ries of experiments on the combustion of several sorts of charcoal, He found that Cornish plumbago, burned in oxygen gas, yields nothing but carbonic acid gas, and oxide of iron, without any mixture of water,