scriptions, in the Linnean style, and perhaps with too much minuteness of detail, of ten rare fishes (of which number half were before unknown), accompanied by as many places. This was a fine specimen of an important work; and it will always be regretted, that notwithstanding the preparations which had been made for the engravings, the author did not carry it forward.

Broussonnet returned from London, preceded by the reputation of his book, decorated with the title of Fellow of the Royal Society, and counting among his friends the younger Linneus, Dr. Solan der, Sparman, Sibthorp, Scarpa, and several other naturalists of distinction.

An unreserved conformity to the plan and systems of Linneus, would have been of itself no recommendation in the eyes of those who then possessed the most influence in France; and particularly of the respectable Daubenton, who enjoyed much credit both with the Academy and the Minister: but the amiable character, the mild, and engaging manners, and the modest and diffident tone, of Broussonnet, atoned for his scientific creed; and his most zealous protector was the man whose ideas on that subject were in the greatest opposition to his own. Thus Daubenton appointed him his substitute in the college of France, and his associate in the veterinary school; and was the principal means of procuring his reception at so early an age into the Academy; a conduct which was equally honourable to both. He was not elected academician, however, with out a competition which continued for six months; and during that period he presented a series of memoirs, of such merit as could not have failed of ensuring his success,

even if he had not been assisted by any patronage.

He

Among these was the plan of his intended great work on Ichthyology. gy. His arrangement was nearly the same as that of Linneus; buc he enumerated 1200 species, though Linneus had then only 460. As specimens of his manner of description, he gave a memoir on the seawolf (anarbickas luous), and another on the scomber gladius. wrote afterwards on the spermatic vessels of fishes; and shewed that scales are possessed by several animals of this class, which are commonly thought to be destitute of them. But the article most likely to strike such men of learning as were not professed naturalists-was his Comparison of the Motions of Plants with those of Animals. In this he gave the first complete description of the vegetable which approaches nearest to the appearance of having something voluntary in its oscillations, the hedysarum gyrans, a species of sainfon, of Bengal, that raises and depresses its laterai folioles, day and night, without any external incitement. He gave an interesting account of the determinate directions taken by dif ferent parts of plants in spite of obstacles; of the progress of the roots to seek for moisture, and the inflections of the leaves in pursuit of light.

Such subjects were far superior to those of his first writings, which were mere descriptions of species: but he soon rose to still higher; . and his Memoir on, the Respiration of Fishes belongs entirely to the philosophy of natural history. He here shews the diminution in the intensity of respiration, and in the heat of the blood, progressively. from birds to quadrupeds, and from quadrupeds to reptiles; he compares the size of the heart, and the quantity of blood, in dif

z LI

ferent

ferent fishes; explains how it is that those which have small bronchial apertures can live out of the water longer than others; and relates some experiments on the different degrees of heat which fishes can support, and on substances that prove fatal to them when mixed with the water in which they swim. The greater part of these ideas and facts had before been contained in his doctoral thesis.

His Memoir on the Teeth of Animals is of the same class. The differences between those of carni

IN Kentucky, as well as in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Carolina, the estates are divided into three classes, for the better assessment of the taxes. This division with respect to the fertility of the land is relative to each of these states; thus in Kentucky, for example, they would put in the second class estates, which, east of the mountains, would be ranked in the first; and in the third, those which in Georgia and Carolina would be the second. I do not mean, however, to say by this that there are not some possessions in the eastern states as fertile as in the western; but they are seldom found except along the rivers and in the vallies, and do not embrace so considerable a tract of country as in Kentucky, and that part of Tennessea situate west of the Cumberland Mountains.

In these two states they appreciate the fertility of the land by the different species of trees that grow there; thus when they announce the sale of an estate, they take

care to specify the particular spe cies of trees peculiar to its various parts, which is a sufficient index for the purchaser. This rule, however, suffers an exception to the Barrens, the soil of which, as I have remarked, is fertile enough, and where there are notwithstanding here and there Scroby oaks, or quercus nigra, thell-barked hickeries, or juglans hickery, which in forests characterise the worst of soil. In support of this mode of appreciating in America the fecun dity of the soil by the nature of the trees it produces, I shall impart a remarkable observation that I made on my entering this state. In Kentucky and Cumberland*, independent of a few trees natives of this part of these countries, the mass of the forests, in estates of the first class, is composed of the

same

In the United States they give the name of Cumberland to that part of Ten nessea situated to the west of the moun. tains of the fame name.

same species which are found, but very rarely, east of the mountains, in the most fertile soil; these species are the following: cerasus Virginia, or cherry-tree; juglans oblonga, or white walnut; pavia lutea, buck-eye; fraximus alba, nigra, cerulea, or white, black, and blue ash; celtis foliis villesis, or ack 'berry; ulmus viscosa, or slippery elm; quercus imbricaria, or blackjack oak; guitandina disica, or cof fee-tree; gleditsia triacanthos, or honey locust; and the annona triloba, or papaw, which grows thirty feet in height. These three latter species denote the richest lands. In the cool and mountainous parts, and along the rivers where the banks are not very steep, we observed again the quercus macrocarpa, or over-cup white oak, the acorns of which are as large as a hen's egg; the acer sacharinum, or sugarmaple; the fagus sylvatica, or beech; together with the planus occidentalis, or plane; the liriodendrum tulipifera, or white and yellow poplar; and the magnolia acuminata, or cucumber-tree; all three of which measure from eighteen to twenty feet in circumference; the plane, as I have before observed, attains greater diameter. The two species of poplar, i. e. the white and yellow wood, have not the least external character, neither in their leaves nor flowers, by which they may be distinguished from each other; and as the species of the yellow wood is of a much greater use, before they fell a tree they satisfy themselves by a notch that a notch that it is of that species.

a

In estates of the second class, are the fagus castanea, or chesnut tree; quercus rubra, or red oak; quercus tinctoria, or black oak; laurus sassa fras, or sassafras; diospiros virginia, or persimon; liquidambar styraciflua, or sweet gum; nyssa villosa, or gum tree, a tree which, in direct

The juglans pacane is found beyond the embouchure of the rivers Cumberland and Tennessea, whence they sometimes bring it to the markets at Lexinton. This tree does not grow east of the Alleghany Mountains. The lobelia cardinalis grows abundantly in all the cool and marshy places, as well as the lebelia sphilitica. The latter is more common in Kentucky than in the other parts of the United States that I travelled over. The laurus bentoin, or spice wood, is also very numerous there. The two kinds of vaccinium and andromeda, which form a series of more than thirty species, all very abundant in the eastern states, seem in some measure excluded from those of the western and the chalky region, where we found none but the andromeda arborea.

In all the fertile parts covered by the forests, the soil is completely barren; no kind of herbage is seen except a few plants scattered here and there; and the trees are always far enough apart that a stag may be seen a hundred or a hundred and fifty fathoms off. Prior to the Europeans settling, the whole of this space, now bare, was covered with a species of the great articulated reed, called arundinaria macrosperma, or cane, which is in the woods from three to four inches diameter, and grows seven or eight feet high; but in the swamps and marshes that border the Mississippi it is upward of twenty feet. Although it often freezes in Kentucky, from five to six degrees, for several

days

days together, its foliage keeps always green, and does not appear to suffer by the cold.

Although the ginseng is not a plant peculiar to Kentucky, it is still very numerous there." This induces me to speak of it here. The ginseng is found in America, from Lower Canada as far as the state of Georgia, which comprises an extent of more than fifteen hundred miles. It grows chiefly in the mountainous regions of the Alleghanies, and is by far more abundant as the chain of these mountains incline south west. it is also found in the environs of New York and Philadelphia, as well as in that part of the northern states situated between the mountains and the sea. It grows upon the declivity of the hills, in the cool and fhady places, where the soil is richest. A man car not pull up above eight or nine pounds of fresh Toots per day. These roots are always less than an inch in diame ter, even after fifteen years' growth, if by any means we can judge of it with certitude by the number of impressions that are to be seen round the upper part of the neck of the roor, produced by the stalks that succeed each other annually. The shape of these roots is generally elliptical; and whenever it is biforked, which is very rare, one of the divisions is always thicker and longer than the other. The seeds of the ginseng are of a brilliant red, and fastened to each other. Every foot seldom yields more than two or three. They are very similar in shape and size to the wild honey suckle. When they are disencumbered of the substance that envelopes them, they are flat and semicircular. Their taste is more spicy, and not so bitter as the root. A month or two after they are gathered they grow and it is probable to the

rancidity which in course of time the seed attains, we must attribute the difficulty there is in rearing them when they are kept too long. They are full ripe from the 15th of September to the 1st of October. I gathered about half an ounce of them, which was a great deal, considering the difficulty there is in procuring them.

It was a French missionary who first discovered the ginseng in Ca. nada. When it was verified that this plant was the same as that which grows in Tartary, the root of which has such valuable quali ties in the eyes of the Chinese, it became an article of trade with China. For some time after its discovery the root was sold for its weight in gold; but this lucrative trade was but of short duration. The ginseng exported from America was so badly prepared, that it fell very low in price, and the trade almost entirely ceased. How ever, for some time past it has been rather better. Though the Americans have been so long deprived of this beneficial trade, it can only be attributed to the want of precaution that they used either in the gathering or preparation of the ginseng. In Chinese Tartary this gathering belongs exclusively to the emperor; it is done only by his orders, and they proceed in it with the greatest care. It commences in autumn, and continues all the winter, the epoch when the root has acquired its full degree of maturity and perfection; and by the means of a very simple process, they render it almost transpa

third of its bulk, and nearly half its weight. These causes have contributed in lowering its value. It is only gathered in America by the inhabitants whose usual occupations afford them leisure, and by the sportsmen, who, with their carabine, provide themselves, for this purpose, with a bag and a pick axe. The merchants settled in the interior of the country purchase dried ginseng at the rate of ten pence per pound, and sell it again at from eighteen pence to two shillings, at the sea-ports. I have never heard particularly what quantity of it was exported annually to China, but I think it must exceed twenty five to thirty thousand pounds weight. Within hese four or five years this trade has been very brisk. Several per. sons begin even to employ the means made use of by the Chinese to make the root transparent. This process, long since described in several works, is still a secret which is sold for four hundred dollars in Kentucky. The ginseng thus prepared is purchased at six or seven dollars per pound, by the merchants at Philadelphia, and Is, they say, sold at Canton for fifty or a hundred, according to the quality of the roots. Again, the profits must be very considerable, since there are people who export it themselves from Kentucky to China.

They have again, in Kentucky and the western country, the same animals that inhabit those parts east of the mountains, and even Canada: but, a short time after the settling of the Europeans, several species of them wholly dis. appeared, particularly the elks and bisons. The latter, notwithstand ing, were more common there than in any other part of North AmeThe non-occupation of the country, the quantity of rushes and wild peas, which supplied

rica.

them abundantly with food the whole year round; and the licks (places impregnated with salt, as I have before mentioned) are the causes that kept them there. Their number was at that time so considerable, that they were met in flocks of a hundred and fifty to two hundred. They were so far from being ferocious, that they did not fear the approach of the huntsmen, who sometimes shot them solely for the sake of having their tongue, which they looked upon as a delicious morsel. At four years old they weigh from twelve to fourteen hundred weight; and their flesh, it is said, is preferable to that of the ox. At present there are scarcely any from Ohio to the river Illinois. They have nearly deserted these parts. and strayed to the right bank of the Mississippi.

The only species of animals thar are still common in the country are the following, viz. the deer, bear, wolf, red and grey fox, wild cat, racoon, opossum, and three or four kinds of squirrels.

The animal to which the Americans give the name of wild cat is the Canadian lynx, or simply a different species; and it is through mistake that several authors have advanced that the true wild cat, as they look upon to be the original of the domestic species, either existed in the United States, or more northerly.

The racoon, or ursus lotor, is about the size of a fox, but nor so tall, and more robust. Taken young, it very soon grows tame, and rays in the house, where it catches mice similar to a car. The name of lotor is very appropriate, as the animal retires in preference in the hollow trees that grow by the side of creeks of small rivers that run through the swamp; and in these sorts of marshes it is most generally found. It is most common in the southern and western