and the fronts of the buildings which form its sides will be supported on pillars of Marmora marble, so as to form cool porticoes to promenade all round, sheltered from sun and rain. The first impression then of the building will be on entering, that of an elegant, cheerful, airy, edifice, calculated rather to inspire pleasing thoughts, than those gloomy and depressing reflections which other Lazarettoes cause, sinking the mind and predisposing it to any complaint. The left wing will be dedicated to an infirmary and its melancholy appendages. It will be divided into an hospital, having two large wards, to which those actually infected will be immediately conveyed, and probationary apartments, where those who have been compromised with the sick will be placed. If any one or more of a family have been attacked, they will be removed to the hospital, and the rest who have been in constant communication with them, confined in this division of the Lazaretto, so as to have no communication with those in the other apartments who are not compromised; contiguous to the hospital will be the burying-ground, but sufficiently divided from it by a wide passage and walls. This receptacle of actual distemper and death will be properly placed in a compartment of the building which has no communication with the rest, and will be approached by separate entrances. The whole edifice will be surrounded with double walls, having a deep fosse interposed between them. This precaution is necessary to prevent any communication from the outside. It is a frequent practice with people in quarantine to throw their letters, &c. over the wall, and so circulate compromised or suspected articles abroad: any such attempt will be rendered abortive, as the thing attempted to be conveyed will fall into the ditch. Such is the plan of this establishment which the Turks are now about for the first time to adopt; not only will it be a new era in their history, but as it will be the completest thing of the kind, it is not impossible that European nations may hereafter adopt it, and so take their plans for the prevention of the plague from those who for centuries would allow no precautions to be taken: many difficulties will no doubt occur at the commencement; the impossibility of preventing communications from the opposite sides of the narrow straits of the Bosphorus and Hellespont, when the plague rages in Asia or Europe; the natural indolence and apathy of the Turks; their long cherished principles of predestination, but above all, the expense of the establishment, will be great impediments to its speedy or effectual adoption. The cost of the Lazaretto will in the first instance be about 20,0001. and the general question here is, Where is the money to come from? The present period is, however, favourable to the establishment of this quarantine. There is no plague known to exist, at least in any extent, to excite attention or alarm in any part of the empire; but abroad, in countries which hold with Turkey a constant intercourse, it prevails to some extent. In parts of Persia it rages at present, and much merchandize from the infected places proceeds to Trebisonde, from whence they are imported by the Black Sea to Constantinople. A quarantine and the depuration of suspected goods at that latter place, would be an effectual protection to the capital against the introduction of the disease from that quarter. Again, Egypt is compromised, and a rest. similar precaution should be taken at Alexandria. The great complaint is, that pestilence is imported from those places to the capital, and, on the contrary, from the capital to those places. The establishment of the regulations proposed would at least set this question at The only objection of their immediate adoption arises from the war which has now broken out in Albania, and which occupies all the attention of the Turkish Government at this time. There is no man here who, like Cæsar, can attend to half-a-dozen things at once, and it is supposed that every thing will be suspended till this affair is set at rest. When that takes place, it is highly probable the proposed regulations will be established, particularly so as it is intended to have a tariff of expenses to be paid by persons and ships in quarantine, and the Turks will readily listen to any proposal, which not only will not cause to them any expense, but put money in their pockets. Yours, &c. P. S. The annexed plan of the intended Establishment. THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE; COMPRISING STRICTURES ON COMMANDER WOODLEY'S "DIVINE SYSTEM.” ،، -Men, conceited lords of all, Walk proudly o'er this pendent ball, Fond of their little spot below, Nor greater beings care to know, But think those worlds which deck the skies, THE Theory of the Universe, together with the primary laws of Nature, comprehended under the general term of astronomy, constitutes the noblest achievement of human intellect. It is grounded on physics and mathematics, the first treats of those laws of matter and motion which regulate the various phenomena of the creation, and the last, by investigating and determining the effects of those laws, raises new fabrics on a known basis; while the union of the two condenses the whole mass of facts and deductions into one common and useful series; opening to the contemplative philosopher, an intensely interesting glance into the means employed by Omnipotence for perpetuating the admirable structure. The leading quantities for the mathematical analysis of the heavens are simple in their conditions, for all the supposed deviations from a fixed order of recurrence, are but modifications of the governing principle which extends through the velocities, directions, and other motions of the celestial bodies, and are duly corrected by definite secular periods. These modifications, however, are nume rous and vast; and without hard study, and a knowledge of algebra beyond simple equations, the doctrine of the reciprocal influences must remain a sealed truth. Though the same plan and government are readily evident to the tyro, still the abstract view of the principles of celestial mechanism is not to be gained by any royal road: human knowledge is generally slow in its progress, and especially that which is founded on the various applications of mathematics. The very language of the Calculus, through which alone the directing Providence is to be traced, is not acquired without a more intense assiduity, than many are able to devote to the attainment of analytical science. Light breaks in but progressively upon these arcana, and is long in reaching the minds of the mass of mankind: neither Hieroglyphics, Eleusinian rites, nor the mysteries of the Cabiri, were more beyond the reach of the uninitiated in ancient times, than is at the present hour, that pure and transcendental knowledge which reveals the unspeakable sublimity by which we are surrounded, and our own comparative insignificance. With such exalted notions of the subject, we approach such discussions with becoming humility; nor indeed should we have now been drawn towards them, but for having had a volume put into our hands, entitled "The Divine System of the Universe, wherein the Hypothesis of the Earth's motion is refuted, and the true Basis of Astronomy laid down according to our sight, sense, and demonstration." It appears the joint labour of W. Woodley, Esq. a Commander in the Royal Navy, and Brothers, the redoubtable modern prophet. Of these joint-stock philosophers, we are assured that the first is a blunt sailor-a navi U. S. JOURN. No. 32. JULY 1831. 66 X ledge. If we do not believe God, whom are we to believe? Is it Pythagoras and Sir Isaac Newton? Their judgment was very weak, and their calculations are very false. My observations, and far superior experience to any they were able to pretend to, fully enable me to assert it."-Let it not be imagined that in extracting such ebullitions, it is our intention to turn sacred things into ridicule; it is by exposing those who profane them by imbecility and vanity, that we save religion itself from being carped at. If the declaimer had penetrated beyond the surface, and seized principles instead of words only, he could not have lost sight of the minute and never erring announcement of solar and lunar eclipses, of the beautiful accordance of Jupiter's satellites, and of the occultations of stars by the moon, all calculated on data yielded by the Newtonian "jugglery.' But we pause--aberration of intellect claims commiseration, therefore as to poor Brothers, requiescat in pace: " "No wild enthusiast ever yet could rest, Till half mankind were, like himself, possess'd." 66 The worthy Commander sturdily advocates the prophet's "systema Naturæ," because it agrees with his own; for on making experiment with those data, he says, "it came out abundantly to my satisfaction." He commences by the trite observation that, as no angle could be perceived as respecting the fixed stars," on a base of 190 millions of miles, therefore the earth must be stationary. In reply to this, their prodigious distance compared with the axis-major of the earth's annual orbit, is a sufficient answer. It is true, that Tycho thought it improbable they should be beyond Saturn, seven hundred times the distance of Saturn from the sun, without other stars intervening. But the distance cannot be less, since it is found that the annual parallax of none of the "fixed" stars amounts to two seconds of a degree. And as this is the angle under which the earth's orbit must consequently appear when viewed from them, it follows that the star and our orbit may be equal in magnitude! Had Tycho lived in these days, he would have learned that the planet Uranus, as well as many comets, move in orbits which extend beyond that of Saturn, into a part of that space which appeared to him so inconceivable. Many eminent astronomers have devoted their most skilful exertions to this subject, but the results, as yet, scarcely afford more than a mere approximation. The powerful aid of trigonometry, which has enabled us to determine the diameter and orbits of the planets of our own system, is insufficient for the remoteness of the "fixed" stars, and recourse has been had to measure their parallax by improved instruments, though hitherto without effect. Huygens attempted the investigation on the known principles of analogy, as considered in the proportion of light surfaces. Bradey, the prince of observers, thought that had the parallax of y Draconis amounted to a single second, he must have detected it; and it seemed to him, that, as it does not amount to this small quantity, it is consequently four hundred thousand times further from us than the sun. The same research was followed up by observations on double stars; it being justly surmised if these two bodies were at rest, their apparent distance from each would be slightly altered, according to the earth's position in its al course; and this incidentally led to ascertaining the motion of |