negal. The population amounts to between 6 and 7,000 souls; blacks and mulattoes, freemen and slaves. The length of the island is about three quarters of a league; its breadth is from 120 to 250 toises. As the inhabitants possess no territory on the Continent, they live entirely by trade. The fort is in bad condition, and contains but few guns. On the sea-side are three batteries of heavy metal; but the bar is its chief protection, for large vessels cannot pass it. Formerly, there were gun-boats. The garrison consists of 243 men, called the " African Bataillon ;" thirty men were detached to the Island of Gorée, and four or five to the Island of Gambia, in the Sierra Leone river. A seventh part of the garrison dies annually. The governor is also head of the civil department; an institution very injurious to the welfare of the colony.

Fort Podor, about 60 leagues distant from the Island of Senegal, on the Elephant-tooth Island (Isle au Morphil): it protects a village containing 2,000 negroes, but the situation is not favourable; the trade, on that account, was so trifling, that it has lately been abandoned.

Fort St. Joseph, in the Galam country, lies nearly 150 leagues above Podor, on the Senegal river, and three days journey from the gold mines, in the county of Bambuk. This fort was established to protect a market, held annually in October or November, according to the rise of the Senegal. For, like the Nile, and most of the African rivers, the Senegal has its periodical rise. It begins to fill from June to November, and then decreases till the month of May. In August, September, and October, the waters are at their height; there is likewise the rainy and sickly season. At low water the river is navigable for ships of 100 to 200 tons, to the distance of only about twelve leagues above Podor. When full, one may go up as far as Galam. In July, travellers leave Senegal. Durand, the author's predecessor, went by land to Galam, in July, 1786; and performed his journey in 22 days.

The fort barters gold for European goods, (particularly, salt and brandy), and millet, for the consumption of the inhabitants of Senegal. The great distance, and the mortality, have obliged the French to quit that settlement. The author reckons the annual revenue of the gold mines, at 75,000 crowns; of which 10,000 went to Senegal. Since the limitation of the slave-trade, this settlement has suffered great disadvantages. The annual exportation of gum from Senegal, amounts to nearly 1,200,000 lbs. ; the English buy from 6 to 700,000 lbs. every year. Formerly 1,200 slaves, and between 20 and 25,000 lbs. of ivory were annually sold. The imports were: common linens and muslins; sinall iron and glass wares; coarse gunpowder,

fire-arms, a little common scarlet cloth, brandy, molasses, sugar, and some naval stores for the coasting vessels.

The island of Gorée in 15° N. lat. A small barren rock, about a league from the main below Cape Verd, with some very weak fortifications; 2,000 inhabitants, blacks and mulatoes; partly freemen and partly slaves; who live solely by the. slave-trade. Gorée produces nothing; not even water and wood; but there is a very secure anchoring ground and a small natural bason where ships may be repaired-the only one on the coast from Mogador to the Gold-coast, where, above all, a large bar impedes the landing, even of boats. The inhabitants carry on an exclusive coasting-trade as far as the river Gambia, in slaves, oxen, and millet.

The Gambia. Some miserable mud-hovels, without means of defence even against the natives; a resident, who has a salary of 300 crowns, and three or four black sailors: these constitute the whole of the French settlement here. The sailors are too ignorant to pilot vesesls in the dangerous mouth of the Gambia. From 2 to 3,000 slaves are annually exported; a small quantity of gold, and double the quantity of ivory, which is received from Senegal; log-wood, and wood for cabinet makers, and a great deal of very impure wax. Five-sixths of these exports are taken by the English. The imports are much the same with those of Senegal, and Gorée; however, we must add, the coarse cottons of Rouen and Nantes, coral manufactured at Marseilles, and wrought amber from Holland.

The river Casamanca belongs to the Portuguese. The banks must be very fertile; for, in seasons of scarcity, great quantities of good rice are exported from thence.

The cluster of islands, called Bisagos in 11° N. lat., are exclusively frequented by the Portuguese. The French government had them investigated in 1788.

Loss islands. About thirteen years ago, a sailor from Havre de Grace settled there, and was of great service to French vessels in procuring them provisions. Some Englishmen have also settled in the islands, on account of the slave-trade.

It is a very ancient custom in Africa, to treat prisoners of war as slaves. The author even asserts, that Europeans found the slavetrade in full force in Africa, and that, therefore, they did not establish it. The negroes of Senegal lead a most active and laborious life; the black sailors, or Laptots, for example, perform laborious services which no white man could stand. But the negroes on the main are very indolent and careless their husbandry is at a very low ebb, and their mechanics worse. This difference is the more striking, because, Senegal is re

cruited from the inhabitants of the continent. In Senegal they shew great activity and industry; but as soon as they return to their native country they abandon themselves to apathy and indolence. The cause proceeds from the uncertainty of all kinds of property; from a wandering life, prompted on all sides by insidiousness; from constant wars and plundering; causes which have greatly increased and strengthened that melancholy traffic. A general abolition of the slavetrade would restore civilization and happiness among these people, and a flourishing agriculture would supply the French ships with rich and unexceptionable cargoes. The author, here, has not overlooked the dangers of a sudden emancipation of the house-slaves in Senegal: he proposes the same method that is said to have succeeded very well in North America, namely, to liberate slaves after a certain period of servitude; and, at the same time, to allow of hiring negroes from the interior, for a stated term of years. The author has treated very diffusely of the future culture of the country with regard to its different parts, and the various qualities of the inhabitants.

SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF PROFESSOR

CAMPER.

[Partly abstracted from his " Eloge," by M. Vicq-D'Azyr, delivered to the Académie Française. Inserted in the Œuvres de Vicq-D'Azyr. Vol. 1. p. 305.]

This learned anatomist was born at Levden, May 11, 1722. He was son of the Rev. Florent Camper, and of Catherine Ketting, born at Surat, but of Dutch parentage. His grandfather was a physician at Leyden, where his family had long filled the most honourable posts of the magistracy. The father of our professor was a man of learning, and intimate with those learned men Boërrhaave, s'Gravesande, Musschenbroek, the Chevalier Moor, and others. Among these was our young student brought up. He was of a vigorous constitution. He early studied the arts of design and painting, which afterwards proved extremely useful to him, and enabled him to convey his ideas of form, &c. with precision, by his own hand. Laborde, a famous mathematician, taught him geometry. He was instructed in his art by Gaubíus, Van Rooyen, and Albinus. His inaugural dissertations, when admitted M.D. were commended by Baldinger, and collected by Haller. In the first he appears as a partizan of Smith on Vision: in the second he describes the canal godronné of Petit, in the eyes of animals: in both, he manifests his union of anatomical knowledge with that of general nature, and of the fine arts.

M. Camper having lost his parents, determined, in 1748, to travel; and visited

England; where his talents were admired by Mead, Parsons, Pitcairn, Pringle, and Mortimer. William Hunter assisted his anatomical researches; Smellie taught him midwifery, Sharp surgery, Elliot botany. Here also he learned inoculation. He studied electricity with Watson, magnetism with Knight, the microscope with Baker, and astronomy with Short. At Oxford he heard Bradley on the central forces: at Cambridge he visited the famous optician Smith, and Walker, of Trinity, who was visited by all strangers, partly because he lived in the house which Newton had occupied. At Paris Camper found Winslow, the chief of anatomists; among physicians, Astruc, Ferrin, Sanchez, and others; among surgeons, LeDran, Petit, and Quesnay: among naturalists, Reaumur and Buffon; among botanists, Bernard de Jussieu, and many more Savans. At Louvain, he examined the anatomical cabinet of Bils at Hamburgh, that of Kerkringius: he inspected, in the Sound, the famous Tower of Tycho Brahé. At Hanover, he became acquainted with Dr. Zimmerman; at Gottingen, with Michaelis, Heyne, Forster, Gmelin, Wrisberg, and Blumenbach. At Cassel, he saw Mr. Sommering's cabinet of preparations and at Berlin, he was well received by its numerous literati. M. Camper travelled often, and short journies at a time; because he desired to examine and reflect. Sometimes his children travelled with him; when they kept a journal in common, in which they all inserted their observations, whether on truths or errors, on projects or systems. He was acquainted with authors as well as with their works was a stranger at no academy, nor was any academy a stranger to him he took his place at London, at Paris, or at Berlin.

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There are two sources of instruction in science reading and observation. Books contain facts and reasonings; but the reader is never sure of what others have seen often, only the results are committed to writingnever the train of circumstances which characterize a subject. No wonder, then, that a reader forms his opinions with hesitation, and is greatly subject to incertitude. But, the man who has drawn his knowledge from observation, speaks decidedly from his own opinion, which he can explain in more than one way, and can illustrate by more than one comparison: such was M. Camper.

As all exanthematic diseases are capable of being inoculated, M. Camper established in Frizeland a society wholly occupied in inoculating cattle with epizootic diseases, intending to diminish their virulence. This patriotic attempt was long without success. length, a countryman, named Reinders, directed his attention to the fact, that calves, born of mothers which had recovered from

At

the disorder, received the inoculation, and went through the various stages of the malady without much hazard. M. Camper took the hint, and directed his talents accordingly, till he at length discovered, in 1777, a method which proved a public benefit: so that, whereas formerly two-thirds of the cattle infected were lost, now the loss became but three in a hundred.

M. Camper successively occupied the chairs of philosophy, anatomy, surgery, and physic, in the Universities of Francker, Austerdam, and Groninguen.

It is customary in Holland, and in Germany, that Professors deliver a discourse at cominencing their office. In one of these discourses, M. Camper examined the certainty of the art of physic; in another, the ideas formed on the subject of beauty; in a third, the advantage of anatomical knowledge in the science, whether moral or natural; in a fourth, he discussed the analogy between plants and animals. He also paid particular attention to the conformation of birds; and published his remarks on the presence of air in the interior cavities of their bones.

The lungs of birds adhere to the ribs, the motions of which must, for this reason, be compensated by those of the sternum; vesicles, full of air, formed of muscular membranes, are extended in the belly, along the bones of that part; orifices situated toward the head of the larger bones, which are not furnished with marrow, preserve a free communication between these and the lungs; and the air with which the system of bones is filled streams also under the skin, whence it passes into the quills, that are clothed with feathers! To what other wonders anatomists had discovered in the structure of birds, M. Camper hereby added that of the astonishing permeability of their organs; by which the whole body becomes a kind of living balloon, capable of expansion or contraction, at pleasure, directed by its own powers, every part whereof contains within itself an etherial fluid by which it is distended, and a force by which it is impelled. A wonderful masterpiece of buoyancy, mobility, suppleness! Man hardly comprehends its mechanism; and, in spite of his most daring experiments, it baffles the most skilful imitations devised by his ingenuity. Under other considerations, M. Camper described the changes produced by domesticity in the structure of birds.. In this state, they increase in size and weight: the extremities of their bones become rounded; the orifices destined to maintain the passage of air close, and, overcome by its dimensions, the bird, in servitude, loses all power of regaining its freedom.

Apes have, in the anterior part of the lajynx, a pouch, whether bony or membra

neous, which opens under the epiglottis. M. Camper, who discovered this hollow in the Oran-Otan, observed, that instead of being. single, as in the apes, it was double in this creature; and that it communicated with the larynx by two apertures. He proved that no other species know, had this conformation; and reading afterwards Galen's description of

the ape used by the ancients in their anatomical demonstrations, he recognized that subject in the oran-otan; Galen noticing expressly these bags, and these apertures. M. Camper also discovered in the rein-deer a membraneous bag, placed under the skin of the neck, and opening into the larynx; but the intention of these bags, in animals so different, is unknown.

It was long doubted whether fishes possessed the sense of hearing. The experi ments of Rondeletius, of the Abbé Nollet, and many others, proving the fact, the question still remained to ascertain where the organ was seated. M. Camper examined this organ in several classes of fish.

In cartilaginous fishes three semi-circular bony passages enclose three others of the same shape, but of a cartilaginous substance. Between these passages is a sort of purse, the matter of which is elastic; in this are contained two white bodies, of a chalky consistence; and over these the nervous pulp is spread, for the reception of that impulse which produces the idea of sound.

In spinous fishes, the little bones which the elastic purse contains are three in number: a muscular apparatus stretches this purse, at pleasure; and none of the three semi-circular passages has any protecting covering. An ex. terior aperture, known to Du Verney, and described by Monro, permits a free passage to the sonorous undulations. But this organ possesses neither auditory canal, nor membrana tympani (the drum of the ear), the existence of these parts being restricted to animals which live in the air; nor do we find the cocklea (or spiral), which is peculiar to man, and to animals. Reduced to its most simple construction, the organ of hearing consists in a few small bones surrounded by

nerve.

That class of creatures which are themselves nothing but pulp, as it were, cannot receive impressions from sound, since they have no solid part wherein the sonorous vibration may impinge, and be regulated. The flesh of these, in proportion as the number of organs is diminished, becomes more flexible, more gelatinous, more palpitating; and this excess of mobility, no doubt, compensates in them the diminution of sensibility. In this excellent discourse on the organ of hearing in fishes, intent on determining with accuracy the origin of the nerves, M. Camper has described the brain; in which he includes the

lobes. M. Vicq-D'Azyr thinks, on the contrary, that in all animals, the mass of brain, deprived of lobes, is reduced to the tubercles of the centre, whence the nerves issue.

M. Camper also described the anatomy of a young clephant, that of the head of a double-horned rhinoceros from Africa, that of a didelphus from Asia, which differs considerably from that of America, that of the dromedary, that of the Cape ant-eater, that of the crocodile of the Ganges, and some parts of a whale. He also collected a great number of fossil bones; and, by his study of comparative anatomy, he was convinced that there really have existed various animals, no longer met with, such as that enormous quadruped whose remains are found on the Lanks of the Ohio; as well as others allied to species still existing, but of vastly enlarged proportions; e. gr. the elk with greatly divided horns. M. Camper was not satisfied with studying the human frame as an anatomist, and comparing it with the conformations of animals, he directed his knowledge to assist the arts of design, and composed a course of anatomy suited to painters; to whom he taught this science during many years, in the amphitheatre of the School for Painting at Amsterdam. He procured, from the shores of Asia and Africa, the skulls of Negroes; and, in measuring the facial line of these, he supposed it to be more inclining among the blacks than among the whites. In tracing this line still further, and giving it different degrees of obliquity, he exhibited at pleasure a human countenance, a quadruped's head, or a bird's bill. See this principle illustrated in our review of Mr. Bell's Anatomy of Surgery.

mediately to suspend pulsation to the extremity of the nieber. Surgery has taken advantage of these observations.

M. Camper suffered himself to be diverted from the completion of this great work by writing for the prizes proposed by several academies. He gained that propo ed by the Academy of Haerlem, by an essay on the treatment of infants: to this he added another, on the organ of hearing in the whale; and a third, on the causes of hernia in new-bora infants. Other prizes he received from the Academy of Dijon, for his researches on specific medicines-frem that of Toulouse, for his treatise on inoculation;-from that of Lyons, for a discourse on diseases of the breast ;--from that of Surgery at Paris, for his thoughts on the influence of air, sleep, watching, and the different excretions, in the treatment of surgical diseases. By another memoir, he contributed to banish plaisters in the cure of ulcers; in which he recommended the use of vegetable astringents. He also published, in the volumes of this institution, remarks on Smellie's forceps, and on Rookhuysen's lever; also on a bandage for restraining hernia. Edinburgh published his memoir on the formation of callus after fractures. Moreover, he collect his observations on the divers kinds of serous effusions; and pointed out a new method of penetrating into the articulations, whether those of the knee, or those of the cotyloidal cavity, when filled with serum: this collection received the prize proposed by the Royal Society of Medicine at Paris, on the subject of the nature and treatment of dropsy.

At the same time he enriched the works of Buffon, Pallas, and Monro, with his discoveries in natural history and anatomy. He performed the section of the pubis on the females of quadrupeds. He recommended the operation of cutting for the stone at twice. He published observations on the ozena of horses, and on the origin of the animalcule which inhabit the liver of sheep. He reported to the Society of Agriculture at Groningen his experiments on the cultivation of

lle was associated with every learned body; and was the first after Boerhaave which the French Royal Society of Sciences inserted on the cautious list of its foreign associates.

Two of his dissertations, in particular, ought to be noticed. In the first, the author enquires, why man is subject to a greater number of diseases than animals? Is this a matter of enquiry by those who live among men? Animals remain faithful to the dictates of nature: men, on the contrary, counteract her laws. They confound days, times, seasons, and climates. In this confusion all is constraint; in this disorder all is excess: every where we see labour