in their children. Thus strong animal propensities, selfish feelings, and moral sentiments, may severally be transmitted; or faculties calculated to excel in the mechanic arts, fine arts, and poetry, or those better adapted to the cultivation of literature, science, and philosophy. These laws involve interests of the greatest magnitude, and cannot in their proper place receive too much attention. They have repeatedly been alluded to in the Journal, but will be discussed more fully in its pages hereafter.

Mental Derangement.-The following curious case of insanity we copy from the Philadelphia Gazette of July 7. The mental phenomena in the present instance are entirely inexplicable on any other principle whatever, except that of a plurality of organs to the brain. Only a few faculties appear to have been deranged; Combativeness, Destructiveness, and Cautiousness, were undoubtedly most affected. The intellectual faculties as a class, it appears, were unimpaired. The facts in the case were as follows:

"Some thirty years ago, a beautiful lady, the only daughter of a noble house in the north of Germany, from having been one of the most cheerful girls, became subject to fits of the deepest melancholy. All the entreaties of her parents were insufficient to draw from her the reason of it; to their affection, she was cold-to their caresses, rude; and though society failed to enliven her, she bore her part in it with a power and a venom of sarcasm that were as strange to her former character as they were unbecoming her sex and youth. The parents contrived, during her temporary absence from home, to investigate the contents of her writingdesk, but no indications of a concealed or disappointed passion were to be found, and it was equally clear that no papers had been removed. The first news they heard of her was, that the house in which she was visiting had been burnt to the ground; that she had been saved with dif ficulty, though her room was not in that part of the building where the fire had commenced; that her escape had at first been taken for granted, and that when her door was burst open, she was found still dressed and seated in her usual melancholy attitude, with her eyes fixed on the ground.

"She returned home neither altered in manner or changed in demeanor, and as painfully brilliant in conversation when forced into it. Within two months of her return, the house was burnt to the ground, and her mother perished in the flames; she was again found in the same state as on the former occasion, did not alter her deportment upon hearing the fate of her mother, made no attempt to console her father, and replied to the condolence of her friends with a bitterness and scorn almost demoniacal. The father and daughter removed to a spa for change of scene. On the night of their arrival, the hotel was in flames; but this time the fire began in her apartment, for from her window were the sparks first seen to issue, and again was she found dressed, seated, and in a reverie. The hotel was the property of the sovereign of the little state in which the spa was situated.

"An investigation took place; she was arrested, and at once confessed that on each of the three occasions she had been the culprit; that she could not tell wherefore, except that she had had an irresistible longing to set houses on fire. Each time she had striven against it as long as she could, but she was unable to withstand the temptation; that this longing first supervened a few weeks after she had been seized with a sudden depression of spirit; that she felt a hatred to all the world, but

had strength to refrain from oaths and curses against it. She is at this moment in a mad house, where she was at first allowed some liberty, but after an exhibition of homicidal monomania towards a child, of a ferocity most appalling, it was found necessary to apply the severest restraint. She still possesses her memory, her reasoning powers, her petulant wit, and observes the most scrupulous delicacy."

Periodicals and Phrenology.-The North American Review for July, has fourteen pages devoted to a review of Dr. Morton's Crania Americana. This notice is decidedly favourable to the work-compliments it highly as a production on natural history, but is entirely silent as to its important bearings on phrenology. This review contains only one single allusion to the science, and that is, in the writer's opinion, against it; whereas, many hundreds of facts and arguments, far more striking and palpable, might be adduced from the Crania Americana in favour of phrenology. The ancient Peruvians are cited, by the reviewer, as having only average-sized heads, and yet were far advanced in civilisation; at some future time, we may show in what their civilisation consisted, and that it was of such a character as to be in perfect accordance with their cranial developements.

The Christian Examiner for May, published at Boston, contained a notice of the Crania Americana, similar in character to that in the North American Review, though much shorter.

The American Journal of Science and Arts for July, contains an able and extended plea in behalf of phrenology, from the pen of its editor, Professor Silliman. This article, vindicating the claims of phrenology in the first scientific Journal in the United States, is no less creditable to its conductor, than just to the cause of truth and science.

The two last numbers of the Western Medical Journal, published at Louisville, Ky. contain a critical and extended review of Morton's Crania Americana, from the pen of Professor Caldwell. As the subject is treated in strictly a phrenological manner, accompanied with many interesting and important remarks on the science, we shall copy, at the first convenient opportunity, some parts of this review into the Journal.

The Gentleman's Magazine for August, has an article "on the Humbug of Phrenology, by Russell Jarvis. Esq." The character of this article is such, that we consider it entirely unworthy of notice in our pages.

Application of Phrenology to Marriage. In a small work, entitled Philosophy of Courtship and Marriage"-first published in Great Britain, and recently reprinted in this country-the author, after giving some wise and appropriate directions in this matter, thus introduces the subject of phrenology :

"A Xantippe may rouge and pearl-powder her face into the semblance of the meekly patient Griselda, but she cannot obliterate the organs of Combativeness and Destructiveness. The fair infidel may play the outward devotee to perfection, but all her surface orisons will not fill up the fatal gap in the organ of Reverence. I sincerely pity the anti-phrenologist for many reasons, but for none more than this, that he throws away the best and most effectual guiding-staff through the quicksands of courtship and inarriage. Combe and Cupid should ever be fellow-travellers; and by trusting in Gall, you may escape wormwood."