When the heats came on during the summer, the exhalations were rank and offensive.

Quartered on such damp ground, and breathing such a noxious at mosphere, the men soon became sickly. And this predisposition to disease was the more serious, inasmuch as the officers and soldiers came chiefly from more elevated and northerly climes, and had never

been seasoned to southern service.

. The situation of the army was the more calamitous, by reason of an emission to organize the medical staff, and to establish a regular hospital department. They who fell sick were not furnished with the usual accommodations. There were not even medicines in the camp to be dispensed to those who stood in need of them. Generally des titute of nurses, remedies, and attendance, the diseased recovered by strength of constitution or sunk under their complicated miseries.

But their condition was further aggravated. The beef and pork. of their rations were remarked to be often in a corrupting and stinking state. Whether the salt had been too sparingly applied to them, or was of a weak and faulty quality, is not final y settled; but so it was, the meat was disgusting and unwholesome.

Fresh provisions were seldom afforded to the men; and the few that were issued were poor and scanty. There seemed to be no regular organization of the commissary's department.

As might have been predicted, the men became diseased, and died so rapidly, that orders were given to quit the station, and move the survivors to the higher country, near to Natchez. The prevailing forms of diseases in the camp were diarrhæas, dysenteries, remitting and intermitting fevers. In process of time, also, the scurvy mingled with the other maladies. This scorbutic diathesis manifested itself by swelled gums and loosened teeth. The soldiers, as surgeon Cutter declared to Dr. Mitchill, could frequently extract sound teeth from their gums with their fingers. Ülcers broke out in the mouth, tonsils and throat, of a most malignant character; and ate away all before them. The cheeks have been sometimes perforated quite through by this destructive ulceration; and even the large blood-vessels of the neck corroded so as to discharge their contents, and terminate life by sudden hæmorrhage.

In the House of Representatives an inquiry was instituted to investigate this miserable business; and Mr. Newton, from the committee appointed to inquire into the causes of the mortality which prevailed in the detachment of the army ordered for the defence of New-Orleans, made a long report, accompanied with various depositions and other papers. It concludes as follows:

"The committee, from a knowledge which they have acquired of the climate of New Orleans and of the country surrounding it, and from the facts stated in the depositions, are of opinion that the mortality in the detachment ordered to New-Orleans is to be ascribed to the following causes :

"1. The detachment consisting of new levies.

"2. The insalubrity of the climate, the summer and autumn of 1809 being unusually sickly.

"3. In

嗤

3. To the nature of the ground on which the detachment was encamped at Terre aux Boeuf, and the detention of it at that place during the whole of the summer, contrary, as the committee conceive, to the instructions contained in the letter of the Secretary of War bearing date the 30th of April, 1809.

4. To the want of sound and wholesome provisions and of ve getables the want of an hospital, and of hospital stores and me 'dicines.

"5. The excessive fatigues to which the troops were subjected in clearing, ditching, and draining the ground on which they were encamped.

"6. To the want of repose during the night, owing to the troops not being provided with bars or nets, to protect them from the annoyance of musquitoes.

7. The want of cleanliness in the camp, the nature of the position fendering it almost impracticable to prese ve it.

8. The sick and well being confined to the same tents, which neither protected them sufficiently from the heat of the sun, nor kept them dry from dews and rains.”

Curious Effect of Lightning upon

Lady's golden Chain and the Skin of her Neck.

REMARKABLE operation of the electric fluid is related in the "Journal des Dames et des Modes," for 20th June, 1809. On the 1st June, a house kept as a boarding-school for girls, at Bourdeaux,

was struck by lightning; as was also one of the ladies. Being put to bed, she did not recover her voice for two hours after the accident, nor her recollection before the end of six hours. Nor had she the faintest remembrance of what had befallen her.

A chain of gold, which she wore around her neck, was melted and oxyded by the lightning. Her whole neck was covered with a black laced band. About her neck there are seven burns, resembling the marks produced by the application of a hot iron. Their surface was of a purple colour. A stripe passed in a zig-zag direction, from the left side of the bosom to the arm-pit of the same side, and there ended in a round spot equally purplish. On the left arm was found a similar stripe, extending below the bend of the arm where the part was covered by the clothing.

The purple hue resembled a skin coloured by a solution of gold, and could only be ascribed to the oxyd of that metal. The zig-zag stripes indicated the passage of the lightning, conducted by the gold, which was melted and oxyded in its passage. The round spot which terminates the stripe at the arm-pit, would seem to have been occasioned by a longer continuance of the gold, and of the fulminating agent upon that part.

Crawford's Translation of the "Fathers of Physic."

JOHN CRAWFORD, M. D. of Baltimore, proposes a translation of Baron Haller's Latin edition of the "Artis Medica Principes." A paragraph from his printed prospectus will give an idea of this Jaudable and spirited design.

"The indefatigable and illustrious Haller has given a new edition "in Latin of Hippocrates, Aretæus, Alexander, Aurelianus, Celsus and Rhazes, which is contained in ten volumes octavo. It is designed to translate every thing contained in these which can con "tribute to convey any useful instruction; but, in doing this, a slavish "regard to the language of the author will be dispensed with; im"portant information will be alone regarded. Thus the quantity of "matter will be considerably reduced, and the expence proportionably "diminished. So modified, the work would be, perhaps, more ac "ceptable than the original, even to those who possess, and are well "acquainted with its contents."

MONTHLY BOTANICAL REPORT.

We have seen, with much pleasure, an essay upon the natural order of the Scitaminea, by Dr. Roxburgh, printed at Calcutta. The doctor has for the most part adopted the genera of Mr. Roscoe, but from his long residence in the East Indies, and his situation in the Company's botanic garden, he has had a much greater opportunity of examining numerous species of these plants in a living state, than could possibly fall to the lot of any botanist resident in Europe. He has of course availed himself of these opportunities in making some corrections and many additions to Mr. Roscoe's essay. For want of the plates, however, with which this work is to be illustrated, but which are not yet arrived, we cannot at present make any critical examination of it.

In the volume of the Hortus Kewensis, recently published, we observe, in referring to the Botanical Magazine, the author has been careful to distinguish, by his mode of quoting that work, between the original work, as published by Mr. Curtis himself, and its continuation by his successors. In the former case the work is always quoted Curtis Magaz. in the latter, Botan. Magaz. [In the explanation of Botan. Magaz. in the list of books quoted, we observe a trifling error, James instead of John Sims, ,which ought, however, to be corrected, as both names occur in the list of London physicians. J. Bellenden Ker is very properly added with a parenthesis, as one of the authors of this work; for though his name does not occur in the title-page, very nearly half of the articles are from his pen, and are marked with the letter G. Gawler being his name at the time he commenced writing in the magazine.] When any new name or specific character is adopted into the Hortus Kewensis from the Botanical Magazine, the names of Ker or Sims are added.

We

We observe little new in the class Diandria, except the addition of new species, the specific characters of which are for the most part taken from Wildenow, Vahl, &c. without alteration. We were rather sur prized to observe that the number of species of Veronica is just the same (37) as in the prior edition. In Justicia the species are increased from 9 to 28; in Zizephora from 3 to 6; Salvia from 42 to 59; Piper from 5 to 17; Valeriana from 12 to 19.

In the class Triandria much interesting and new matter occurs. This class contains the principal part of the natural order of Ensala, a family that has been much studied by Mr. Bellenden Ker, and explained at considerable length in the Annals of Botany; and the species more' fully described in the Botanical Magazine.

Mr. Dryander has adopted the whole of Mr. Ker's genera, but the characters of the latter being prolix in the extreme, not formed at all in the concise manner of Linnæus, and rather descriptions than definitions, he has, in a masterly manner, framed new generic and specific characters upon the Linnæan plan; certainly with sufficient brevity, yet, as far as we have had an opportunity of examining, adequate to the task of distinguishing the known species one from another. The discovery of additional species may indeed hereafter render these definitions inefficient; for it is impossible to frame perfect characters till all the species are known, the discovery of a new species possessing the same charac ters as used in the definition of one already known, yet different from it, will of course make it necessary to alter the specific phrase of the latter so as to exclude the new found species also.

In this class many of the genera have received a great addition of species since the prior edition. Crocus, which in that had only two varieties, in this contains nine species, of which six flower in the spring, and three in the autumn. lxia, being divided into several new genera, viz, Trichonema, Glissorhiza, Hesperantha, Sparaxis, Anomatheca, Tritonia, Babiana, Lapeyronsia, Pardanthus, and Ixia Proper, is reduced in the latter from 18 to 13 species, but increased on the whole to 52. Gladiolus is increased from 10 to 23 species, though some of the former are removed to other genera. There are ten species of Watsonia, a genus originally framed by Miller, and established by Ker, most of which were before referred to Gladiolus or Ixia. Morea and Iris have undergone a new arrangement by Mr, Ker, which is generally followed here, and twenty species are added to the two genera. In Marica Mr. Dryander has deviated from Mr. Ker, the species enumerated by the former are only Norihiana, martinicensis, and paludosa; plicata, striata, and californica of the latter, are probably reserved to be subjoined to Sisyrinchium, a genus according to Ker not to be distinguished from Marica, but arranged in the Linnæan system under Gynandria triandria. It will be evident from the above short account that much new matter occurs in Triandria Monogynia, and the whole appears to have been very carefully got up by the author, and will, we doubt not, be highly acceptable to botanists in general, abroad as well as at home."

In the same class are the natural orders of Cyperoidea and Graminee. Amongst the former we observe that Vahl's new genus of Rhyncospora is adopted, which includes Schoenus albus and fuscus, of Linnæus. Many new species are added to most of the genera in both orders.

In the class Tetrandria occurs such part of the natural order of Fro teacea as have hermaphrodite flowers; the Linnæan system unfortunately demands the separation of this family; those genera which have monoecious or dioecious flowers are of course postponed to the classes Mona cia and Diecia. In this order Mr. Dryander has entirely followed Mr. Brown's essay on the Proteacea in the 10th volume of the Transactions of the Linnean Society, with scarcely any alteration, further than the term corolla is adopted for the calyx of Mr. Brown and Jussieu, and here and there a superfluous word is omitted. Undoubtedly our author could not have followed a better guide than Mr. Brown, whose know, ledge of the proteacée is greater than that of any man: yet we cannot but feel a wish that Mr. Dryander had undertaken to revise the specific cha racters, and given them more of the Linnæan terseness and precision, We acknowledge that the task would be difficult, for in a perfectly natural order, where the species of a genus are numerous, the difference is frequently marked rather by a number of points of slight deviation, than by any striking feature; nevertheless, though not easy to be accomplished, we do think that had he undertaken it, all obstacles would have been surmounted by his abilities. **

To show how great a number of new plants of this family have of late years been introduced into this country, we need only observe that the former edition of the work under review contained only twenty four species, whereas the new one contains one hundred and fourteen, divided into seventeen genera; though a considerable proportion of the family are deferred to a future part.

With the genera of Mr. Brown more liberty has been taken; all of them have undergone a revision. To shew the mode in which this is done we shall transcribe the generic character Protea as given by both authors. By Brown. Calix bipartibilis inæqualis, labii latioris laminis staminiferis cohærentibus. Stylus subulatus. Stigma angustius, cylindraceum. "Nux undique barbata, stylo persistenti caudata." ceptaculum, commune paleis abbreviatis persistentibus. Involucrum im bricatum persistens. By Dryander. Petala quatuor, quorum tria su perne cohærencia. Anthera apicibus concavis corollæ immersæ. Nus supera, undique barbata, stylo persistente coronata.

In the remainder of the class Tetrandria we observe that the specific characters are in general the same as in Willdenow, except in a few species not found in that author; three or four in the genus Pethos, and the whole of Struthiola, for which new specific phrases have been adopted.

In Petandria Monogynia, (not yet finished, as the volume ends with Strychnos), there is a number of this species enumerated, which have been introduced since the former edition; in most of these the specific characters of Willdenow are followed. The only deviations we have observed are as follow: yo

Cynoglossum sylvaticum is adopted from Dr. Smith; Echium grandiflorum from Ventenat; E. parviflorum from Roth; Symphytum asper rimum, and Onosma taurica from Sims. Echium fastuosum, native of the Canary Islands, is new. In Androsace villosa, Dr. Sims is followed, and Menyanthes exaltata and Lysimachia quadriflora are adopted from

the