PROVINCIAL SOCIETIES, / <2$7 



rolling in a cylinder of brick orfione. When clofed and locked, 

 a due momentum being given at a proper elevation, it is eafy 

 to iee that^ their fpeed and fecurity muft far furpafs any other 

 mode of conveyance that we at prefent know of; and all that 

 would be neceflary in addition to the machine would be to have 

 proper beds of land or wool bags to blunt their projectile force 

 at the end of their career. 



I (hall not at prefent enter into the difcuflion of the con- 

 duction of the tube-road, or go to a calculation of their ex- 

 pence; but if you think the bare hint worth publiftiing it will 

 give me pleafure, mould the idea be approved, to go into all 

 the minutiae of their utility in other refpecb, and the means 

 of their ultimate accomplimment ; 

 Being always, Sir, 



Your obliged humble fervant, 



G. C. 



XI. 



On the State of Provincial Societies for Scientific and Literary 

 Improvement. By a Correspondent. 



To Mr. NICHOLSON. 

 SIR, 



JOEING in the cuftom of vifiting Aberdeen, in one of my Great advantage 



laft tours, I inquired if there were any Antiquarian or Li- * h , at would rc - 



- . c i r • ■ T t i i i Mt to the town 



terary bociety, or bublenption Library there, and was much f Aberdeen 



furprized to find neither one nor the other; there is, I was from the efta- 

 told, an Athaeneum, in which a good number of newfpapers, pubiiTlibra ry* 

 and fome of the moft refpectable periodical publications, are &c. 

 taken in, and in a room above that, a circulating library; 

 this laft I knew to be the property of two very refpectable 

 bookfellers in Aberdeen, and I believe the former is alfo, but 

 the two united by no means effect the utility of either a lite- 

 rary fociety, or a fubfeription library, in which the books, fyc, 

 are the property of the members, and whofe concerns, fuch as 

 choofing and ordering books f and the like, areconducled by a com- 

 mittee, chofen out of the fubferibers. Few of thofe who know 

 that there is no fuch inftitution there, when they confider the 

 j*fpe liability of the place, either in a commercial or literary 



, view. 



