194 
learn from the North American Review, 
that in the Tahitian and Hawaiian lan- 
guages, every syllable, and consequently 
every word, ends with a vowel. Whether 
the same rule is applicable in so great a 
latitude to the other Polynesian dialects, 
has not. been fully ascertained.. No Ta- 
hitian can pronounce a word accurately 
which ends in a consonant, his voice glides 
irresistibly into a vowel sound. From a 
superficial examination it may safely be 
affirmed that, compared with other lan- 
guages, whether ancient or modern, the 
Polynesian exhibits features novel, curious, 
and peculiar, distinguishing it by strong 
marks of difference from every other known 
tongue. It is not likely that any other 
unwritten language exists which is so widely 
diffused ; and certainly none spoken by 
so many distinct tribes of men, and at the 
same time with so little variation of dia- 
lect. The subject is yet in the dark; when 
its intricacies shall be fully developed the 
result will possibly lead to a discovery of the 
origin of the Polynesian race, and its affi- 
nity with the other branches of the human 
family, and still further to the solution of 
the long agitated problem, the first peopling 
of the American continent. 
Animal Heat.—The following is stated 
by Despretz to be the temperature of the 
bodies of the animals named, when the 
temperature of the air was 15° 15’ centi- 
grade. 
Mean Temp. 
Nine men aged 30 years ...... 37° 14 
Four men aged 68 years ...... 37°13 
Four young men aged 18 years 36°99 
A full grown sparrow ........ 41°67 
.. Tworooks just beginning to eat 41°17 
A dog three months old ...... 39°48 
Three male children, one to 
CWO CayS..rerecncsecsrersesceees 35°06 
Two adult ravens ........seeeeee 42°91 
DUNMOW IG keretcknacecsceeesepenets 40°91 
An adult male Cat.......eeseeeee 39°78 
An adult guinea pig.......- eee SDi716 
TWO Carps -cseeeressee Betetle=esuse 11°69 
An adult screech ow] .......++ 41°47 
An adult tarsal .....s.sssesseees 
Three pigeons ......--.00+-2. 42°98 
Three sparrows well feathered 39°08 
TE WDACNCHES te cheno ecdewenen «cae - 11°54 
Water in which the fish were 
SWIMMING ....eeeeeveesee vabseslOnSd 
Annales de Chimie. 
Philology.— According to a work pub- 
lished in Germany by the learned philo- 
logist Adelung, there exists on the earth 
3,064 languages: 587 in Europe; 937 in 
Asia; 276 in Africa; 1,264 in America. 
The author doubtless comprehends in. this 
enumeration the various idioms and patois 
in _use in the different provinces of the 
same country. 
Moving Rocks.—In the report of the 
Commissioners of the state of Massachu- 
sets, on the direction of the canal between 
Boston and the rivers Connecticut and 
Philosophical, Chemical, and Scientific Miscellanies. 
AUG. 
tes 
Hudson, it is stated that a shaking rock 
had been discovered in the bed of the river 
Deerfield; its size is small,.it being only 
six feet in diameter. It appears that thie 
number of trembling, or moveable rocks, 
is much greater in the northern part of 
America than in the rest of the world. 
Cyrene.—From a report made to the 
Academy of Inscriptions and Belles,Lettres 
relative to the researches of M. Pacho, 
we learn that there are scarcely any traces 
remaining of Cyrene as it originally existed, 
and but few of it as it appeared under the 
Ptolemies. Most of the ruins now to be 
found there belong to the time of the Re- 
mans: indeed, to almost none can a higher 
date be assigned with certainty. Of the 
ancient monuments of ‘Which the ruins are 
not buried, there is but one temple of whieh 
the pillars are standing: it belongs to the 
Roman age of the city; all the rest are 
sepulchral. 
Zoology.—Professor Silliman, in the last 
number of his very valuable American Jour- 
nal of Science and Arts, has given a de- 
scription of a new species of North Ameri- 
can quadruped, the arvicola ferrugineus 
(nob.) vulgo white-bellied cotton rat. Its 
total length from the snout to the root of 
the tail (which last is four inches long) is 
seven inches; and it is nearly six inches in 
girth. What is most singular in the struc- 
ture of this animal is the size of its feet, 
which are very little larger than those of 
the common mouse; and the fore-legs, 
which measure less than one inch and a 
half to the extremity of the nails, which are 
black, compressed, sharp, and hooked, as 
in the squirrel. This animal never bur- 
rows, but conceals itself in hollow trees, 
generally forming a hole in the side, some- 
what after the manner of the woodpecker, 
where they retreat in case of emergency. 
They inhabit the cotton fields exclusively, 
carry their young on their back, ard with 
their family thus secured, climb dead trees 
as nimbly as the squirrel. It inhabits the 
borders of the Mississippi. ‘The same in- 
teresting work contains a notice of a new 
species of salamander, inhabiting Pennsyl- 
yania, S. flavissima, which will eccupy an 
intermediate station between the S. bis- 
lioreata and S. rubriventris. The total 
length of the body is three inches two- 
tenths: i.e. length of the tail, 1-9; of the 
body, head inclusive, 1-3. 
South America.— The following estimate 
of the population has been furnished by a 
citizen of the republic of Guatemala to a 
foreign journal distinguished for its accu- 
racy. In Guatemala, the seat of the federal 
government, and capital of the state of that 
name, from 35,000 to 40,000 souls; Leon, 
capital of the state of Nicaragua, the same 
number ; St. Salyador, capital of the state 
bearing that name, 25,000; San Jose, ¢a- 
pital of Cortereca, 25,000; Comayagua, 
capital of a state bearing the same name, 
20,000. The whole population of | this 
eB 
