THORNTON’S NEW ILLUSTRATION OF LINNZUS’S SEXUAL SYSTEM. 
are weary of pointing out the defects of 
this boasted national work, and of expos- 
ing the imbecility of its projector. We 
will, therefore, relieve our readers as 
well as ourselves from the prosecution 
of an irksome task, by making a rapid 
analysis of the remainder. Indeed we 
should not have extended our animad- 
versions on it to so great a length, if it 
had not been so pompously obtruded on 
the public, and if Dr. Thornton had not 
go frequently been the herald of his own 
praise, in a succession of detached adver- 
tisements, which have carried the busi- 
ness of puffing to its acme of perfection. 
As there is an undeniable connection 
between vegetation and air, all the mo- 
dern discoveries concerning the nature 
and constitution of the atmosphere are 
detailed at full length, and for the most 
part in the words of the original authors. 
‘The Illustration of the Sexual System of 
Linnezus includes, of course, a system 
of chemistry; it teaches the botanical 
student the analysis and synthesis of 
compound bodies ; the properties of vital 
air and azote; of oxygen, caloric, and 
light; and the composition of water, 
which also, as essential to vegetable life, 
could not be omitted, nor consequently 
the nature of hydrogen or inHammable 
air. 
The tenth section, entitled, the compo- 
sition of fixed air, we are tempted to tran- 
scribe af full length; not to give our rea- 
ders any information on the subject, but 
as a specimen of Dr. ‘Vhornton’s, or his 
printer’s skill in the art of dilatation, or 
of spreading out a small quantity of mat- 
ter over a large surface of papem 
‘© SECTION X. 
“© VY, The Composition of fixed air. 
«“ Synthesis of carbonic acid air or 
fixed air ; or the union of its two consti- 
tuents parts—charcoal and oxygen air. 
«“ As the composition of fixed air is 
easiest understood by synthesis, we shall 
only mention, that if wood or charcoal be 
burnt in oxygen air it will be converted 
into an acid gas, whose weight will equal 
the sum of the weights ot the charcogl 
which has been.consumed, and the oxy- 
gen air empkoyed.” - 
This, with the addition of four lines 
from Prior, prefixed as a motto; and of 
two short notes occupying less than six 
lines, on the properties of fixed air, and 
the proportion of its constituent parts ; 
and, as Bob Short says in the Spectator, 
with the aid of proper distances, covers a 
folio page. 
$79 
In the section on the connection of air 
with vegetation, besides two long quota- 
tions from Dr. Darwin’s Botanic Gar- 
den, we have Mr. Boyle’s original pro- 
posals, totry the effect of the pneumatic 
engine exhausted, on plants, seeds, &c. 
transcribed from the Philosophical Tran- 
sactions of the Year 1665; an Account 
of the Institution of the Royal Society, 
and of the invention of the air pump ; 
the experiments of Mr. Cruikshank, to 
shew the effect of soaked barley on air 
in a close vessel, and of Dr. Ingenhouz, 
with a view to ascertain what species or 
mixture of airs is most favourable to 
the growth of seeds. 
The twelfth section discusses thé ques- 
tion, whether oxygen is supplied to seeds 
through any other medium than water 
percolating the earth. And for this pur- 
pose Mayow, Evelyn, Sir Kenelm Dig- 
by, and Sir Hugh Platt, are produced as 
approximating to the truth, and Dr. In- 
genhouz as really proving the fecundat- 
ine power of vital air absorbed by the 
earth. ; 
The thirteenth section is on the ferti- 
lizing power of snow. ‘The names given 
in the new French calendar to the 
months, November, December, January, 
February, and March, being derived 
from the dew or fogs, the frost, the snow, 
the rain, and the wind, which are sup- 
posed respectively to prevail in those 
successive months,and which Dr. Thorn- 
ton regards as the five great instruments . 
of oxygenation, he cannot resist the temp- 
tation of giving the whole French ca- 
lendar: and that we on this side of the 
water may not be behind hand with our 
ambitious rivals and adversaries, he pa- 
triotically proposes a new nomenclature . 
to our English calendar, beginning with 
November, or as he would call it, the 
foggy month,and going on in order thro” 
the frosty, the snowy, the thawing, the 
windy,the showery, the budding, the fow- 
ering or mowing, the ripening, the reap- 
ing, the sowing and the shedding months. 
Each of these months in the new English 
calendar is il/ustrated by poetical quota- 
tions from Thomson, Watts, &c. which, 
if they answer no other purpose, fill 
nearly three pages. And who will com- | 
plain that the room which they take up 
is misapplied, when he considers their 
close connection with the New Llustration 
of the Sexual System ? 
The essence of the thirteenth section 
consists of a quotation from Dr. Grev, 
on the nature of snow, a reference to. 
