880 
Miller and Evelyn, to prove that they 
considered snow as having the properties 
of a manure, and two experiments made 
by Hassenfratz to prove that there is 
more oxygen in snow than in rain water. 
The fourteenth section, on the utility 
of winds, is rich in information, won- 
derfully compressed ; for though swelled 
by two questions from the Botanic Gar- 
den, it takes up only two pages. Leav- 
ing out four introductory lines, the 
whole is verbatim as follows: 
* In this month (February) the sun 
occasionally bursts out, and ‘melts the 
ice and snow covering the earth. 
“¢ The glebe being resolved, the month 
next in succession is Ventose (March), 
or, in our new English calendar, the 
windy month. 
‘The air being at this time com- 
pressed by cold, a greater quantity of 
oxygen is found in a given volume, and 
the winds act as a kind of bellows to the 
earth. Thus more oxygen is absorbed 
by the land, and (astonishmg conse- 
quence!) the beneficial process of oxyge- 
nation is still farther carried on.” 
The answer to the question proposed 
in the fifteenth section, why rain pro- 
motes germination more than spring or 
river water, ts equally concise. It ap- 
pears from the experiments of Hassen- 
fratz on rain water under an exhausted 
receiver, that the air which escapes con- 
tains a greater proportion of oxygen 
than either river water, spring water, or 
even atmospheric air. 
To section the sixteenth, on the power 
of certain oxygenated substances to ac- 
celerate the progress of germination, 
the immortal Mayow, the unfortunate 
. Lavoisier, the philosophic Humboldt, 
Professor Pohi, Jacquin, Vander Schott, 
Von Uslar, Dr. Hooper, and the learned 
Dr. Darwin, all contribute their respec- 
tive quotas, Dr. Thornton keeping in 
‘the back ground, and addressing his 
readers only in a note, in which, how- 
ever, with great self-complacence he in- 
forms them, that his New Illustration 
of the Sexual System of Linnzus was be- 
un long before Dr. Darwin’s elaborate 
hytologia, and the plan publicly pro- 
posed ; and that the performances do not 
interfere, but mutually assist each other ; 
that Dr. Darwin addresses his readers 
as already conversant in botany, and 
depts in the new chemistry ; whereas 
‘his work supposes in his readers a total 
“unacquaintance with all kind of che- 
mical and botanical knowledge ; that he 
NATURAL HISTORY. 
expatiates on the several subjects he ha’ 
to treat of, and leads his readers, step 
by step, from lesser to higher flights, 
enforcing all the while his instructions 
by plates, which, from their fine execu- 
tion (as is universally allowed), may be 
as a substitute for the plants themselves, 
and which he conceives to be the readiest 
way of attaining a knowledge of the 
useful and delightful science of botany.’? 
The seventeenth and eighteenth sec- 
tions are on the earth’s internal heat ; 
and in them Dr. Thornton takes an am- 
ple range, for they occupy no less than 
sixty-six pages, nearly as muchas all the 
preceding parts of the work, 
In imitation of the divines of the six- 
teenth and seventeenth centuries, who 
frequently treated their subjects first ne- 
gatively, and then positively, he gives 
the systems of those philosophers who 
have formed what he deems erroneous 
opinions on the subject. These are Dr. 
Darwin, Buffon, and Will. Whiston. 
Dr. Darwin’s hypothesis of the original 
formation of suns, gives him an oppor- 
tunity of laying before his readers a con- 
cise view of astronomy, from which we 
learnt, to our inexpressible surprise, that 
Venus, as well as our earth, has its sa- 
tellite; and that this satellite of Venus 
was discovered in the last century. Had 
Dr. Thornton claimed this discovery 
himself, the authority of so great‘a man 
would have been indisputable; and we 
must have admitted it as a fact, even 
though the new secondary planet should 
still continue to elude the'sight of Dr. 
Herschel, of the astronomer royal, and 
of every other astronomer in the world. 
But as we are told that the discovery 
was made in the last century, it must 
have been known to others as well as to 
himself ; and as no trace of it is to be 
found in any professed treatise of astro- 
nomy, we may be allowed to doubt on 
the subject, and to suspect that Dr. 
Thornton has asserted what its not true. 
Long did we puzzle ourselves with at- 
tempting to investigate the source of the 
error, and so continually did it agitate 
our minds, that, for some time, we were 
deprived of our nightly rest, and we 
know not what might have been the 
effect upon our health and spirits, of 
whether we should ever have been equal 
to the severe task of writing this review, 
if we had not happily been freed from 
our auxiety by a kind of vision between 
sleeping and waking, which, on account 
of the solemn mysterious stillness by 
