192 Scientific Intelligence. — Statistics. 



only 151 children exposed ; and that the number of illegitimate 

 received into the 44 work-houses of that city, of which he visited 

 a large number in 1825, amounted, during the same period, to 

 4,668, or 933 per annum ; and that about one-fifth of these 

 are supported at the expense of their fathers. By a striking 

 contrast, Paris, which has but two-thirds of the population of 

 London, enumerated, in the same five years, 25,277 cnfants 

 trouves, all supported at the expense of the state." — To ascer- 

 tain the contagious influence of these houses on the abandon- 

 ment of new-born children, Mayence had no establishment of 

 this kind, and, from 1799 to 1811, there were exposed there 

 SO children. Napoleon, who imagined that, in multiplying 

 foundling hospitals, he would multiply soldiers and sailors, 

 opened one in that town on the 17th of November 1811, which 

 remained until March 1815, when it was suppressed by the 

 Grand Duke of Hesse Darmstadt. During this period of three 

 years and four months, the house received 516 foundlings. 

 Once suppressed, as the habit of exposure had not become 

 rooted in the people, order was again restored ; and in the nine 

 succeeding years but 7 children were exposed. 



22. Scottish Societies. — The publishing Literary and Philo- 

 sophical Societies, in this part of the United Kingdom, arc the 

 following : 1 . Royal Society, instituted in 1739, and incorporated 

 by Royal Charter in 1783, and which has published ten and 

 a-half volumes 4to. of Memoirs. 2. Antiquarian Society, in- 

 stituted in 1780, and has published two and a-half volumes 4to. 

 of Transactions. 3. Wernerian Natural History Society, in- 

 stituted in 1808, and has published five volumes of Memoirs in 

 8vo. 4. Edinburgh Mcdico-Chirurgical Society, instituted in 

 1821, and has published three volumes of Transactions in 8vo. 

 5. Highland Society, founded in 1784, and has published eight 

 volumes in 8vo. 6. Caledonian Horticultural Society, founded 

 in 1809jand has published four volumes of Memoirs, in 8vo. 



23. Early Discovc7-y of America by the Scandinavians. — 

 *' It is known," says M. Rafn, in a letter to Dr Silliman, in the 

 American Journal of Science, " that the inhabitants of the north 

 of Europe visited, long before Columbus's time, the countries 

 on the coasts of North America. The greatest part of thg in- 

 formation on this subject has not hitherto been published. At 



