184 French Xaiional InsUlute. 



aocietv a fac simile and transbiion of thj: inscription on the 

 piece of ordnance ui St. Ja;iies*s park, brought tVom Egypt. 

 The inscription states the date of its foundry in 920 of the 

 Hegira, {\.b±-2 of the Christian jera,) and al^^o a description 

 of its powers, as, " There is i.othing can stand before me 

 but I destroy and tear to pieces, — in my belly is fire, in my 

 moulh thunder and death," S:c. &c. Those expressions, it 

 must be confessed, are not less rational than Louis XIV's 

 *^ Lex ultima legion,'" or Oliver Crcmr.vcirs •• Open our 

 uiouths, O Lord, and we will show forth thy praise !" 

 which decorated the cannons of these warriors at a much 

 later period. On the 19th, Dr. Neil exhibited to the 

 society the horn of a rhinoceros, found near Cairo. It was 

 finely carved with several well-executed ligures of animals, 

 in bas-relief, about two feel long, and at the base nearly six 

 inches in diameter. It is cut into the shape of a Turkey 

 slipper, only with a spout like a mouth at the small end. A 

 curious cup was likewise exhibited, on which were delineated 

 the inebriety and excesses of Noah, Lot, his daughters, &c. 

 It is of a cylindrical figure, mode of walnut, holding about 

 two quarts, lined with tin, and is conjectured to be very 

 antitnt, and to have been the workmanship of our ances- 

 tors at a time when biblical characters were the chief sub- 

 jects of art. 



FRENXH NATIONAL INSTITUTE. 

 [ContinueJ i'rom p. 89 j 



Naturalists have therefore thought that animals en- 

 dowed with instincts exercise these particular actions in 

 virtue of an interior impulse, independently of experience, 

 foresight, education, and external agents; or, in other terms, 

 that their organization by itself alone dtitennuibs them to act 

 in this manner. This result has been adopted by almost all 

 writers; and, if they have varied, it has been merely in ex- 

 , plaining the manner in which organization can communi- 

 cate this determination: the following is the hypothesis of 

 bne author upon this subject : 



The want of, or the desire for, a certain action can only 



be 



