340 Defence of the Doctrine of Vital Affinity. 



potency originates from them, which has been supposed to exert a 

 specific influence, either for good or bad, over the future career of 

 those that become suppliants for their protection, or fail to offer 

 the requisite degree of propitiation. The peculiarity of this mode 

 of worship is chiefly characterised by ablutions of the whole body 

 with water, which has been previously sanctified by the priests, and 

 in which the leaves of some plant have been steeped either in the 

 fetish or their own houses. To this liquid they attribute manifold 

 prophylactic virtues, and, from its reputed efficacy, they imagine 

 that exemption from death or other dire misfortunes is thus secured 

 for the ensuing year ; through the interposition of the deity whose 

 all pervading power they have submissively invoked. During the 

 exhibition of these sacred observances, the fetishmen reap a bounti- 

 ful harvest, as a compensation for their successful predictions, and 

 the labours they now incur ; for when any individual, with his wives 

 or children, require these abluent purifications, or become desirous 

 of gaining an insight into the depths of futurity, the request is 

 always accompanied by a regulated fee, proportionate to his position 

 in the country. The prices, therefore, fluctuate from a few strings 

 of cowries or bottles of rum to other articles several dollars in value. 

 From the peculiar rites that characterise this day, it has obtained 

 the appellation of the Sakkoom fetish-day. 



In Ossu and Labadde these holidays commence about ten days 

 subsequently to those in English and Dutch Akkrah, and, like them, 

 are maintained with equal energy and display. With the two former 

 there is merely this difference, that the first day of their inaugura- 

 tion is invariably held on a Wednesday, in conformity to the ancient 

 regulations of these localties. 

 ► 



Defence of the Doctrine of Vital Affinity, against the objec- 

 tions stated to it by Humboldt and Dr Daubeny. By Dr 



The object of this paper was to fix attention on the great physio- 

 logical discovery which has been gradually effected during the pre- 

 sent century, of the mode in which certain of the elements contained 

 in the earth's atmosphere, under the influence of light and of a cer- 

 tain temperature, are continually employed in maintaining that great 

 vital circulation, of which vegetable structures, animal structures, 

 the air, and the soil, are the successive links ; and to point out that 

 the most essential and fundamental of the changes here effected — 

 particularly the formation of the different organic compounds in the 

 cells of vegetables, — are strictly chemical changes, at least as clearly 

 distinct from any chemical actions yet known to take place in inor- 

 ganic matters, as the vital contractions of muscles are distinct from any 

 merely mechanical causes of motion ; and justifying the statement of 



