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than the physical philosopher, to further the progress of our know¬ 
ledge of terrestrial magnetism. 3. The heat of the interior parts of 
the earth has always been treated of by those who have established 
the theory of heat upon mathematical principles. They have 
hitherto considered it as proved, upon such principles, that the in¬ 
crease of temperature of the substance of the earth as we descend, 
proves the reality of an original heat. But M. Poisson, in his 
Theorie de la Chaleur just published, dissents from this opinion, and 
is disposed to assign another reason for the higher temperature be¬ 
low the surface. He observes that the cosmical regions in which the 
solar system moves have a proper temperature of their own ; that 
this temperature may be different in different parts of the universe ; 
and that if this be so, the earth would be some time in acquiring 
the temperature of the part of space in which it has arrived. This 
temperature will - be propagated gradually from the surface to the 
interior parts. And hence, if the solar system moves out of a hotter 
into a colder region of space, the part of the earth below the surface 
will exhibit traces of that higher temperature which it had before 
acquired. And this would by no means imply that the increase of 
temperature goes on all the way to the centre. Though these opi¬ 
nions may not gain the assent of geologists, it may be proper that 
they should be aware that such have been promulgated. 
On the Geographical Position of Cape Farewell. By Dr. West. 
The chief object of the memoir was to show, That Cape Farewell, 
so named by Davies in 1585, is not, as stated by Egede, Crantz, and 
Giesecke, on the island of Sermesok, but on another island many 
miles to the south-east of it;—That Staten Ploek is not, as generally 
laid down in charts, a promontory on the southernmost extremity of 
the main land, nor yet, as stated in the Edinburgh Review (No. 59,) 
an inlet j but that it is identical with Cape Farewell, and received its 
name, which signifies the States' Promontory , from the Dutch’ na¬ 
vigators. Dr. West also showed that this fact, though now appa¬ 
rently quite unknown in these countries, was understood and plainly 
stated nearly ninety years ago in an English work, Drage’s Account 
of the Voyage in the California in 1746 and 1747. 
The memoir was accompanied by a copy of Graah’s Chart of 
Greenland, the latest and most correct extant, from which it appeared 
that Giesecke, in his account of Greenland in Brewster's Edinburgh 
Cyclopaedia, and in his map of that country in the 14th vol. of the 
Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, has placed the island of 
Sermesok nearly a degree too much to the south; that no part of 
the main land could possibly be seen from the open sea to the south 
of the coast of Greenland ; and that the island most to the south of 
the strait Xkareseksoak is the only one on which is a cape answering 
to the description given by navigators of Cape Farewell. 
Dr. West concluded his memoir by expressing his opinion that 
Captain Graah, by his having satisfactorily ascertained that there 
