New Roads ever- the Alps. 
521) 
1812 ] 
3 little way beyond the circle in which it 
was given, and therefore the benefit will 
be circumscribed witliin very narrow li¬ 
mits. What seem to me to be particu¬ 
larly wanted, are some plain and intelli¬ 
gible treatises upon agriculture, neither 
too scanty to convey the information ne¬ 
cessary for the adoption of any new ex¬ 
periment, nor loo bulky to be perused, 
without impatience or confusion by 
minds but moderately informed. These 
ought to comprise a popular discussion 
of first principles; a general investigation 
of remote causes; some explanation of 
the process and progress of vegetation; 
neither so simple and elementary, per¬ 
haps, as to be altogether beneath the 
notice of the educated gentleman; but 
certainly not so abstruse and scientific as 
to be above the capacity of the practical 
farmer, for whose instruction it should be 
principally designed. 
Science is grateful to the mind of every 
man, and is scarcely ever rejected but 
where the real or supposed difficulties 
of obtaining it deter him from the at¬ 
tempt. We have, it may be said, al¬ 
ready numerous treatises on the subject 
of agriculture, indeed so numerous are 
they tliat a cursory observer might sup¬ 
pose there was little occasion for new 
information, and less for insisting on the 
old. But the objections to which most 
of them are liable, a transient examina^ 
tion will convince any one, are almost 
commensurate with their quantity. 
When they promise to teach agriculture 
a.s a science, they are lectures on che¬ 
mistry, essays on meclianlcs, or treatises 
on mineralogy: where we expect to find 
a plain and intelligible enquiry into the 
properties of soils, we are surprised into 
a^i elaborate investigation of phosphoric 
acids, or metallic oxydes; when we open 
a page that professes to treat of imple¬ 
ments in husbandry, we find it a philoso¬ 
phical solution of problems respecting 
levers, axes, and rotatory motion. It is 
rjinost unnecessary to add, tiiat these are 
not adapted for general service, and per¬ 
haps least of all for the mass of practical 
farmers. 
flaving thus instanced tite species of 
publications which do not. answer the ne¬ 
cessary. purpose, the natural inference 
will nearly lead to a conclusion of wliat 
would do so; but were it otherwise, Mr, 
Editor, I have already trespassed suffi¬ 
ciently on your pages for a single effort, 
and t.herefore shall reserve what further 
lias occurred to my observation till some 
futme occasion, CiNciNNAiySo 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
AVING on various former occa¬ 
sions experienced your obliging 
attention to my application's^, I am again 
induced to request you will, in one shape 
or anotlier, introduce into your excellent 
and widely-circulating Miscellany, the 
purport of the present address, concern¬ 
ing which, neither from books nor from 
living authorities, have I been able to 
procure any satisfactory information. 
It was currently reported several years 
ago, that, in consequence of the annex¬ 
ation, to the imperial crown of France, 
of the continental territories of the King 
of Sardinia, the French government had 
set earnestly to work in improving the 
various communications aqross the Alps, 
from France and Switzerland to Italy. 
In the accomplishment of a design so 
truly laudable, it was said they had 
opened a road practicable even for 
wheel-carriages, all along the southern 
bank, of the lake of Geneva, from that 
town, as far as the entrance into the 
valley of the Khone, where that river 
discharges itself into the lake, and thence 
leading up to the two principal passes 
over the Alps, by the Great St. Bernard 
and the Simplon. 
There was always a carriage-road from 
Geneva to within five or six miles of tlie 
head of the lake, along the southern 
bank ; but the lofty mountains on that 
side pressed upon and hung over the 
lake, for that remaining space, in such a 
way as to allow but a very r.arrow and 
dangerous path to be scooped out of 
their slopes, admitting a mule or a horse 
to pass only with very greatjcaution and 
risk. When I was last at Geneva, in 
1791, the led-horse of a traveller, ter¬ 
rified at the precipice beneath iiin), on 
that narrow shelf, or cornice, started in¬ 
stinctively a<^ainst the mountain side, 
and rebounded over the precipice into 
the lake, where he perished. 
Now, Sir, what I am very desirous to 
know is, whetlier it be really true tliat a, 
road, practicable for carriages, has been 
opened along tlie foot of that mountain¬ 
ous tract, from the plains of Chablais, 
into the Lower Valais ; and likewise 
wliether any attempts have been made 
to facilitate the passage over the moun¬ 
tains, in an easterly direction, from the 
valley of Cliamouny, down into that of 
the Rhone, in the neiglibourhood of 
Martigny. 
My purpose in these enquiries Is not 
n)si'ely to gratify an idle curiosity, but 
to 
