1800. | 
they poffefs great merit, for they are the 
fubjeéts in which Morland delights, and 
on which he has built his defervedly high 
reputation. In fuch fcenes he is pecu- 
liarly at home. But the merit of the pic- 
tures, whatever it may be, and the merit 
of the engraver, whofe produétions we 
have often infpected with great pleafure, 
are totally obfcured by the abominable 
ftyle in which they are painted. Inftead 
of that chafte and fober tint of coloring 
in which Morland is fo remarkably hap- 
py, we are difgufted with all the gaudy 
and glaring colours which bad tafte could 
introduce. 
‘We have been particular in our notice 
of this error, becaufe we find this glitter- 
ing and meretricious mode of colouring 
gaining ground, and in danger of becoming 
the manner a-/a-mode. ‘* This florid ftyle 
either in writing or painting properly ap- 
Proceedings of Public Societies. 
355 
pertaineth unto the Bathos, as flowers, 
which are the lowelt of vegetables, are 
moft gaudy and do many times flourifh in 
great abundance at the bottom of ponds 
and ditches.” Let thofe who attempt to 
dazzle the eyes of the groundings by this 
glitter, attend to the precept of Shakef- 
peare, which is as applicable to painting 
as to playing, ‘* O’erftep not the medelty of 
nature.” 
Mrs. Cofway has completed a feries of 
beautiful drawings, which are to be en- 
graved in the courfe of the winter; the 
fubjeéts are taken from one of Mrs. Ro- 
binfon’s poems. 
In our laf Retrofpeét was-an error of 
the prefs, refpecting the thicknefs of the 
painted glafs in St. Stephen’s Chapel; it 
is unequal, but generally about twice the 
thickne{s of a common pane of glafs. 
a 
PROCEEDINGS OF PUBLIC SOCIETIES. 

NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF 
FRANCE. 
CLASS of PHYSICS and NATURAL 
HISTORY. 
ITIZEN Berthollet’ has made a 
number of experiments, the details 
of which it is not neceflary to give in this 
piace, to prove that the muriatic acid is 
a triple compound of azote and a {mall 
quantity of oxygen and hydrogen. ‘The 
general refults of his experiments has been 
to find a produétion of muriatic acid, in 
every circumftance where the nitric acid 
was placed in contact with water at the 
time that the latter was undergoing de- 
compofition. 
Cit. Guyton laid before the clafs the 
refults of the experiments of Cit. Def- 
ermes, which he has in part repeated, 
which tend to prove that potafh, or the 
fixed vegetable alkali, is a compound of 
hydrogen and lime. ‘Thefe experiments 
have conftantly detected Jime after various 
decompofitions, in which, of all the bodies 
aéted on, potath was the only one which 
could have furnifhed this earth; and this 
produéction of lime was always preceded by 
the combutftien and lofs of hydrogen. Soda 
having under fimilar circumftances pro- 
duced magnefia, they are of opinion that 
it is compofed of this earth and hydrogen. 
Thefe experiments have not however been 
confirmed by fynthefis, as thefe chemifts 
have not yet reproduced potath by the di- 
rect union of lime and hydrogen. 
La Cepede has given a memoir rela- 
tive io the formica leo (ant-lion), an Ame- 
rican infe¢ét which preys apen ants; and 
Cit. Cuvier, upon the ibis of the antient 
Egyptians, which bird he proves from the 
teftimony of antient monuments, and the 
defcriptions of Herodotus, to be different 
from that to which the moderns hay 
given the fame name. : 
Cit. Hauy has defcribed a variety in 
the cryftall.zation of fulphat of iron, which 
he denominates Tricontaedral, becaufe the 
cryftal has thirty fatets, of which fix are 
rhombs, and twenty four are trapezoids. 
Cit. Hauy explains the formation of this 
figure to be a folid inclofed within thirty 
equal and fimilar rhombs, and demonttrates 
feveral curious properties of this hitherto 
undefcribed figure. 
Cit. La Cepede is continuing his very 
important Hiftory of Fifhes, the fecond vo- 
lume of which is about to appear. The 
reader will be furprifed with the prodigi- 
ous number of new faéts which it contains. 
It gives the account of forty-eight genera 
and one hundred and twenty-fix {pecies, of 
which twenty three genera and tweaty-fix 
fpecies are entirely new. 
Cit. Fourcroy has given in twelve 
large tables, the fketch of his great work 
preparing for the prefs, entitled a Syftem 
of Chemical Knowledge. 
The labours of feveral of the moft emi- 
nent geologifts, fuch as De Sauflure, 
De Luc, Dolomieu, have fhewn that the 
ZZ 2. greater 
