1799. | 
either upon the age or the health of the 
cows, nor the ftate of the dairies, nor of 
the veffels into which the milk is put, nor 
from any defect of care or cleanlinefs. 
All the milk and its produce, alcnough 
blue, is good, and may be ufed without 
any inconvenience. Perhaps iome plants 
of the nature of woad and indigo, on 
which fome cows feed during the tummer, 
tinge the milk with this tactitious co- 
Jour. But this is merely a conjecture, 
and Citizen Teiffier propofes, in order to 
difcover the truth, to make the neceflary 
obfervations and experiments, in the places 
where the phenomenon has been oblerved. 
In a memoir on a new clafiification of 
Shells, Citizen Lamarck has fhewn the 
necellity of augmenting the number of 
genera, and of reducing to narrower limits 
the characters which ditinguifh them. 
He extends this namber to a hundred and 
feventeen. Linnaeus and the other nata- 
ralifts had only carried it to fixty. This 
new claflification will enable us to refer 
all the teiltaceous animals we with to in- 
veltigate, with greater facility to their 
refpective genus. 
In the numerous family of {piders, 
there are fome which have been furnamea 
miners and mafons, becaufe they have the 
property of burrowing a /ubterraneous 
gallery or cavity, which they fhat with 
a fort of trap or moveable docr. Citizen 
LaTREILLE, an aflociate member of the 
Inititute, has indicated the characters 
proper to this induftrious family, and the 
means of not confounding it wirh other 
infeéts of the fame name, but of a different 
{pecies. 
It is well known, that phofphorus and 
many faline combinations of the pho!pho- 
ric acid, have been found by chemifts in 
urine. The Citizens Fourcroy and 
VaAUQUELIN, have been enabled to dil- 
cover by fome new experiments, alumine 
and phofphate of magneiia, in this liguid. 
They have obferved, that a particular 
animal matter which charaéterifes urine, 
and which gives it all its properties, very 
readily formed ammoniac, which caufed 
magnefian phofphate to pafs into the clals 
of triple falts, rendered it much Jefs ¢iffolu- 
ble than before, and fufceptible of preci- 
pitation in cryttalline flakes ov needles. 
‘Thefe two chemilts have examined the 
different alterations of which this liquid 
is fufceptible, and have given an account of 
the fpontaneous changes which it under- 
goes, and fhewn that the inveftigation of 
it, as yet {carcely commenced, according 
to them, is one of the objects which ought 
the moft to fix the attention of phyficians ; 
as it prefents one of the moft important 
French National Inftitute. 
207 
problems for them to refolve, relative to 
the phyfical ftate of the healthy or fick 
perfon. : 
The attention of the clafs of phyfical 
{ciences, has been further occupied with 
fome obfervations of Citizen BEAUME on 
the decompofition of calcareous muriate 
by lime, and fome enquiries into a malady 
which Citizen Portal has exhibited, by fpe- 
cifying the remedies competent to cure it. 


Notice of the clafs of Meral and Political 
Sciences, by Citizen LACUEE. 
It willcreate no“turprife to learn, that, 
among the memoirs which have been 
read in the clafs of moral and political 
f{ciences, during the courfe of the laf 
three months, there are three which treat 
on the propereft means of eftablifhing and 
propagating liberty. Liberty, which was 
always the divinity of men of letters, 
ought, under a republican government, 
to be ftill more particularly the obje&t of 
their worfhip and of their meditations. 
Citizen TOULONGEON, convinced that 
true freedom can only exift where the 
liberty of the individual is fecure from 
every affauit, has bees confidering the 
means of prote@ting individual hberty im 
a reprefentative government. 
The liberty of manifefting our thoughts, 
that of going and coming, and that’ of 
carrying arms, have bien {piritecly de- 
fended by our fellowmember. His obfei- 
vations on thefe three fubjectts will be 
always ufeful to repeat, in countries 
which enjoy liberty to preferve it there, 
and to introduce it into thofe which are 
deprived of it. Lhe author is furtier of 
opinion, that there can be no perfonal 
liberty, where the citizen is not at his 
option, not only to refute all public 
functions. excepting thofe of the toldier 
and juror, but even to abdicate the right 
of citizenfhip; laftly, that to preferve 
perfonal liberty, it may be neceffary, in 
certain cafes and under a very weighty 
refponfibility, that the individual fhould 
even have the right of dilobedience. 
Our fellow-member DesaLeés, has 
been inveftigating the liberty of fuifrages 5 
he has expreffed his opinion on this fub- 
ject in a memoir on the ufe of fecret baliot- 
ing among a free people. YVhe author 
afiumes, that the ule of a fecret balloting 
implies a previous fuppofition, that frée 
men would have the weaknefs to give a 
vote different fiom that of their real fen- 
timents ; he thinks further, that this 
form of balloting declares in general, that 
this mode of exprefling our wifh, allow- 
ing it may be proviforily retained: in the 
‘political world, ought ‘to be banifhed 
from 
