1797-] 
and almoft alone, all the commerce of the 
Levant; that they fought to penetrate, 
by land, into the eaftern parts of Afia, 
wherever it was poffible to traffic, as 
well as into the interior of Africa, the 
commerce of which contributed much to 
enrich them. Buacue concludes from 
hence, that in Venice may be found, 
either in manufcript charts, geographi- 
cal or marine, or in relations of voyages, 
valuable documents as‘to the interior of 
Africa fo littk known. He defires that 
copies, or exatt calques, of thefe may be 
demanded, for the propagation of ufeful 
knowledge, and the illuftration of hif- 
tory. 
DeEsMARETS, member of the firft 
clafs, prefented a'fo to the fecond, other 
documents relative to the charts, of 
which. he had had knowledge at Venice. 
Many members of the clais have pub- 
vifhed, during the Jaft quarter, works 
which have been prefented to it, viz. 
Duront pE Nemours, his philofophy 
of the univerfe; REVEILLERE LeEp- 
EAUX, a memoir on religions, civil cere- 
monies, and national feftivals; Kocu, a 
non-refident member, an auvridgement of 
the hiftory: of the treaties of peace, be- 
tween the powers of Europe, fince the 
peace of Weftphalia. 
To thefe announcements may be added, 
that of the ufeful and interefting re- 
fearches making by twooftthe members ; 
VoLNeEy in North America, and Rern- 
HARD in the north of Germany. Some 
details of their correfpondence, prefented 
by GREGOIRE, promife a rich harveft 
for the moral and political fciences. 
Wotice or THE Crass oF LIiTE- 
RATURE AND FINE ARTS, BY 
MonGEz. 
What was the extent of the Meerts, 
called fo improperly a lake ? Did tt only 
occupy the lake Kerz, fituated in the 
Féium, formerly the province of Arfince, 
as has been believed even to this age? 
Muft we rather feek it in the fouth of 
the Féium, and does the Barh-Bathen 
offer any remains of it, as Sicard and © 
Danville have thought? Or are we 
to think, with Gibert, that the Meeris 
fubfifts yet all entire, and is found 
in a canal very long, but very ftrait, 
called Barh- Joufef? Davin Leroy, 
a member, has difcufled and combatted 
thefe three opinions: fupported by pofi- 
tive texts of Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, 
Strabo, Pliny, and Ptolomy, he has re- 
Stored its ancient extent to the Moeris. 
Itappears evident that ir confifted of two 
parts; of a lake, the work of nature 
7 
French National Inftitute. 
203 
enlarged by art, and of an immenfe 
canal dug by order of the kings of 
Egypt. Two embouchures cut in the 
Nile, one at the fouth, the other at the 
north, received and reftored the waters 
of that great river, which, by thar de- 
rivation, fertilized a hundred and ten 
leagues of a country; arid, and parched 
by the beams of the fun, near to the 
tropic. (Herodotus gives to thefe two 
works, united, a lengtn of 3600 fur- 
longs; or 58 myriameters, the furlong 
conlifting of 162 metres, or 500 feet.) 
AME!LHON, occupied in refearches 
on the art of milling cloth with the an- 
cients, has fhewn, ift. That the dip/acus, 
our Fuller’s thiftle, although knows in 
the time of Diofcorides and Pliny, was not 
then ufed to drefs ftuffs, but that hedge- 
hog-fkins were employed for this mani- 
pulation, or the thorns of a plant, called 
hippophaes and hippophefton, of the 
nature of which we have no. precife 
accounts; and, 2d. That the ancients. 
employed to whiten linens and ftuffs, a 
plant called rvthium, which had all the- - 
characters of our foapwort. 
The politics of Ariftotle is the conftane 
objeét of the meditations of BirauBe. 
He has read a fecond memoir on. that 
work, which ought to be the manual of 
legiflators. His memoir is divided iato 
three parts ; a community of all things, fuch 
as Plata would have it eftablifhed; ¢ 
\ 
community of goods, and an equal divifion of 
lands. More enlightened than the le. 
giflators and philofophers who preceded 
him, Ariftotle embraced the negative on 
thefe phiianthropic chimeras. ‘With re- 
gard tothe ieion of lands,: Biraugs ' 
makes an obfervation worthy of remark ; 
it is, that the ancients appeared idolaters 
for the principle of equality, and that 
they were, nevyerthelefs, very unfaithful. 
toit. “Phe equai divifion of lands only 
had place in effect. for a-clafs, to which 
was exclufively attributed the title of 
citizens. The proprietors, by this 
means, procured many hands which 
laboured for them; which weuld nor 
have happened, if the divifion had been 
equal between all the inhabitants. 
Noert DE WaiLiyy has dilcuffed a 
number of articles of the New Ency. 
clopedia, on the grammatical ellipfis, 
on the governments, the complements, 
and the pronouns. He has fhewn, that 
the fupplementr, employed in thefe 
articles to explain elliptical phrafes, are 
too long, and more obfcure than the ~ 
text of the Latin and French phrafes 
they are meant to explain. That their 
; ae Sia: dodtrine 



