164 
have been employed, during the fummer of 
the year 1801, in caufing to be conitruéted 
in Lapland, a building, wherein to trace’ 
an arc of the meridian, and to perform all 
the labours relative to this kind of ob- 
feryations. In order to fecond their zeal, 
the academy of Stockholm has lately or- 
dered, from Paris, a very accurate inftru- 
ment, due, it is-obferved, to the affiduous 
cares of the celebrated citizen Delambre, 
and to the labour of the fkilful artift Le- 
noir. The obfervations were to have 
taken place during the month of February, 
im the year 1802, and the two learned 
Swedes are, for this -purpofe, in regular 
correfpondence -with M. Melanderhie!m, 
fecretary of the Academy, fo that we may 
reafonably expect a correct, decifion on 
this important fubjeét. The operation is 
performed at the expence of Government, 
which has lately given to the Academy a 
new proof its favour and benevolence, by 
prefenting it with the valuable collection 
of naturai hiftory, depofited in the Chateau 
de Drottingholm. 
The fenfibility with which certain plants 
appear to be endowed, is it purely mechani- 
cal, or has it any analogy with animal 
fenfibility? This queftion of vegetable 
phyfiology, has been the obje& of a me- 
moir of Citizen DutRouiL, member of 
the Society of Science, &c. of Bourdeaux, 
The author firft defines the fignification of 
animal irritability ; he next examines how 
far the movements that are perceived. in 
certain plants, when placed in contact with 
a foreign body, are the indices of an irri+ 
tability of this kind; he difcovers the 
caufe of thefe movements in the organiza- 
tion of the plant, and explains them in a 
manner purely mechanical. The author 
pays particular attention to the fenfitive- 
plant; he attributes the movement which 
it makes, when touched with the finger, 
to the action of the eleftric fluid, and'to 
the fudden difengagement which is pro- 
duced when put in equilibrium. He con- 
firms this explication by obferving that if 
the plant be touched with a body, which 
is not proper to tranfmit the cleric fluid, 
this movement will not take place. Light 
produces the fame effect on the plant as 
the contact of the finger, by reafon of the 
ele&tricity which is demonftrated to be 
contained. in that agent. The author af- 
terwards attacks the confequence that cer- 
tain naturalifts draw from the approxima- 
tion of certain parts of the plant at the pe- 
riod of iecundation, (namely that they are 
endowed with a certain fenfibility), by 
affigning to this approximation a caule 
purely mechanical ; he does not admit in 
- 
a 
Literary and Philofophical Intelligence: 
[March 4, 
plants the faculty of perception, except it 
be that of feeling; and he grounds his 
opinion on the little analogy that there 
is between their organization and that of », 
the beings in which this faculty exilts, and 
which they only owe to it. ; 
The continual and progreflive motion 
of the fea from-eaft to weft, produced by 
the lunar aétion on the waters, which gives 
to them a direétion fimilar to the revolu- 
tion of the planet which exercifes it, caufes 
the -afpect of the coafts continually to 
vary, fo that on one fide the fea is inceffant- 
ly incroaching on ‘the land, and on the 
other is difcovering what before lay fub- 
merged. The weftern coaft of /Medoc, 
reckoned formerly a number of towns and 
a great many ports, which carried on an 
active commerce with Spain and Africa, 
and there remain no traces of their exift-. 
ence at this day, except in the remem- 
bance. Citizen BERGERON, a member cf 
the fame fociety, (Bourdeaux), has been 
employed, on a memoir inveltigating the 
ravages that the fea has exercifed over this 
part of Guyenne. He commences with 
an hiftorical notice of the different inha- 
bitants that. Medoc has had fucceffively ; 
he quotes the different people mentioned 
by Cefar in his Commentaries, and by the 
hiftorians who have fpoken of this part of 
France, and then proceeds to treat of the 
afpe& which the weftern coaft of Medoc 
anciently exhibited. The denominations 
of the country, although corrupted, com- 
pared with the traditions, and with cer- 
tain hiftorical documents, ferve as a guide 
to Citizen Bergeron, in his refearches re- 
lative to the difplacement~wf the principal 
ports which that coaft contained, fuch as 
that des Anglois, which he places in the’ 
commune of Grayan, that of Aigroz, in the 
commune de Soulac, and that of Akanau, 
at the mouth of the river Anchife, where 
Talbot, the celebrated Englifh general, 
difembarked. There remain no more 
veftiges of the ifle of Antros, mentioned 
in ancient charts, unlefs it be, as certain 
geopraphers think, the ifleon which the. 
phares of Cordovan has been conttruéted. 
The author dees not accord with this opi- 
nion, and thinks that it has been covered 
by the ecean. Data are wariting to 
affign a place to the ancient Domnotonus, 
a {pot inhabited by Theon, the friend of 
Aufonius. Citizen Bergeron conjectures, 
that it was fituated near to Macau, oppo- 
fite to the mouth of the Dordogne. ‘The 
pofition of the two towns, known in the an- 
cient capitularies, under the names of Me= 
tullium and Deviomagus, is liable to the 
{ame uncertainty, notwithitanding the fa- 
2 gacity 
