380t.] 
ODE to PHILOMELA, 
Tranflated from the French of. Rouffeau. 
PLAINTIVE Philomel! and why 
Breathing till misfortune’s igh ? 
Since, to mitigate thy grief, 
All nature vies for thy relief ; 
Thus reviv’d—earth’s alter’d fcene 
Smiles—at thy return—ferene 5 
Dryads, courting thus thy love, 
Spread the lone, the fhady grove. 
Unfelt, unheard by thee, the North 
Fierce his nipping blafts fends forth 5 
All her verdure earth refumes, 
All its fplendour heaven illumes ; 
For thee the young Cephalian fair, 
' Flora dews with many a tear; 
Collected by the gentle gales, 
Preeeedings of Learned Secieties. 
47. 
Flowery odours earth exhale. . 
So foit and fweet thine accents move, 
Silence holds the choral grove ; 
Refpect the favage fowler pays 
To thine harmlefs length of days ; 
But thy foul with pity glows 
At the fad memory of woes, 
Of ills that wrong’d a fifter dear, 
And draw the fympathetic tear. 
Ala3! but my fad thoughts pourtray 
Evils more piercing far than they. 
‘The cares are paff that fill thy tale, 
My prefent troubles I bewail 5 
But fince attentive nature deigns 
With.ready balm to heal ¢by pains, 
I facririce the grief-worn tye, 
The foft indulgence—of a figh. 
T. 
PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 
NATIONAL INSTITUTE Of FRANCE. 
HE defire of extending the dominion 
of {cience has engaged C. DuPont, 
notwithftanding his age, to vifit South 
America, where he is now travelling in 
the employ of the Inftitute.- During the 
voyage, he has been employed in making 
- obfervations on the force of the currents 
in the gulph of Mexico, and in feeking the 
reafon why the ocean, after having hollowed 
out this guiph, and left the Archipelago 
of iflands in the middle of its waves, 
breaks againft the fhore of North Ame- 
ricay which oppofes an infarmountable ob- 
ftacle to its advance. He has obferved, 
that along Rhode-Tland and New York, 
the fea-coaft is made up of granite, and 
from the information of feveral able natu- 
ralifts in the Philefophical Society of Phi- 
Jadelphia, it appears, that from the point 
of Acadia northwards along the whole 
eaftern coaft of North America, as low as’ 
Georgia and Florida, the foil is imbedded 
ona vaft range of granite. C. Dupont 
thinks that there are ftriking marks along 
the whole of this coaft of fome terrible con- 
vulfion of the earth like that which fepa- 
rated Calpe from Abyla. 
C. LEGRAND p’Aussy is about to 
publifh, along with a prefatory introduc- 
tion of his own, a relation of a voyage 
beyond fea, and a return to France by 
land, made in 1432 and 1433 by a well- 
informed and judicious perfon, full of cu- 
rious obfervations concerning the manners, 
cuftoms, and refpeétive interefts of various 
people of Afia and Europe, and thefe 
among the beftknown. ‘The introduction 
4s a memoir on thofe different French na- 
Wgators before the fifteenth century, who 
have given any account of their proceed- 
ings, and of foreigners, who before this 
period wrote their relations in the French 
language. - He alfo examines, with found ~ 
and judicious criticifm, the voyages in the 
fifth century from Gaul to Rome, by Nu- 
mantius; to the Holy Land, in 505, 
by the Bifhop Arculfius; to Conftanti- 
nople, in 811, by Hulton, fent by Charle- 
magne; tothe Holy Land, in 870, by the 
Monk Bernard, and the later and better 
known voyages in the thirteenth and 
fourteenth centuries, byCafpin, Rubruquis, 
KBayton, and Mandeville. 
C. VauGueLin has confirmed the ex- 
iftence of a new earth found by M. Ga- 
DOLIN ina black ftone procured at Ster~ 
by, in Sweden. This is the ninth earth, 
and, like the glycine, it forms very fweet- 
tafted falts along with acids, but differs 
from it in being very little foluble when 
combined with fulphuric acid, and being 
precipitated from its folutions by oxalic 
acid, or pruffiated potafh. 
C. Havy has found that fulphur pof- 
feffes, in a very high degree, the property 
of doubling the images of objeéts, even 
when the two furfaces which are looked 
upon are quite parallel. He fhews that 
the refracting power of fulphur is much 
more that what is indicated by its mere 
denfity, and in this fubfance therefore the 
conje¢ture of Newton on combuttible bo- 
dies receives additional weight. 
C, Gerard defcribed a fpecies of vetch 
(trifolium fuffocatum of Linneus) a part 
of whote flowers always remain under- 
ground, and there produce feeds which 
come to maturity and vegetate. C. Ven- 
TENaT adds his teftimony to the truth of 
thefs, obfcrvations. 
the® 
