» 
200 
nate differences, before we admit other 
Bodies in Aftronomy than FIXT STARS, 
primary and fecondary planets, and comets. 
I can hardly dwell on the obferyation, 
that the Piazzi would not fill its place 
between Mars and Fupiter with fufficient 
dignity as a planet. 
Much better our immortal Mitton: 
that yreat 
Infers not excellence 
P. L. b. viii. 
And otherwife ill-fares it with the Her- 
febelian planet, only about the tenth of 
the magnitude of Fupiter. 
I am Your’s, &c. 
oak BYE 
= 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
N the number of your Magazine for Fe- 
bruary 1801. page 52, is fome account 
of an ancient monument, which is there call- 
ed ** the celebrated Carnac on the coaft of 
Vannes.’’ And the account further ftates 
that it is ** of the fame kind with Stone. 
henge on Salifbury Plain.” This notice, 
and the defcription of it, faid to be by 
<a Traveller mn Brittany’’ excited confi- 
derable curiofity, and I anxioufly expected 
further particulars of it, either through 
the medium of your interefting literary 
journal, or the traveller alluded to. I 
have hitherto been difappointed, and have 
fought in vain for information concern- 
ing it among feveral Antiquaries. Allow 
me therefore to call the attention of your 
readers to this fubjef, and we may yet 
hepe to obtain fome fatisfactory account 
of it, or of any fimilar monument, whether 
fituated on the continent or in any of the 
Britith ifles. It is a fubject bighly iater- 
effing and curious, and though all pub- 
lifhed accounts are replete with chimerical 
hypothefes and ambiguous defcriptions 
concerning the origin, ufes, and hiftory 
of thefe myfterious monuments, yet this 
myftery fhould ftimulate us to nice and 
critical inveftigation. 
If the before-mentioned monument be 
that obje&t of celebrity which we are led to 
expect by the account, it is rather fingular 
that the acute and learned Mr. Pinkerton 
did not, in the courfe of his multifarious 
reading for his new geographical work, 
find fome fatisfa€tory particulars of it, 
and not be obliged to refer to an anony- 
mous traveller. In the firft volume of his 
‘«* Modern Geography”’ page 252, he fays, 
‘¢ In Picardy, and other parts poffeffed 
by the Belgz, there are cérc/es and other 
monuments of the kind which we call 
Enqutry after Druidical Remains. 
[OGober I> 
Druidie. Near the town of Carnac, on 
the coaft of Vannes, in Bretagne, there is 
agrand monument of this kind, far ex- 
ceeding Stonehenge, if the account be not 
exaggerated, which fays that there are 
about 4000 ftones, many as high as eigh- 
teen or twenty feet, dilpofed in the form 
of a quincunx of eleven rows.—Monthly 
Magazine, February 1801.” 
I am more particularly curious concern- 
ing this fubjeét from having lately ex- 
amined feveral Druidical relics in Corn- 
wall, and being now engaged in the in- 
vettigation of that wonderful and fiupena- 
ous remain of Druidical ceremony at 
AVEBURY, in the county of Wilts: fome 
particulars and defcription of which I 
purpofe to fubmit to the public in the 
courle of the enfuing winter, in the Third 
and laff Volume of the Beauties of 
WILTSHIRE. ne 
Ihave lately received a letter from an 
ingenious and learned foreigner, giving 
fome account of a Druidical firucture, 
conlitting of upright flones with impofis. 
It is fituated in the parifh of Duteil, 
about four leagues from Rennes, and is 
diftingnifhed by the appellation of La 
Roche-aux-fées. . 
Query—Is not this the fame monument, 
before referred to, in your Magazine? and 
is not the account exaggerated? Should. 
this meet the eye of any gentleman who 
has vifited thofe places, he will confer a 
favour on your readers by ftating every par- 
ticular he knows of them, or of any other 
fimilar monuments; and to none will it | 
prove more iulereffing than to 
Yours, &c. 
J. BrirTon. 
EE 
To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, . 
S the prefervation of fubftances from 
putrefaction is a matter of very ge- 
neral importance, the following queries 
may perhaps be allowed a place in your 
Magazine— 
uft. What effect will follow on placing 
a quantity of meat, or any other fubftance 
liable to the putrefactive fermentation, zz 
vacuo, at the fame time extracting, as far 
as poffible, from the article the air contain- 
ed in it? . 
2d. How far will the placing it in oxy- 
gen, or in fixed air, retard or accelerate. 
the progrefs of putrefaction ? 
3d. Whether the condenfation of either 
of thefe airs, or of common atmofpheric 
air, will not be attended with a particular 
effect in preferving fome fubftances, liable 
es? to 
