is nothing to impede the commencement of the effect from the commencement of the cause. Colonel Capper ought also to have reflected, that winds, proceeding from rarefaction of the air, are not attended with thunder and lightning. The local effects of these hurricanes, the preceding and subsequent appearances, are equally inconsistent with this cause. Two other circumstances prove also its insufficiency: one is, that they never occur at the commencement of the monsoon, when, be fore the equilibrium is established, some commotion might be expected, but a little time after the change, when the rarefaction has had its full effect; the other, that, though it may begin to blow from the land, the air soon rushes from every point of the compass.

Colonel Capper proceeds to the explanation of some other appearances of perennial winds; which we cannot, from its extent, follow, or, from its nature, abridge. Our author, from the terms monsoon and tuffoon, is led to examine some other appropriate appellations of different places; and, as these are Persian, he concludes that the Persians were the chief navigators of the eastern seas, prior to the European discoverers.

The cause of the khumseen, a periodical wind in the Arabian Gulf of some continuance, is properly distinguished from the samiel of the desert, which occurs at more irregular intervals, and is temporary in duration. Our author's system applies very well to the khumseen, and less so to the samiel and the sirocco; nor would it be sufficient to explain the causes of their recurrence without adverting to their nature. They consist chiefly, at least the former, of inflammable air; and we believe the production of this gas has not been explained. We remember, in our review of Bruce's Travels, taking some notice of the subject; but it was too novel to admit of any very satisfactory explanation at that time. We may have occasion to resume it, if not taken up by some other author. The Etesian winds are of a similar nature and duration to the khumseen; though, from the situation of the Morea, where they are observed, their direction is opposite. The harmattan is a gust of peculiarly dry air, deprived of its moisture by passing over the arid desert, and greedily attracting fluid from every object which contains it. In a country where disease depends much on marshes, this dry wind must be healthy; but we have no reason to think it of a peculiar nature, except that, from analogy, we may suppose it to be highly electrical. The samiel, in some circumstances, seems to be as drying as the harmattan; but the cause is uncertain. The hygrometrical affinity of water to air seems to arise from a principle of a different nature from solution, and not yet well understood. If colonel Capper resume these considerations, we would recommend to his attention the experiCRIT. REV. Vol. 35. May, 1802. C

ments of De la Saussure in his treatise on the hygrometer, as well as of De Luc in the controversy on that subject.

Colonel Capper tries the truth of his theory, by examining the problems of M. Volney, and showing how easily they are explicable on it. In reality, they are so in general; but on the fourth, the proportion of dew and clouds, he is less successful. Indeed it may be said that the system does not apply to these; but we must remark, as singular, that an author should treat of meteorological subjects without being aware of the state of water in vascular vapour, and the repulsion of clouds in consequence of their electricity. Much might have been learned on this subject from De la Saussure; and some farther advances were, we believe, made by the author just mentioned in the Exeter Essays, Colonel Capper, we admit, notices, somewhat vaguely, the influence of inflammable air, and the decomposition of water; but these remarks are rather appended to, than connected with, his system.

He next proceeds to consider the winds and weather of GreatBritain, so far as they can be reduced to any rule. This part of the subject is taken up without sufficient preparation. The winds and the rain should have been examined in registers kept. in many different parts of the kingdom, and the relative situation of the neighbouring hills noticed. A little inquiry might have obtained many of these journals; indeed, many have been published, which do not seem to have been known to this author. He remarks, that the prevailing winds are the westerly; and that the quantity of rain is greater in the summer months than in any equal period. In reality, the rainy days are fewer, but the rain heavier. We have seen more rain fall in two hours in June than in the whole month of February, when there has been scarcely a fair day. His system explains very satisfactorily the prevalence of the westerly winds; but we are surprised that he has omitted one cause of the cold north-easterly winds which chiefly prevail in the spring, as it is so consonant to his own theory, viz. the thawing of the Baltic. The cause of rain is explained from the doctrine of precipitation, which is only true in a very few instances; and, in noticing the changes of the barometer, he does not consider that this instrument acts also as a manometer, measuring the changes in the elasticity of the atmosphere. Some observations respecting the causes of rain in other countries, where its appearance is more regular, are curious; and the result of the remarks on winds of this country, when applied to ships going hence to India, is equally curious and useful. The following observations cannot be too extensively communicated.

In the vicinity of the Cape, at this season, this wind blows almost incessantly, generally increasing near the land until the ships have

passed the bank. A few degrees to the eastward, the wind will sometimes come for a day or two from the S. E.; but the prevailing wind on both sides during these winter months is unquestionably the N. W. The struggle seems to be between the cold air from the pole and the reflux of air near the S. E. trade.

• After having passed the Bank of Lagullus, ships should take a good offing to the eastward, even those which intend going the windward passage; for immediately round the Cape there is often a strong set on the land, whilst at the entrance of the Mosambique Channel from Cape Corientes the current runs frequently with considerable violence to the S. E. so that between the south end of Madagascar and the main land of Africa the utmost care is necessary to avoid running either upon one coast or the other. The Doddington Indiaman was wrecked near De Lagoa Bay, in the year 1756, by standing too soon to the northward, immediately after having rounded the Cape; and a few degrees further northward many ships have likewise nearly been lost on the opposite side, by an error of near four degrees in the easting, according to the dead reckoning.

The first instance that occurred to myself was in the Prince of Wales Indiaman, in the year 1762. In company with the Britannia, we fell in with the land about midnight, near St. Augustine's Bay, at the time we supposed ourselves to be near mid-channel between this island and the continent.

The second instance was in 1785, in a French ship, the Notre Dame du Mont Carmel. The following extract from our journal will best explain our situation. Fresh gales and good weather. At day-light saw the land, the body of it bearing N. E. distance six or seven leagues. According to D'Apres' chart, this shoal, the Star Bank, lies in 44° 10' E. of Greenwich, and latitude 25° 10' S. In the morning a man on the fore-top-sail yard called out" breakers," which were not more than a mile and a half distant on each bow. This bank lies only five leagues from the coast of Madagascar, and is very low, therefore no ship should pass the latitude of St. Mary's after dark, unless well assured of the longitude.

A French Indiaman, St. Jean Baptiste, was lost at eight o'clock in the evening, in the year 1777, and thirty-nine only of one hundred and twenty people were saved: the carpenter and boatswain's mate of our ship were amongst the number of the saved. They reached St. Augustine's Bay in the yawl, but, on landing, they were made slaves by the natives. Nineteen only of the thirty-nine survived their captivity, in which they remained seven months, and then were ransomed by a Dutch ship. We probably owed our preservation to an excellent chronometer, made by Arnold, which gave us, at eight A. M. the longitude of 43° 9′ 45′′ E. that nearly corre sponded with our lunar observations; nevertheless, the captain could scarcely believe at the time, that, after having struck soundings on the Bank of Lagullas, such an error as four degrees of longitude could exist in the ship's reckoning: however, at nine P. M. he put the ship about, and stood off and on until day-break, a precaution by which, in all probability, we were saved from shipwreck.

The Aurora frigate, which was lost, after leaving the Cape of

Good Hope, in the year 1768-9; and the Cato, with admiral Parker on board, neither of which have been heard of since they left that place, were very probably both cast away either on the coast of Africa or the island of Madagascar.'. P. 120.

What follows, respecting the most eligible period of sailing from India, merits particular attention.

Some remarks on the causes of heat and cold according to this system, as well as on the causes of the evaporation and precipitation of water, follow. The saltness of the sea is a problem of peculiar difficulty; and colonel Capper involves himself in a dilemma in the consideration. If the rivers bring from their reservoirs the necessary supply of salt for the ocean, it is singular that they should not be themselves salt, and that even the lakes, which communicate with the sea, should be fresh. In fact, the ocean must have originally been created with a determined proportion of salt, for many fish die in water less or more salted. This proportion varies from different causes in different parts of the sea; but fishes migrate according to these changes; and there is no reason to suppose that the actual quantity of salt existing in the sea is altered; in other words, that any salt is decomposed while in a state of solution. Water is raised from the sea, and returned to it; so that from this cause the change is only relative and temporary. Some lakes are salt because they were once a part of the sea; others are fresh because derived from the clouds. The remarks on the high mountains of Tartary, and the immense rivers originating from them, are interesting. The information is not new; but it is brought together in a pleasing, instructive form. The agricultural and nautical deductions from the facts established, respecting the prevailing winds, are certainly well founded and useful.

The notes are often more minute details of facts, or useful illustrations; in one or two instances we find what may be considered as a new subject. Such is note 10, where the author recommends the Latin as a universal language. It was for a time the universal language of science; but has unfortunately of late been in a great measure deprived of that honourable office. We should, for many reasons, prefer the Greek; which we might enlarge on, were there a probability that our preference or opinion would have any weight. The following remarks on the famines of Bengal ought also to be very generally read.

Bengal, which in many respects resembles the Delta of Egypt, is likewise called by the Orientals Jennet ul Bellad, or the Paradise of Countries; and, like Egypt, Bengal generally supplies grain to the neighbouring southern countries of India, where the mountains being low, and the rivers comparatively small, the harvests frequently fail.

never

The province of Bengal ought, with good management, neve

to be subject to famine; for, if my conjectures are true, the supply of water must be infinitely more certain in the Ganges than in the Nile. It is to be doubted, as I have already observed, whether the Mountains of the Mocn, where the sources of the Nile are supposed to lie, are high enough to be covered with ice and snow in that latitude. But the great range of mountains, whence the waters of the Ganges, and many of its contributary streams, flow, are visibly covered with ice and snow, which on these northern mountains may be considered as perpetual; and a great portion of both being annually melted by the presence of the sun during the summer solstice, this supply can never fail.

It may, then be asked, by what means the famine happened some years since, which almost desolated the province of Bengal?

It was partly owing to a want of the same precautions, which are constantly taken by the Egyptians for ascertaining the quantity, of water in the river by means of a Nilometer, with proper dams, which ought to be erected throughout the Delta of Bengal, in every considerable branch of the Ganges.

It would perhaps be very sound policy in every European nation to adopt the same plan at home; for by these means, not only great improvements might be made in agriculture, but, by preserving the water with proper economy, commerce might be considerably facilitated by the more general use of water carriage., Nor should we forget that these Nilometers might become more correct raingauges than any now in use. But after having mentioned the famine in Bengal, and ascribed it partly to the want of a judicious economy and appropriation of the water of the Ganges, in justice to the servants of the East-India Company who governed Bengal at that time, and who have unjustly incurred much odium on that account, I must take upon me to say, that after a very diligent inquiry, made a few years afterwards on the spot, no European at that time derived the smallest pecuniary advantage from the monopoly of grain.

I have even heard a gentleman named as having contributed towards the general distress, by converting rice grounds into fields of opium, and from the sale of which he is said to have acquired immense riches; but it is well known that opium does not thrive in the same kind of ground in which rice is planted; the one requires a dry, the other a wet soil. Besides, if we admit that four or five hundred acres, or even as many thousand, were taken from the rice grounds. of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, for the purpose of planting opium,.. the defalcation of this small quantity of land, from countries infinitely more extensive than those of Great-Britain, would not have been felt but as a drop of water in the sea. The misfortune originated in the folly or iniquity of the native farmers, or grain mer chants, themselves.

It should be known that the scarcity happened in a season of uncommon drought, which followed one of unusual plenty. When the native farmers, or perhaps the merchants, during the plentiful year, had sold and exported as much grain as they could, they destroyed a prodigious quantity of the remainder, in order to keep up the price; and consequently, when the subsequent crops failed, an