FRANCE. In the beginning of the present year there was published at Paris, by M. le Comte Chaptal, a work entitled, "De l'Industrie Française," in which the ancien ministre de l'Interieur enumerates in detail both the sources and the products of French agricultural and commercial industry. From the cadastral operations and other data, M. Chaptal estimates the extent of territory yielding a revenue, in some shape or other, at 52,000,000 hectares; the gross average amount of the crop of all kinds (calculated from the mean of the 14 years immediately preceding) at 119,106,766 hectolitres; the wool, silk, and hemp raised at 81,763,422 kilogrammes; and the products of manufacturing and commercial industry at 1,820,102,409 francs.

The sequel of Denon's splendid work on Egypt, the first part of which appeared in 1809, and the second in 1811, having been recently published, we subjoin a synoptical view of its various and interesting contents.

The Description of Egypt consists of three parts:-1. Antiquities; 2. Modern State; 3. Natural History. In the first two, the places are described according to their geographical position, in going from the south to the north, from the island of Philæ to the Mediterranean, and from the east to the west, from Pelusium to Alexandria. In the Natural History, the mineralogy has also been ar ranged from the south to the north. The Antiquities comprise all the monuments anterior to the conquest of Egypt by the Arabs: every thing that is posterior to that epoch is comprehended in the Modern State. Each of these three parts has several cor

responding volumes of plates and of

text.

The first volume of Antiquities comprehends, independently of the island of Philæ, all the country situated between the last cataract and the city of Thebes; namely, Syene, Elephantina, Ombos, Selselch, Elethyia, Edfû, Esneh, and Erment. The second and third volumes are formed entirely of the antiquities of Thebes, and comprise all the papyri, paintings, and other subjects found in the sepulchral chambers. The fourth and fifth volumes contain the monuments situated below Thebes; namely, Dendera, Abydus, Antoopolis, Hermopolis Magna, Antinoë, Fayoum, Memphis, the grottoes, and the rest of the Heptanomid; Lower Egypt, Heliopolis, Canopus, Alexandria, and Taposiris. To these are added the collections of hieroglyphics, inscriptions, medals, vases, statues, and other antiques.

The first volume of the Modern State comprehends Upper and Middle Egypt; Cairo and Lower Egypt, with the isthmus of Suez and the environs. The second volume comprises Alexandria, the collection of arts and trades, that of costumes and portraits, that of vases, household furniture, and instruments,and lastly, that of inscriptions, coins, and medals.

The two volumes of Natural History are composed of the mammiferæ, the birds, and the fishes of the Nile, of the Red Sea, and of the Mediterranean; of the insects of Egypt and Syria; of the vermes, mollusca, and zoophytes; of the plants; and of the rocks, simple minerals, and fossils of Egypt, and the peninsula of Mount Sinai.

The plates are distributed in the following order :--1. General and topographical plans; 2. Particular plans of edifices, sections, and elevations; 3. Details of architecture; 4. Bas-reliefs, paintings, statues, ornaments, &c. The total number of plates is eight hundred and forty, forming nine volumes, exclusively of the Geographical Atlas, in fifty sheets, forming a separate section.

"The Text is composed, 1. Of an historical preface, and of an explanation of the plates; forming a tenth volume of the same size as the engravings, that is, large atlas: 2. Of several volumes of descriptions and of memoirs, divided into three classes, corresponding to those of the plates, and distinguished, like them, by the title of Antiquities, Modern State, and Natural History. These These volumes are all of the size of medium folio.

The Descriptions of the cities, and of the monuments, form as many chapters as there are places described or represented, and are arranged in the same order as the plates. Their object is to make known the ancient and the present state of the places described; and this exposition is accompanied by historical and geographical remarks.

The Memoirs consist of researches and dissertations on general or particular subjects; such as the physical state of Egypt, the history and geography of the country, legislation and manners, religion, language, astronomy, arts, and agriculture, among the ancient and modern Egyptians. These memoirs are placed one after the other without any determined order, like the Academical Collections.

According to "Recherches sur les Bibliothèques Anciennes et Modernes," &c. there are in Paris five

public libraries, besides about forty special ones. The Royal Library contains about 350,000 volumes of printed books, besides the same number of tracts, collected into volumes, and about 50,000 manuscripts; the Library of the Arsenal contains about 150,000 volumes, and 5000 manuscripts; the Library of St Genevieve about 110,000 volumes, and 2000 manuscripts; the Magazine Library, about 90,000 volumes, and 3437 manuscripts; and the City Library, about 15,000 volumes. In the provinces, the most considerable are those of Lyons 106,000; Bourdeaux 105,000; Aix 72,670; Besançon 53,000; Toulouse 50,000; Grenoble 42,000; Tours 30,000; Metz 31,000; Arras 34,000; Le Mans 41,000; Colmar 30,000; Versailles 40,000; Amiens 40,000. The total number of these libraries in France amounts to 273; of above 80 of these, the quantity of volumes is not known. From the data given in this work, it appears, therefore, that the grand total of those which are known, amounts to 3,345,287, of which there are 1,125,347 in Paris alone.

Count Volney has recently published an elementary work, under the title of " The European Alphabet applied to the Asiatic Languages." It is the sequel of another of his productions, entitled, " A Simplification of the Oriental Languages, or a new and ready Method of acquiring the Arabian, Persian, and Turkish Languages, by the means of European characters." With the Roman alphabet, and a few additional signs, the author proposes to express all the Asiatic idioms; and thus to facilitate literary researches into the languages, history, sciences, arts, and immense literary stores, of Asia.

This elementary work, which is dedicated to the Asiatic Society of Calcutta, is divided into five chap

ters, but may be more properly com. prised in three parts, the first of which consists of definitions respect ing the general system of sounds uttered, and the letters or signs intended to represent these sounds. In the second part, the author explains, and discusses all the vocal or tonic pronunciations employed in the languages of Europe. These are reduced to nineteen or twenty vowels, and twenty-two consonants, agreeing nearly with those of the richest of the Asiatic languages, particularly the Sanscrit. The twenty-five or twenty-six letters of the Roman alphabet are not sufficient to represent all the variations of the voice, at the same time that this alphabet possesses the great advantage of presenting the simplest forms, and also that of being employed throughout Europe, America, and the European colonies of Asia. Our author proposes to render it universal, by drawing from the basis itself of this well-known alphabet, the other simple signs necessary to pourtray foreign sounds. In the third part, M. Volney gives a practical exemplification of his theory, by applying it to the Arabic alphabet, that being one of the most complicated of the Asiatic alphabets; and after having analyzed this alphabet in all the processes of its formation, he resolves it entirely into the European characters, and others, equally simple, deduced from them. This process may be applied to the Turkish, Persian, Syriac, Hebrew, and Ethiopian languages, and even to the Sanscrit and Chinese.

M. Esquerol, physician of the Salpètriere at Paris, has published a pamphlet, describing the establishments for lunatics in France, and the means of ameliorating their condition. This writer expresses an honest indignation against the barbarous treatment almost universally exercised throughout the Depart

ments on the unfortunate victims of insanity. Not only in France, but in England, and Germany, he has found them, he says, " lying on wet straw, in filthy infectious cells, without fresh air, or water to quench their thirst, loaded with irons, and driven about with blows, and scourges, like so many wild beasts." To ascertain how far the ameliorations introduced into the asylums at Paris had been copied in the provincial establishments, the doctor made it his business to inspect personally all the houses for the reception of insane persons, throughout the kingdom. The present publication is but the programme of a larger treatise, wherein he intends to detail the observations made at each house, hospital, or prison, respectively; as also to institute a comparison of the usages in France with those of other countries, and especially of England.

The third and last part has lately appeared of L'Histoire d' Astronomie Ancienne, par M. Delambre, Perpetual Secretary to the Royal Academy of Sciences, &c. Ancient astronomy is generally supposed to have terminated with the school of Alexandria, and modern astronomy to have commenced with the era of Copernicus. M. Delambre deviates from this opinion, and commences his chronology of the middle age in the ninth century, and terminates it at the year 1579. Rejecting received authorities and dates, he computes his two extremes from the most ancient of the writings left by the Arabian astronomers, and the publication of a treatise on Astronomy by the geometer Vieta. The author first considers the astronomy of the Arabs, and other Orientals; then that of the Europeans; and lastly, the history of gnomonics. This history he brings down to the end of the seventeenth century. He differs from Bailly and others, as to the high antiquity of the

science among the Chaldeans, no books or monuments having come down to us to verify the fact.

Count Forbin has just published, at Paris, his Travels in the Levant, in a splendid work, embellished with no less than seventy-eight fine plates in the lithographic manner. The Colossus of Thebes, known by the name of Memnonium, the Count observes, has frequently been mistaken for the statue of Osymandyas. Strabo asserts that it was named Ismandès. These words were derived from Os Smandi, to give out a sound; a property possessed, it was said, by this statue, at the dawn of day and at sun-set. Its true name was Amenophis. It was visited by Germanicus. On its legs are to be seen Greek and Roman inscriptions, attesting the prodigy of the harmonious sounds emitted by this colossus, which distinctly pronounced the seven vowels. It is not difficult to believe, that mechanism, ingeniously contrived by the priests, was the sole, or at least probable cause of this miracle, which ceased in the fourth century of the Christian era. At Megara, a particular stone also gave out sounds when it was struck by an instrument of iron.

The principal other literary novelties of the year were "New Principles of Political Economy, or Riches as connected with Population," by J. C. L. Simonde de Sismondi; the "History of Cromwell," by M. Villemain; the "History of the Republic of Venice," by P. Daru; Chronology of the Greek Kings of Egypt, Successors of Alexander the Great, by M. Champollion-Figeac: the Parvenus of Madame la Comtesse de Genlis, which passed through three editions in four months; Thé

rèse Aubert, by C. Nodier and "Jerusalem Delivered," translated into French verse, by P. L. M. BaourLormian.

M. Caillaud, a young traveller, who has been visiting classical antiquities, &c. in Turkey, Egypt, and Nubia, is now at Nantes, his native city. He is preparing for another tour to the same countries, and receives from the government all the instructions and supplies he may have occasion for.

Captain Roussin, who, by order of the French king, in 1817 and 1818, explored the western coasts of Africa, from Cape Bojador to Mount Souzos, has addressed a memoir to the Minister of Marine, containing the substance of his observations. He points out a number of errors and defects in all the charts up to 1817.

SPAIN. At Paris has been published, in one volume 8vo, An Essay on the Commerce and Interests of Spain, and of her Colonies, by F. A. de Christophoro d'Avalos. The author was formerly in the Spanish Ministry ; which, with the subject of his work, is recommendation sufficient of his performance. He makes a number of judicious observations on Spanish industry, with the causes of its decay; on the encouragement required by the arts; on Population, the Clergy, the Religious Orders, &c. He considers impartially the advantages and disadvantages accruing to Spain from the discovery of America, with the consequences dependent on the loss of America as a source of wealth. This essay affords means for estimating the present state of literature in the country of Calderon, of Lope de Vega, and of Cervantes, and glances at the reforms to be expected from the impulse of European civilization,