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The brain is the principal agent, both in perception and voluntary motion. Its activity depends upon a fund of Calorique contained in its composition, which in every action it performs is exhausted, or discharged, under the form of sensible heat, steam or otherwise, until being reduced to a certain quantity, the ordinary inducements are no longer sufficient to call it into play. This is the sluggishness of fatigue. But although the active fund of the brain continue undiminished, yet if the ordinary inducements be removed to a certain extent, action, which depends both upon the fund and upon the inducements applied to it, becomes impaired, and the sluggishness of indolence is brought on. Either of these states are preparatory to that of sleep: but in what does sleep itself consist?

Before I can answer this question, I must call the attention of the reader to the anatomy and physiology of the brain.

There is a space intercepted between what anatomists call the dura and pia mater, which in a living healthy subject is filled with a subtle elastic fluid, exuding partly like other secretions from the blood vessels of the two surrounding skins, and partly formed of bases derived from another source. We may represent the brain as a kind of solid island floating in the elastic fluid above-mentioned, by which it is every where surrounded. The base of the brain then, or that part which looks towards the neck, rests as it were upon a stratum of this elastic fluid. Through this stratum pass all the nerves of the body, by the intervention of which the commerce between the brain and other parts of the body is carried on. When these nerves are excited, i. e. both vigorous and stimulated, the surrounding elastic fluid yields and leaves the nerves pervious.

But when either the sluggishness of indolence, or that of fatigue, takes place, the nerves being exhausted, or not stimulated, give less resistance to the surrounding fluid, which of course compresses the nerves, and renders them impervious. This is the state of sleep, which continues until either some violent stimulus being applied to the nerves, or their own elastic contents accumulating by degrees during sleep, the passage is again forced open, and the waking state restored.

POPULATION.

ABSTRACT of the Anfwers and Returns made pursuant to an Act

passed in the 41st year of his Majesty King George the Third, in so far as such Answers and Returns have been transmitted to his Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Home Departinent, up to the 26th day of June, 1801.

The returns are complete only for fourteen counties of England; the others are more or less so. But the counties of Buckingham, Monmouth, Southampton, and Sussex, were found too imperfect for insertion: indeed, above six hundred returns are wanting in the counties inserted. Of the returns for Wales two only are complete, and the other returns are still more imperfect than those for the counties of England. Six Welch counties were too imperfect for insertion, and above thirty returns are wanting in the counties inserted. The returns for Scotland are not due till the 10th November next,

ENGLAND.

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Regular Forces, Fencibles, and Militia, on March 10, 1801..

.196,733

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Marines at Head Quarters, ditto

11,618

106,128

20,151

Seamen employed under the Board of Customs, ditto

Seamen employed in Registered Trading Vessels, ditto

897

143,661

469,188

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ACCOUNT OF ALEXANDRIA.

WITH A PLAN.

MODERN Alexandria is a place of a small extent, scarcely containing six thousand inhabitants, but exceedingly commercial; which advantage it owes to its situation. It is built on the ground over which formerly the water of the grand harbour flowed, but which the retiring sea has now left dry. The mole, which was carried to the isles of Pharos, is now enlarged and become par: of the continent; and the island of Anti-Rhode is the centre of the new town; it is known by an eminence covered with ruins. The harbour of Kibotos is dry, and the canal that ran into it, from the lake Mareotis has disappeared, the very lake itself, on the borders of which the papyrus and date tree abounded, no longer exists; the Turks have neglected to repair the canals, through which the waters of the Nile flowed into it. Belon, a very accurate observer, who travelled Egypt some years after the Ottoman conquest, affirms that in his time the lake Mareotis was but half a league distant from the walls of Alexandria, and that it was surrounded by forests of palm-trees. The sands of Lybia are now where once these waters were! To the destructive government of the Turks, must we attribute these deplorable changes.

The canal of Faoua, the only one which still runs to Alexandria, and without which it could no longer be a town, since it has not a drop of soft water, is half filled up with mud and sand. Under the government of the Romans, and even of the Arabs, it was navigable all the year, and fertilized the plains it traversed; its banks were shaded by date-trees, covered by vines, and embellished by pleasure-houses. The stream only flows now about the end of August, and there is scarcely sufficient time to fill the reservoirs and cisterns of the town; the lands it once made fruitful, are now become desolate, and the groves and gardens around Alexandria have disappeared, with the streams that watered them; a few trees only are seen without the walls, thinly scattered, of syca more, fig, (the fruit of which is delicious) dates, the caper shrub, and the sauda or kali, which spread a partial verdure over burning sands, the sight of which is insupportable.

Yet are not all tokens of the ancient magnificence of Alexandria effaced; its cisterns vaulted with great art, which were built under all parts of the city, and its numerous aqueducts, are almost entire, though they have remained two thousand years. Towards the eastern part of the palace are the two obelisks vulgarly called Cleopatra's needles, of Thebaian stone, and containing numerous hieroglyphics. One is thrown down, broken, and covered with sand; the other still rests on its pedestal; each cut from one single stone, is about sixty feet high, and seven square at the base. Near the gate of Rosetta are five marble columns, in the place where the porticos of the gymnasium stood; the remainder of the colon

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nade, the ranges of which a hundred years ago might be traced, has been destroyed by the barbarism of the Turks.

A column of red granite, standing a quarter of a league from the south gate, particularly attracts the attention of travellers. At a distance it is seen predominant over the city; and at sea serves as a signal for mariners.

Abulfeda calls it the column of Severus, and history informs us that this emperor visited Egypt, appointed a court of justice in the city of Alexandria, and deserved well of its inhabitants. Half a league south of the city is the descent into the Catacombs, the an cient asylum of the dead. Winding alleys lead to the subterranean caverns where they were deposited. The suburb of Necropolis extended thus far. Advancing towards the sea, is a large bason, hewn in the rock, which stands on the shore; two handsome apartments have been cut in the side of the bason, with banks crossing them; into these the sea water runs, as clear and transparent as crystal through a canal, dug with angular turnings to retain the sand. This is vulgarly called Cleopatra's bath, and there are ruins which denote it was formerly embellished. We must not quit Alexandria without bringing some of those memorable things to recollection, which have happened in that city. Imagine you behold yonder mount near which Cæsar, firing the arsenal of the Alexandrians, consumed a part of the Ptolomæan library. At the entrance of this port, repulsed by his enemies, he threw himself, armed, into the waves, and, ever master of himself, foreseeing the numbers of the flying would presently sink his ship, swam to one more distant; his presence of mind saved him; for his vessel, and all on board, were swallowed up. Beside these columns, melancholy mementos of the gymnasium, the haughty queen of Egypt, seated on a throne of gold, received in presence of the wondering world the title of wife to Antony, who there sacrificed fame to love.

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DESCRIPTION OF POMPEY's PILLAR.

WITH A PLATE.

From Norry's Account of the French Expedition to Egypt.

THE small number of admeasurements that have been hitherto given of Pompey's Pillar, and those having been often indicated in the most uncertain manner by the different authors who have written upon it, citizens Dutertre, Protin, Lepère, and myself, determined, before quitting Alexandria, to ascertain all its proportions. The commandant of the port, citizen Dumanoir, whom he had engaged to facilitate the means for this purpose, in causing to be prepared for us on board of his ship some slings and ropes, was anxious to second our views. On the 14th Fructidor, (31st Aug. 1798), at five o'clock in the morning, we repaired to that monument with an escort; we began our operation by flying a paper kite,* of about four feet in height, having a second cord of an indefinite length, fixed at the same place as the other string, and which was laid hold of by one of us, when the kite was passed above and beyond the capital; so that in drawing this cord the kite descended to the ground, and was then separated; we had then the cord passed over the capital of the column, in the manner of a cord passing over the circumference of a pulley. This first operation being finished, we fastened to one of the ends of that cord another still stronger, and to that again a third, capable of bearing more than the weight of a man. A sailor was hoisted up to the capital. He began by throwing down a flag of hammered iron, erected on that place in 1789, by Fauvel, a French artist; on that flag was marked the total height of the monument, namely, 88 feet 9 inches. When the sailor had fastened strongly the ropes about the volutes upon the angles, and carefully fixed a sling, I seated myself upon a small bench suspended to the rope, and was immediately hoisted up; citizen Protin ascended after me, and we measured together all the parts of the capital; in the mean time citizens Lepère and Dutertre took all the measures of the base and pedestal. We then took the total height, which corresponded to that of Fauvel within eight centimètres (three inches nearly), it being 28 mètres 73 centimètres (88 feet six inches). There only remained to measure the diameters of the column at different heights; in order to effect this, we had placed a square (plate, fig 2) of about five feet each arm, with a diagonal which moved in a groove, and divided the angle into two parts, and which could be pushed forward or drawn back at pleasure, so as to touch the circumference at each place where the square embraced horizontally the shaft of the column; by means of which, in considering * This means had been employed some years before.

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