! From a more accurate investigation of the fubject, the Author has difcovered an error in his former opinion, refpecting the nature of urinary and gouty concretions. He retracts his hypothesis of these concretions being calcareous earth, into which fuppofition chemifts of eminence, who pretended to have analyfed them,' had led him. He is ready,' he says, to take blame on himfelf for having placed too much reliance on authorities to which lefs confidence was due;' he makes ample atonement however for his implicit faith in thole writers, by the introduction of experiments which fully refute the calcareous fyftem. 6 After reciting the experiments of Bergman and Scheele made on urinary concretions, which prove them to be a peculiar acid blended with a portion of animal gelatinous matter, our Author adds many curious experiments confirming the opinion of the diftinguished chemifts above mentioned, and having demonftrated the prefence of acidity in calculous concretions, calls it the concreting acid, or acid of calculi. The Author's next enquiry confifts of experiments to determine the ftate in which the calculous acid is contained in the fluids. The urine is the fluid on which he has chiefly made his experiments; and from this fluid, by the addition of a different acid, the acidum calculi is always precipitated, not indeed immediately, but after 16 or 24 hours, in the form of fmall redifhbrown cryftals, adhering to the vial, in which, to half a pint of fresh urine, 30 drops of marine acid were added. Other acids produce the fame effect; though fometimes (but he does not tell us under what particular circumftances) the precipitate is a fine powder, refembling the lateritious fediment in intermittents. On examining the cryftallized precipitate, it was found, like the calculus, to be foluble, with heat, in the vitriolic acid;to produce, when united with diluted nitrous acid, a yellow folution;-to be capable of being combined with cauftic, fixed, and volatile alkalis, lime, magnefia, and argillaceous earth, from all of which it was again precipitated by every other acid;―to be foluble in diftilled water by boiling, and to be depofited again by cooling: hence our author concludes this cryftallized precipitate to be the specific matter of calculi, viz. the pure concreting acid, which forms the bafis of urinary concretions. The manner in which the concreting acid is diffolved in the animal fluids the Author fuppofes to be by means of volatile alkalı, or lime, or the fubftance formed of phosphoric acid and lime, commonly called animal earth. His reafon for this fuppofition is, because the precipitation obtained by adding different acids to the urine, is the fame, as when thofe acids are added to * Universally in this work falfely written chrystals. Dd 3 a folution a folution of the acidum calculi in volatile alkali, lime, or animal earth. The Author proceeds to account for phenomena of urinary and athritic concretions by the introduction of a foreign acid, which has a ftronger affinity to alkalis, or earths, than the acidum calculi, into the circulation; this laft will be precipitated, and being depofited in the kidneys, bladder, or capillary veffels, produce gravel or gout. The manner in which the animal fluids are impregnated with foreign acids, is nearly the fame as that defcribed by our Author in his former treatife, as are alfo the prevention and cure of the difeafes, for which we refer to the account above mentioned. ART. V. Obfervations on divers Paffages of Scripture: placing many of them in a Light altogether new; afertaining the Meaning of feveral not determinable by the Methods commonly made ufe of by the Learned; propofing to Confideration probable Conjectures on others, different from what have been hitherto recommended to the Attention of the curious; and more amply illuftrating the reft than has been yet done by means of Circumstances incidentally mentioned in Books of Voyages and Travels into the East. Together with a Specimen of fimilar Obfervations on the Claffics, and on Jofephus and St. Jerom. Vols, III. and IV. Svo, 13s. Boards. Johnfon. 1787. THE HE favourable reception juftly given by the Public to the two preceding volumes of this work, publifhed in 1776, has induced the Author + to continue his reading and remarks, and to publish a third and fourth volume of a fimilar nature. As the bufinefs of my life,' fays he, has been to ftudy and endeavour to illuftrate the Scriptures, as well as to prefs the truths contained in them on the heart, many other obfervations have risen up to view, in looking over again the books I had before examined, as well as in perufing fome I had never feen when I made the Obfervations before published.' Sir Philip Mufgrave, who favoured him with the perusal of Sir John Chardin's manufcript notes on many paffages of Scripture, fent him after the publication of the former volumes, Sir John's Travels, 3 tom. Amft. 1711, which furnished him with many additional Obfervations. A very eminent member of the University of Cambridge obtained for him, Vinifauf's Account of the Expedition of Richard I. to the Holy Land, out of the Univerfity Library. Mr. Harmer alfo repaired to London for the purpose of converfing with two perions on matters connected * See Review, vol. liv. p. 353 The Rev. Mr. Harmer, a very refpectable Diffenting Minifter at Watesfield, near Bury St. Edmund's, Suffolk. with the fubject of thefe volumes. The one was a gentleman*, who visited the Eaft in 1774. The account of the other fhall be given in the Author's own words, as it contains fome intelligence not generally known, and does equal credit to the refpectable refugee, and to the country which he has chofen for an afylum: The other was Signior Lufignan, the Author of the Hiftory of the Revolt of Ali Bey, of which the fecond edition, made use of by me, was printed in London in 1784, who not only had answered feveral queries I put to him by letter, but had affured me of his readinefs to communicate any farther eclairciffements I might want, in conversation, if I came to London, which he could not fo well commit to writing, as being a foreigner. This promife he very kindly fulfilled; and thofe communications were very useful to fettle fome matters, of fuch a minute nature as not to be met with in books of Travels, but of confiderable ufe to accomplish what I had in view. It gives me pleasure to think that my native country, the land of liberty and generofity, has received this Eastern refugee into her bofom, who appears to be, not only a man of ingenuity and great information as to Oriental matters, but has, I apprehend, the honour of being defcended from a family of which one wore the crown of the Chriftian kingdom of Jerufalem fome centuries ago, and others have fuffered hardships on account of their attachment to the faith of Jefus.' To thefe fources of information, Mr. H. has added a variety of books, fome printed fince the publication of his former volumes, and others of an older date, but which he had not then met with an opportunity of confulting. Among these, are Itinerarium Benjaminis in Seculo, 12mo. Lugd. Bat. 1633. Itinerarium Sym. Simeonis, ann. 1322. Cantab. 1778. Voy. de Pietro della Valle, ann. 1624, &c. Rouen, 1745. Doubdan, Voy. de la Terre Sainte, Paris, 1661. L. Addifon's Prefent State of the Jews, London, 1675. Relation of a Voyage into Mauritania, by the Sieur Roland Frejus, London, 1671. Voy. de l'Arabie Heureux, 1708, 1709, 1710, Amft. 1716. Journey to Mequinez, in 1721, by Windus, Lond. 1725. Haynes's Travels in feveral Parts of Turkey, Egypt, and the Holy Land, London, 1774. Dr. Richard -Chandler's Travels in Afia Minor, Oxford, 1775; and in Greece, ibid. 1776. Niebuhr, Defcript. de l'Arabie, Amft. et Utrecht, 1774. et Voy. en Arabie, 2 tom. Amft. et Utrecht, 1776 et 1780. Irwin's Voy. up the Red Sea, 2d edit. 1780. Major Rooke's Travels to the Coast of Arabia Felix, 2d edit. Lond. 1784. And Memoirs of the Baron de Tott, 2 vols. London, 1785. To thefe books of Travels may be fubjoined, Tales, tranflated from the Perfian of Inatulla of Dehli, 2 vols. Lond. 1768.-Of moft of thefe, accounts may be found in our Reviews, according to the foregoing dates. See our General Index. W. Boylston, Efq. of London. The The Obfervations in thefe volumes are placed under the fame general heads as the former, but are numbered in one feries only, for the fake of brevity in referring to them. Obf. 1. relates to the time of the descent of the first rain at the beginning of the wintry feafon in the Holy Land. Signior Lufignan, who, as we understand, lived fome years in Palestine, affured Mr. Harmer, "that the rains are wont to begin to fall in the Holy Land about the latter end of September, O. S. to which he added, that in the year in which Ali Bey encamped at Joppa *, the rain began to fall before the middle of September, O. S. he thought about the 7th." This account differs from that of travellers in general, who fpeak of the middle or latter end of October as the commencement of the rainy feafon in Syria and the adjacent countries. Mr. H. quotes to this effect, Dr. Shaw's Travels, p. 335, Niebuhr, Voyage en Arabie, tom. ii. p. 186, and the manufcript journal of a gentleman (Mr. Boylfton) who was in those parts in 1774. We add, that Mr. Volney, in his Travels, publifhed, we believe, fince the date of Mr. H.'s Preface, and confequently which he had not had the opportunity of confulting, mentions the end of October as the time when the rain begins to fall in Syria t. The following account of the weather, and rural economy in Syria, is abridged from that given by this intelligent traveller at the page referred to, and may be compared with those of other writers. In Syria, the rain begins about the end of October; after which they fow their winter crop, wheat and barley: thefe are reaped, in Palestine, in April and May. It rains in March and April, when they fow their fummer crop, tobacco, cotton, beans, &c. which are reaped in September and October. The vintage is towards the end of September. We apprehend that the rain does not in general begin to fall before the middle of October, or that what falls before that time is very trifling, feeing that September and October are the months in which they reap their fummer crop, and that the end of September is the time when they gather their olives as well as grapes . Dr. Shaw obferves, that in Barbary, where the air and weather differ very little from thofe of Syria and the Holy Land, the first rains fall, fome years, in September §. In the fecond Obfervation, Mr. H. with great plaufibility fupports an opinion, that the ceremony of pouring out water at the Feast of Tabernacles, to which our Lord is fuppofed to allude, John, vii. 37, 38, and which the Jews themselves feem at a lofs to explain, had a reference to the rains then expected to fall, according to the reprefentation of R. Akibah; and that this rite + Volney's Travels, vol. i. p. 325. Eng, See Travels, * A. D. 1772. Lightfoot's Works, vol. ii. p. 978. was was derived from the Perfians, and other neighbouring nations, among whom they dwelt in the time of their captivity. We shall copy Obf. 5. because it is fhort, and contains a circumftance unnoticed both by commentators and phyfiologifts. I remarked in a preceding volume, that ingenious travellers have fuppofed the kind of cloud which the fervant of Elijah faw (like a man's hand) is a natural prognoftic of rain, and obferved as such in the East at this day; perhaps it may be fo in the Weft too. For a very learned, ingenious, and deferving clergyman in Suffolk made this memorandum, on reading the paragraph I have referred to: "I faw a cloud like a man's hand on an high hill at Beachborough in Kent, and immediately followed by a violent fhower, then fair again." Yet I believe the figure of the cloud, feen at Mount Carmel, is commonly confidered as an unmeaning circumftance in the prophetic hiftory, for want of due obfervation.' The eleventh Obfervation relates to the time of fheep-fhearing in the Holy Land. And here Mr. Harmer takes occafion to ob ferve, that the washing of many of the sheep at Watesfield, preparatory to the fhearing, was, in the year 1785, on the 17th of May; and yet one of the tokens to mark out the time given by Dyer, in the Fleece, and quoted by Dr. Aiken, in his Calendar of Nature, is when the verdant elder spreads Her filver flowers; which was not that year till the middle of June. We have been informed by an intelligent farmer, in one of the midland counties, that, owing to the inclofure of common fields, and the confequent improved ftate of our pafture lands, sheep become fit for fhearing fome weeks fooner than they formerly did. This accounts for the difagreement between the present time for thatbufinefs and Mr. Dyer's traditionary token, which in more homely verse is in the mouths of all the country people in those parts. Obf. 21. The fame caution that has engaged the Eastern people in general, that tend cattle, not to fleep in the open air, but to make ufe of tents, it should feem, engages them not to fit or lie in their tents on the moift ground, but to make use of fome kind of carpeting. 6 The poorer fort of Arabs of our times make use of mats in their tents; and other inhabitants of those countries, who affect ancient fimplicity of manners, make use of goat fkins, in a way that may afford an amusing illuftration of fome paffages of the Pentateuch, which relate to the mode of living obferved by the Ifraelites in the Wilderness. • Dr. Richard Chandler, in his Travels in Greece, tells us, that he faw fome Dervishes at Athens fitting on goat skins; and that he was Obferv. vol. i. ch. 1. Obf. 15. Voy. dans la Paleftine, par de la Roque, p. 176. afterwards |