and nervous system. This opinion is well fupported by the Author, from various confiderations; and the truth of it, at least with regard to the action of the fumes of burning charcoal, is in a great measure evinced by the symptoms that occurred in the cafe above alluded to; in which the patient had been near two hours ftruggling with this poifon, fhut up with him in a small room, without entertaining any fufpicion of the real caufe of the uneasy fenfations he had experienced, previous to his total lofs of fenfe. On his recovery, he declared, that during an hour and a half he had felt himself very ill, as he expressed it, had been chilly, fick, fo as to retch, though he could not vomit, and had had hooting pains in the head; but had not felt any oppreffion at his breaft, nor the leaft fenfe of fuffocation.

The following papers contain a few obfervations on the atra bilis; on the feptic quality of fea-falt, &c. applied to animal fubftances in fmall quantities; and on fome of the chemical and medicinal properties of coffee. These are fucceeded by fome felect hiftories of difeafes, with remarks upon them. The firft, in which are related the hiftory and cure of a difficulty in deglutition arifing from a fpafmodic affection of the cefophagus, has been formerly publifhed in the fecond volume of the Medical Tranfactions. This is followed by fome cafes of dropfies, and the hiftory of a palfey, fuppofed to have been produced by the effluvia of lead, and in which the patient had loft the power of moving every part of the body except the head. A courfe of moderate electrical fhocks, perfevered in for a long time, under the direction of Dr. Withering, appears to have effected, or, at leaft, greatly contributed to, a perfect cure: the disease continuing at a ftand, on the occafional difcontinuance of the electrical operations; and evidently, though flowly, yielding on their refumption.

In the following paper the Author confirms, from his own experience, the utility of the practice recommended by Dr. Grafhuis, a Dutch phyfician, of exhibiting alum in obftinate cholics. He next relates fome cafes, in which warm bathing was attended with fingularly beneficial effects. The work is terminated by fome fhort mifcellaneous obfervations, to which are fubjoined propofal's for establishing more accurate and comprehenfive bills of mortality, instead of the prefent imperfect and inaccurate registers. B.

ART. IX. CONTINUATION of Dr. Hawkesworth's Account of the Voyages undertaken for making Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere, . See Review for Auguit, p. 136.

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FTER the return of the Dolphin, in May 1766, from her voyage round the world, the command of that veffel was given to Captain Wallis, who having fitted her out for the fea REV. Oct. 1773.

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with all poffible expedition, made fail in her from Plymouth, in profecution of further geographical discoveries, on the 22d of Auguft following; in company with the Swallow, commanded by Capt. Carteret, and the Prince Frederic storeship.

We meet with no remarkable occurrence in Capt. Wallis's journal, till his arrival off Cape Virgin Mary on the coaft of Patagonia, at the northern entrance of the Streight of Magellan. On the point of this Cape a great number of men were feen on horseback, who repeatedly made figns to our voyagers. to come on shore. We have more than once had occafion to treat the problem relating to the existence of a race of men greatly above the common ftature, affirmed by feveral voyagers to have been feen by them on this part of the coaft; and we lately fhewed an inclination to favour the affirmative fide of the question, or at least to temper the air of ridicule with which this opinion was treated by the lively author of the Recherches Philofophiques fur les Americans. In Capt. Wallis's relation, as well as in the preceding journal of Commodore ByFon, the question appears to be finally and fatisfactorily decided; not indeed in favour of the exaggerated accounts of former voyagers, or even of that of Mr. CHARLES CLARKE, one of the Commodore's officers +: but in fuch a manner as fhews, at leaft, that there was fome foundation for the extraordinary defcriptions that have, at different times, been given of fome of the inhabitants of this coaft. We fhall accordingly, in this place, collect together, from all the journals now before us, the material part of the evidence given by Commodore Byron, and the Captains Wallis and Carteret, relating to the ftature of these people.

Commodore Byron, in his account of his interview with about 500 of this extraordinary race, is lefs accurate and explicit, with regard to their height, than Capt. Wallis and Capt. Carteret; and indeed the general turn of his relation evidently

* See Appendix to our 42d vol. page 527. We have fince learned that the Marquis de Pau was the author of the work here referred to. + Appofitely to the prefent gigantic fubject, we have thought the name of this traveller juftly entitled to tower, in capitals, above thofe of his fellow voyagers. In a letter of his, published in a very refpectable work, he can fearce be prevailed upon to abate a fingle in of eight feet in the height of the Patagonians, whom he visited in company with Commodore Byron: and in another place, not content with thefe fuperlative dimenfions, which are certainly a very decent allowance for any giant upon earth, at least of modern times, he declares that fome of them were certainly nine feet, if they don't exceed it.' This eftimate too was formed from a fair view of them, at a distance of a very few yards,' and during a space of near two hours, at noon day. See Phil. Tranf. vol. vii. part 1; and M. Review, vol. xxxix. December 1768, p. 417.

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tends to gigantify thefe fingular perfonages. The following detached extracts are collected from the different parts of the account he gives of the conference he had with these people.

• One of them,' fays the Commodore, who afterwards appeared to be a chief, came towards me: he was of a gigantic ftature, and feemed to realize the tales of monfters in a human Shape: he had the skin of fome wild beast thrown over his fhoulders, as a Scotch Highlander wears his plaid, and was painted fo as to make the most hideous appearance I ever beheld: round one eye was a large circle of white, a circle of black furrounded the other, and the rest of his face was streaked with paint of different colours; I did not measure him ‡, but if I may judge of his height by the proportion of his ftature to my own, it could not be much less than seven feet. When this frightful Coloffus came up, we muttered somewhat to each other as a falutation, and I then walked with him towards his companions, to whom, as I advanced, I made figns that they fhould fit down, and they all readily complied; there were among them many women, who feemed to be proportionably large; and few of the men were less than the chief who had come forward to meet me.

Having looked round on thefe enormous goblins with no small aftonishment, and with fome difficulty made those that were ftill galloping up fit down with the reft, I took out a quantity of yellow and white beads, which I distributed among them, and which they received with very ftrong expreffions of pleasure.'

I could not but fmile,' fays the Commodore afterwards, on mentioning Mr. Cumming's coming up to these people with fome tobacco, at the aftonishment which I faw expreffed in his countenance, upon perceiving himself, though fix feet two inches high, become at once a pigmy among giants.'-He obferves that thefe people may more properly be called giants than tall men ;' for of the few among us who are full fix feet high, fcarce any are broad and mufcular in proportion to their ftature, but look rather like men of the common bulk, run up accidentally to an unusual height; and a man who fhould meafure only fix feet two inches, and equally exceed a ftout wellfet man of the common ftature in breadth and muscle, would ftrike us rather as a Being of a gigantic race, than as an individual accidentally anomalous; our fenfations therefore, upon feeing five hundred people, the shortest of whom were, at least, four inches taller, and bulky in proportion, may be eafily imagined.'

1 This affertion flatly contradicts a remark made by the Editor in his preface, page xvii. where he inadvertently includes Commodore Byron in the number of thofe who did measure the Patagonians.

Captain Wallis's description of, probably, the fame people, with whom he had an interview near the fame place, is more precife, and tends fomewhat to lower the ideas of gigantic - magnitude, which the former relation, may have left on the mind of the Reader. Nevertheless, even from his measures, these Patagonians appear to be a very fingular and distinguishable species, or rather variety, of the human race; but whether they may still be allowed to clafs among giants, depends on the courtesy of the Reader, and the idea which he affixes to the term. His candour too may be exercised in reconciling the two accounts, by attributing the variation between them to the difference which may naturally be expected between a random eftimate, formed on the ftriking view of a large number of people exceeding the common fize of men, and an actual menfuration of individuals.

• As I had two meafuring rods with me,' fays Capt. Wallis, "we went round and measured thofe that appeared to be the tallest among them. One of these was fix feet feven inches high, feveral more were fix feet five, and fix feet fix inches; but the ftature of the greater part of them was from five feet ten to fix feet. Capt. Carteret, who was on fhore with Capt. Wallis when he vifited and measured these people, refers us, in his journal, for his account of them, to his letter to Dr. Maty, publifhed in the 60th volume of the Philofophical Tranfactions; where he informs his correfpondent that they were, in general, all from fix feet, to fix feet five inches, although there were some who came to fix feet feven inches.' Some other particulars relating to these people, extracted from the aforefaid letter, may be found on confulting our 46th volume, March 1772, page 181.:

After refitting the three fhips in Port Famine Bay, where great plenty of fish were procured, as well as of celery, peatops, and other vegetables, by the ufe of which, affifted by daily bathing in the fea, and poffibly by breathing the land air, the recovery of all the fcorbutics on board was fpeedily effected, the Prince Frederic victualer was fent off for Falkland's Island, and the two other fhips purfued their dangerous and tedious navigation through the ftreight; in the performance of which, as we have already remarked, they spent near four months. During this whole time, as Capt. Wallis obferves, they were almost in perpetual danger of fhipwreck, in a dreary and inhospitable region, where, in the midft of summer, the weather was cold, gloomy, and tempeftuous, where the pro-pects had more the appearance of a chaos than of nature, and where, for the most part, the vallies were without herbage, and the hills without wood.'-In fact, a reader of fenfibility is kept perpetually on the rack in perusing the plain recital of the many

hair-breadth escapes which our voyagers experienced in the courfe of this perilous navigation. Unfortunately too, on the very day that Capt. Wallis got without the mouth of the ftreight, being obliged to carry fail in order to ftem a current which fet his fhip ftrongly on fome iflands at the western entrance, he loft fight of the Swallow, which was only at a small distance aftern, and never faw her afterwards.

From the accounts given of the inhabitants of these dreary coafts, who occafionally vifited the fhips, human nature appears here to be in the loweft ftate of degradation. If we except the gigantic Patagonians, who may, comparatively, be confidered as a polifhed people, the other inhabitants seem scarce to poffefs a fund of knowlege fuperior to that of the beaver, of whom they evidently fall fhort in industry and contrivance; or to have a ftock of curiofity equal to that of an afs. The many novelties. and wonders to which they were witneffes on board the ships were either viewed with the moft ftupid indifference by them, or made the most flight and tranfient impreffions on them. Their canoes, by which they procure their whole fubfiftence, are formed of nothing more than the bark of trees tied together at the ends, and kept open by fhort pieces of wood thrust in tran-. verfely between the two fides, like the boats which children make of a bean fhell, Their wants indeed are few, but they feem not to be endowed with invention and industry fufficient to enable them to gratify even the most preffing of this small number, or to provide against the attacks of cold and hunger, to which they are fo frequently expofed.

While the fhips were in Upright Bay two canoes full of these wretched Beings came on board of the Dolphin, while some of the fhip's company were fifhing with a hook and line. A fish being given to one of them, fomewhat bigger than a herring, alive, juft as it came out of the water, he fnatched it as haftily as a dog would fnap at a bone. He thewed however so much delicacy as firft to kill it, by giving it a bite near the gills, and then proceeded to eat it; beginning with the head, and going on to the tail, without rejecting either the bones, fins, fcales, or entrails.' In fhort, they eat every thing that was given them, indifferently, whether falt or fresh, dreffed or raw and though these helplefs beings fhivered with cold, yet they had nothing to cover them but a feal skin, thrown loosely over their fhoulders, which did not reach to their middle. In the neighbourhood of this place one of the female Indians offered one of Commodore Byron's officers a child which was fucking at her breaft. It is fcarcely neceffary to fay that he refused it, but the offer,' fays the fournalist (or Editor) feems to degrade thefe poor forlorn favages more than any thing in their appearance or manner of life: it must be a ftrange depravity of na

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