this useful bandage, occurred in any part of it; yet were the parts as smooth as possible, without a wrinkle or any appearance of slackness from the varying form of the limb. There is another remark I wish to make on this subject, respecting the materials employed for swathing the mummy. The principal rollers appeared to be made of a very compact, yet elastic linen, some of them of great length, (from four to five yards,) without any seam or a single stitch appearing in any part of them. Other lesser bandages, and particularly the square envellopes of the abdomen, thorax, and head, are of cotton, and of a less elastic texture. The observation, therefore, of some recent writers, that the employment of cotton is a more recent method, is not correct. The square cloths, in the present instance, were found to alternate with the complete swathing of the whole body. They occurred four distinct times; while the bandaging, with rollers and split linen, &c. was repeated at least twenty times; the five superior or external layers being so contrived that the shape, form, and position of the limbs, lic completely concealed, and the mummy presents a homogeneous mass, with the outline, thus

I caused the whole of the materials employed in these different sort of bandages to be weighed, and found them to be twenty-eight pounds avoirdupois. The whole of the linen employed seemed highly impregnated with the same bituminous matter with which the body itself was embalmed; and, from some experiments made since, I judge it to have been steeped into a strong solution of tannin. This is a curious fact, which, I imagine, has not yet been noticed.

Having removed, after a very laborious operation of upwards of an hour, the "outward trappings" of the mummy, the next points, connected with questions of a professional nature, for us to consider, was the sex of the individual, its state of integrity, and the mode in which the viscera had been removed.A detail of each of these points I must defer till the next Number, as they involve matter of too much interest to admit of being briefly considered within the short space which the present Number affords me for that purpose.--A. B. G.

COLLECTANEA MEDICA:

CONSISTING OF

ANECDOTES, FACTS, EXTRACTS, ILLUSTRATIONS, &c. Relating to the History or the Art of Medicine, and the Auxiliary Sciences.

Floriferis ut apes in saltibus omnia libant,
Omnia nos itidem depascimur aurea dicta.

Continuation of our Abstract of BARON HUMBOLDT's Dissertation on Isothermal Lines, and the Distribution of Heat over the Globe.

AFTER what has already been stated respecting the limits between

which the annual heat divides itself on the same isothermal curve, it will be seen how far we are authorized to say, that the coffee-tree, the olive, and the vine, in order to be productive, require mean temperatures of 64·4, 60·8, and 53.6, Fahr. These expressions are true only of the same system of climate,-for example, of the part of the Old World which stretches to the west of the meridian of Mont Blanc; because, in a zone of small extent in longitude, while we fix the annual temperatures, we determine also the nature of the summers and the winters. It is known, likewise, that the olive, the vine, the varieties of grain, and the fruit-trees, require entirely different constitutions of the atmosphere. Among our cultivated plants, some, slightly sensible of the rigors of winter, require very warm, but not long, sum. mers; others require summers rather long than warm; while others, again, indifferent to the temperature of summer, cannot resist the great colds of winter. Hence it follows that, in reference to the culture of useful vegetables, we must discuss three things for each cli mate the mean temperature of the entire summer,-that of the warmest month,-and that of the coldest month. I have published the numerical results of this discussion in my Prolegomena de Distributione Geographica Plantarum, secundum Cæli Temperiem; and I shall confine myself at present to the limits of culture of the olive and the vine. The olive is cultivated in our continent between the paral. lels of 36° and 40°, wherever the annual temperature is from 62.6 to 58 1, where the mean temperature of the coldest month is not be. low from 410 to 42.8, and that of the whole summer from 71-6 to 73.4. In the New World, the division of heat between the seasons is such, that, on the isothermal line of 58'1, the coldest month is 35.6, and that the thermometer sometimes sinks there even, during several days, from 14° to 104. The region of potable wines extends, in Europe, between the isothermal lines of 62.6 and 50°, which corre spond to the latitudes of 36° and 48°. The cultivation of the vine extends, though with less advantage, even to countries whose annual temperature descends to 48.2 and to 47.48; that of winter to 35-8, and that of summer to 66.2 and 68°. These meteorological condi

tions are fulfilled in Europe as far as the parallel of 50°, and a little beyond it. In America, they do not exist farther north than 40°. They have begun, indeed, some years ago, to make a very good red wine to the west of Washington, beyond the first chain of mountains, in the valleys which do not extend beyond 38° 54′ of lat. On the continent of Western Europe, the winters, whose mean temperature is 32°, do not commence till on the isothermal lines of 48.2 and 50°, in from 51° to 52° of latitude; while, in America, we find them already on the isothermal lines of from 51.8 to 53.6, under from 40° to 41° of latitude.

If, instead of considering the natural inflexions of the isothermal lines, that is to say, those that propagate themselves progressively at great intervals of longitude,—we direct our attention to their partial inflexions, or to particular systems of climates occupying a small extent of country, we shall still find the same variations in the division of the annual heat between the different seasons. These partial inflexions are most remarkable:

1st. In the Crimea, where the climate of Odessa is contrasted with that of the S. W. shores of the Chersonesus, sheltered by mountains, and fit for the cultivation of the olive and the orange-tree.

2dly. Along the Gulf of Genoa, from Toulon and the Hieres Isles to Nice and Bordighera, (Annales du Museum, tom. xi. p. 219,) where the small maritime palm-tree, chamœrops, grows wild, and where the date-tree is cultivated on a large scale, not to obtain its fruit, but the palms or etiolated leaves.

3dly. In England, on the coast of Devonshire, where the port of Salcombe has, on account of its temperate climate, been called the Montpellier of the North, and where (in South Hams) the myrtle, the camellia Japonica, the fuchsia coccinea, and the buddleia globosa,* pass the winter in the open ground, and without shelter.

4thly. In France, on the western coasts of Normandy and Brittany. In the department of Finisterre, the arbutus, the pomegranate-tree, the yucca gloriosa and aliofolia, the erica Mediterranea, the hortensia, the fuchsia, the dahlia, resist in open ground the inclemency of a winter which lasts scarcely fifteen or twenty days, and which succeeds to a summer by no means warm. During this short winter, the thermometer sometimes falls to 17.6. The sap ascends in the trees from the month of February; but it often freezes even in the middle of May. The lavatera arborea is found wild in the isle of Glenans; and opposite to this island, on the continent, the astragalus bajonensis and the laurus nobilis.+

From observations made in Britanny for twelve years, at St. Malo, at Nantes, and at Brest, the mean temperature of the peninsula appears to be above 56.3. In the interior of France, where the land is not

KNIGHT, Trans. Hort. Soc. vol. i. p. 32.-In 1774, an agave flowered at Salcombe, after having lived twenty-eight years without being covered in winter. On the coast of England, the winters are so mild, that orange-trees are seen on espaliers, which are sheltered, as at Rome, only by means of a matting.

+ BONNEMAISON, Geogr. Botan. du Depart. du Finisterre, (Journal de Bolan. tom. iii. p. 118.)

much elevated above the sca, we must descend 3° of latitude in order to find an annual temperature like this.

It is known, from the researches of Arthur Young, that, in spite of the great rise of the two isothermal lines of 53.6 and 55'4 on the western coast of France, the lines of culture (those of the olive, and of the maize and vine,) have a direction + quite opposite, from S.W. to N.E. This phenomenon has been ascribed,‡ with reason, to the low temperature of the summers along the coast; but no attempt has been made to reduce to numerical expressions the ratios between the seasons in the interior and on the coast. In order to do this, I have chosen eight places, some of which lie under the same geographic parallels, and others in the prolongation of the same isothermal line. I have compared the temperatures of winter, of summer, and of the warmest months; for a summer of uniform heat excites less the force of vegetation, than a great heat preceded by a cold season. The terms of comparison have been along the Atlantic; the coasts of Brittany, from St. Malo and St. Brieux to Vannes and Nantes; the sands of Olonne; the Isle of Oleron; the embouchure of the Garonne and Dax, in the department of the Landes: and, in the interior, corresponding to the same parallel, Chalons sur Marne, Paris, Chartres, Troyes, Poitiers, and Montauban.

* Travels in France, vol. ii. p. 91. The line which limits the cultivation of the vine, extends from the embou. chure of the Loire and of the Vilaine, by Pontoise, to the confluence of the Rhine and the Moselle. The line of the olive-trees commences to the west of Narbonne, passes between Orange and Montelimart, and carries itself to the N.E. in the direction of the Great St. Bernard.

DECANDOLLE, Flor. Franç. 3d edit. tom. ii. pl. viii. xi. LEQUINIO, Voy, dans le Jura, tom. ii. p. 84-91.

Farther south, from 4410 of lat., the comparisons become incorrect, because France, locked between the Ocean and the Mediterranean, presents, along its last basin, in the fine region of the olives, a system of climate of a particular kind, and very different from that of the western coast.

These results are deduced from 127,000 observations, made with sixteen thermometers, of, no doubt, unequal accuracy. In supposing, on the theory of probabilities, that, in such a number of observations, the errors, in the construction and exposure of the instruments, and in the hours of observation, will in a great measure destroy one another, we may determine, by interpolation, either under the same parallel or upon the same isothermal line, the mean winters and summers of the interior and of the coast of France. This comparison gives

As the isothermal lines rise again towards the western coasts of France, that is to say, as the mean temperature of the year becomes there greater than under the same latitude in the interior of the country, we ought to expect that, in advancing from cast to west under the same parallel, the heat of the summers would not diminish. But the rising again of the isothermal lines, and the proximity of the sea, tend equally to increase the mildness of the winters; and each of these two causes acts in an opposite manner upon the summers. If the division of the heat between these seasons was equal in Brittany and in Orleannois, in the climate of the coast and the continental climates, we ought to find the winters and summers warmer in the same latitude along the coast. In following the same isothermal lines, we readily observe, in the preceding table, that the winters are colder in the in terior of the country, and the summers more temperate upon the coasts. These observations confirm, in general, the popular opinion respecting the climate of coasts; but, in recollecting the cultivation and the development of vegetation on the coasts and in the interior of France, we should expect differences of temperature still more consi. derable. It is surprising that these differences between the winter and the summer should not exceed 1∙S, or nearly a quarter of the difference between the mean temperature of the winters or the summers of Montpellier and Paris. In speaking of the limits of the cultivation of plants upon mountains, I shall explain the true cause of this apparent contradiction. In the mean time it may be sufficient to remark, that our meteorological instruments do not indicate the quantity of heat