of plain practical sense do not perceive that they are guilty of the absurdity of preferring their own experience to that of all mankind. The theory of a science is nothing but a compilation of general rules derived from an infinite number of experiments and observations; and no theory is sound which does not correspond with the results of such experiments and observations. farmers refuse to employ the means for increasing the productiveness of the earth, because they have not discovered them.

Not only the labours, but the amusements of the Cherokees then, should be social. The principal sport in which they indulge, though in other respects as fine an athletic exercise as any known to the Greeks, is entirely a game of contention. I believe that more might be done towards reclaiming them from barbarism by judicious national games which should call them together in crowds three or four times a year, than by all the schools and all the looms with which we have supplied them.

The final catastrophe of this simple and interesting nation is susceptible of the following contingencies.

I. That they abandon their country as it is encroached on by their white neighbours, and exhibit a new succession of similar phenomena on some more western territory.

II. That they remain, mix with the white population, and lose both their colour and institutions.

III. That they remain separate from the white population, and attain a sufficient degree of civilization to be admitted into the American confederacy, or to establish a regular government of

their own.

The first contingency will doubtless happen to a certain extent: indeed it has already begun. It may either continue until they disappear from their present territory entirely, or it may only accelerate the completion of one of the two remaining contingencies. The emigration of the Cherokees to the Arkansa, began at the close of the revolutionary war-when a few individuals who had enriched themselves by plunder in that long contest, chose rather to fly from their country, than make restitution of the stolen property. This colony has drawn to it many of the young and adventurous, who grew impatient under the approach of the white population. Their numbers are now considerable, and their habits the same with those of the original nation.

The second contingency will be facilitated by the preference which the Indians of both sexes manifest for the European race. It has already advanced very far. Difference of colour in the human race does not excite so inconquerable an aversion as the owners of negro slaves imagine. The Spaniards mixed with the Moors, and have since intermarried with the South American Indians.

The third, though to a certain extent a possible, is a very improbable contingency. The two first, the emigration of many of the natives, and the mixture of such as remain with the white population, will in a short time efface the colour and change the

savage habits of this nation. And the euthanasia of the Cherokees, which will probably be that of all the other tribes, will be, to lose every characteristic which distinguishes them from the European race; even their colour, and to be incorporated into the American republic.

When we consider how fruitless every individual attempt has proved, to correct the instincts of savage nature by the restraints of education, and the difficulty in all cases of sowing the seeds of improvement among barbarous nations, it may well be doubted whether the progress of emigration, and of their mixture with the white population, will not in every case be so much more rapid than their advancement in civilization, as to preclude even the possibility of any part of North America, ever exhibiting the phenomenon of a society of civilized aborigines. Should it do so, it would only retard, and could not prevent their ultimate disappearance. Nor indeed can I perceive the moral good or political advantage of preserving for ever the distinct varieties of the human race. It is rather to be desired that this original curse inflicted upon us, should be mercifully repealed, and that tribes and nations which have long lived in alienation and hostility, should gently be blended into one homogeneous people. At the same time, every one must commend the very laudable zeal with which our government, especially the executive branch of it, have laboured to reclaim this wretched nati n to a happier system of life. It is surely an object worthy the ambition of any statesman to imitate the example of the first civilizers of mankind, by engrafting on their rude customs the great fundamental principles of social refinement, principles to which we are indebted for most that is good, and for all that is great or glorious in our na

ture.

The exertions of the Moravian missionaries are also particularly worthy of praise. They have laboured with zeal, and without ostentation, to diffuse the lights of revelation over this benighted portion of mankind.

The Cherokees correspond in their general personal appearance with the other Aborigines of North America. The men are straight, slender, well proportioned, but rather small. They have round limbs, shoulders rather narrow, and small feet and hands. The women, bent by untimely burthens, haggard with early toil, and withered by the rude shocks to which they are prematurely exposed, are truly ugly. The order of nature itself is inverted in this state of nature. The severest labours devolve on those who are least able to perform them.

It has been remarked that children are always graceful in their motions. There is undoubtedly an ease, an energy, and a certain grace, in the manners of our savages. Except when spoiled by their intercourse with profligate white people, they are seldom rude, and never constrained in their deportment. They have a dignity and elevation of carriage, with an air of complacency,

without assurance or arrogance; and however unused to their situation, never betray astonishment, or suffer from mauvaise honte.

It is pleasing to observe that barbarians as the native Americans were, they were not such monsters as the advocates of the theory of the degeneracy of American nature would make us believe. Though less advanced than the Gauls and Germans whom Cæsar describes, (for they had complicated institutions and the use of letters) they have no such terrible and ferocious customs. So far as I am informed, no tribe of American savages recognise the authority of men to kill the women whom we call their wives, nor the children who are reputed theirs. The ancient Gauls did both. Even the relations of a deceased husband used to catechise the wife in a most insulting manner, as to the cause of his death; and if she could not give a satisfactory account of the matter, she was put to death with torture. In these respects the Cherokees are more humane than the ancient Gauls or early Romans. The Romans sold their children, and were allowed to put to death such as were deformed at three years of age.

The hypothesis of the degeneracy of nature in the new continent, is now well explained. So long as the European colonies were confined to the sea coast, men and other animals pined under the influence of a noxious air. Now that the population has advanced beyond the mountains, it can vie in size, symmetry, activity, intelligence, and strength with the most favoured portions of Europe.

These are the principal reflections which occur to me after the lapse of two years since I was in the country of the Cherokees, without the intention at the time, of publishing any remarks on their institutions, for indeed I found very little which could amuse or instruct you. I shall be happy if my opinions can contribute to the adoption of better means for the amelioration of their condition.

The first village we reached in which we could be understood, on emerging from this wilderness of barbarism, was Athens in Georgia. The circumstance recalled to our minds the words of a Roman exile to a country once as uncultivated.

Hic quoque sunt igitur Graiæ (quis crederet) urbes, 'Inter inhumanæ nomina barbaria.'

I was glad that my exile was not by the decree of a Roman emperor, but the suggestion of a capricious curiosity. It is gratified, and I assure you there is nothing so captivating in this golden age of society, as to induce me again to exchange the comforts of civilized life, for the privations and miseries of an Indian wig

wam.

*In describing the institutions of the Druids, Cæsar says 'public is privatisque rationibus (Græcis) literis utuntur.' Lib. vi. Bel. Gal.

Cæsar. De Bel. Gal. Lib. vi.

ART. III. On Acid Liquors and the Consequences of using them, particularly on WINE.

SIR,

Much contest has arisen among the professors of medicine, whether diseases are to be attributed in any degree to the chemical qualities of the food taken into the stomach, and the liquids extracted from that food by the digestive and assimilating organsor whether disease and perhaps life itself, be not exclusively owing to the operation of stimuli upon the living fibre of the animal body, producing, when in excess or in defect, morbid action. 'Who shall decide, when doctors disagree?' not I. Still, without pretending to enter minutely into this dispute, I should think that the blood and its stimulating qualities will be very different in two men, one of whom drinks a pint of water daily as the only liquid at his dinner, and another who drinks daily a bottle of porter and a pint of Madeira. A physician may talk about stimulus as much as he pleases, but the characters both of health and disease, are very different in a Hindoo who lives upon rice and water, and an European who swallows turtle-soup, beef-stakes, brandy and Port wine. Whatever properties of being stimulated the solids may possess, the fluids that stimulate them, must partake of the nature of the substances out of which they are extracted.

In the Philosophical Transactions for 1811, p. 345, Mr. W. T. Brande, editor of the Journal of Science and the Arts, at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, published a table showing the proportion of alcohol or spirit of wine contained in 100 parts by measure of the wines experimented on. The table is as follows:

In the first column the Wine is specified; the second contains its specific gravity after distillation, the third exhibits the proportion of the pure spirit, which every hundred parts of the Wine contain.

This table he afterwards corrected as follows in the 8th and 9th numbers of the Journal above mentioned.

'Table exhibiting the average Quantity of Spirit in different kind of Wine. By W. T. BRANDE, Esq. Sec. R. S. &c.

'Since the publication of the researches upon the state of spirit in fermented liquors, contained in the Philosophical Transactions for the

* The proportion of spirit, which may be attained from Cyder, Ale, and Porter (or Brown Stout) is subject to considerable variation in different samples: the number given for each, in this table, is therefore the mean of several experiments, as it did not seem necessary to specify them separately.