ple. What we now call the upper road to Bristol, avails itself, at its outset, of the durable foundation of a Roman causeway, which, running from Bath through Hanham to Aust, crossed the Severn to Lydney, and afforded communication between the iron mines in the Forest of Dean and the city of Aqua Solis. This upper road I have preferred to the lower one, since it is not only venerable from its antiquity, but passing along the declivity of the high hills of Lansdown, which rise to the right, it opens a beautiful view to the west and northwest, of all the flat country through which the Avon winds his sluggish stream, and of the sweeping elevations beyond it, crowned with the encampments of Ostorius Scapula, the subjugator of this part of Britain. The whole of this interesting scene, (varied in the bottom by the light and elegant stone bridge that crosses the river, and the village and manufactories of Twerton; and on the opposite ascent, by the church and village of Newton, and the noble woods in the park of Wm. Gore Langton, esq;) is entirely commanded from the modern mansion of Sir John Hawkins, bart. situated on the edge of a bold bank, which rises abruptly from the river, studded by trees of various kinds. This

mansion was built about thirty years ago, bý the celebrated surgeon of that name, near the scite of the manor-house of Kilweston, the seat of the ancient family of Harington, and the work of James Barozzi, an architect, of Vignola.

Passing through the village of Bitton, we enter the Chase of Kingswood, formerly a royal forest; and now supplying, from its nu merous pits, the coals consumed in the neighbouring city of Bristol. Amid the rugged. inhabitants of this dingy district did the indefatigable and conscientious John Wesley adventure his person in the service of the Gospel; and with an inflexible perseverance, that was neither discouraged by toil, nor scared by danger, continued his exertions, till he had tamed that obduracy and savageness, which habits of life so distant from civilization, and ignorance so profound, as the colliers usually exhibit, may be expected to produce. Regarding, as I do with abhorrence, the customary baneful effects produced in society by the preaching of Methodists, I should be far from encouraging in general their efforts amongst mankind; yet candour must allow, that in some cases it may be considered as beneficial; for as poisons are occa

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sionally administered with efficacy in dispelling desperate diseases, so the strong doctrines of Methodism may operate usefully with those classes of society whose hearts, hardened by profligacy, could not be affected by the mild precepts of rational Christianity. Certain it is the conduct of the numerous body of colliers in Kingswood is now marked by a decency and regularity, which one would hardly expect to find in such a description of people; though the preserving of them in this state of quiet and order must be in a great measure attributed to the very praise-worthy and exemplary management of the parochial minister of St. George's parish, (a great part of which lies in Kingswood) and to the energy of the magistrates of that district.

Conham, a little village to the left of Hanham, (to which place we now approach) affords an example of the judicious application of those improvements which the moderns have made in natural science, to the purposes of practical utility. This is a manufactory near the river, belonging to Messrs. Lukins', called the Gibbesium, so named from Dr. Gibbes, a respectable physician of Bath; who, improving upon a dis

covery first made public by Fourcroy, the great French chemist,* has invented and adopted a very ingenious process for the speedy conversion of animal matter into spermaceti,† which he su

*The singular fact of the conversion of dead animal matter, by the chemistry of nature, into a substance resembling spermaceti, (in its properties and appearances) was first announced by Monsieur Fourcroy, in the Annales de Chimie,' many years since. On the opening of a very extensive burying-ground in Paris, (the Cemeterie des Innocens) that celebrated chemist examined many of the bodies which had been buried for a long series of years. By the influence of moisture, some of them were found partly changed into a fatty substance, instead of having undergone the putrefactive decomposition. This change was observed by Monsieur Fourcroy to be more or less complete, according to the situations in which the bodies had been laid, and the time during which they had remained.—Annales de Chimie.

Lord Bacon, in his Sylva Sylvarum,' states; that such a change may be effected, by putting pieces of flesh into a glass covered with parchment, and allowing the glass to stand six or seven hours in boiling water.

Thomas Sneyd, esq; of Staffordshire, found in the mud at the head of a fish-pond, the body of a duck, or young goose, converted into a hard fatty matter, resembling spermaceti; having apparently suffered a similar change with that of the human bodies, observed by Mons. Fourcroy in the Cemeterie des Innocens. -Philosophical Transactions, 1792.

+ Dr. Gibbes found, that the same substance was formed in the macerating tubs (that is, tubs wherein the parts of animal bodies left after dissection are immersed in water) of the anatomical schools of London and Oxford. He accordingly attempted the artificial production of the same change, by submitting the leanest part of a rump of beef, in a box perforated with holes, to the contact and action of running water. The Doctor afterwards buried a cow in a place where it was also exposed to the action of a fresh surface of running water. The rump of beef was per

perintends and directs at this place. Every prospect of success seems to attend the speculation, a success that is further secured by an establishment of the manufactory of Prussian blue, hartshorn, &c. from the blood, horns,

fectly, and the cow partially, changed into a fatty matter of the kind before described. Dr. Gibbes found, that the nitrous acid effected the same process in a very short time; to separate the converted from the unchanged parts, he added nitrous acid, which produced it perfectly pure. To bleach this substance, he exposed it to the sun and air for a considerable time, previously reduced to powder, and poured on it some diluted nitrous acid. He then washed it repeatedly, and melted it with hot water, and on allowing it to concrete, it became of a beautiful straw colour, and had the agreeable smell of the best spermaceti.-Gibbes's Observations on the Component parts of Animal Matters, 1796.

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The difference in the substances, produced from the decom. position of animal bodies in water, and their changes by putrefaction in air, as well as under other different circumstances, is explained by the laws of chemical affinity; which also prove, how few the elementary substances are, which, by their various combinations and affinities as secondary laws under the infinite power of the great First Cause, produce all the variety which we perceive in animated and inanimate bodies. Animal and vegetable matter, air, water, many different solids and fluids, are resolvable by chemistry into the different attractions and affinities of a very few primary elements. The diamond is now demonstrated to be only pure charcoal; and the difference between nitrous acid and the fluid, (atmospheric air) without which animal life cannot for a short period be supported, to consist only in different proportions of the same component parts. Thus philosophical investigation serves powerfully to enlarge our conception of final causes, and, consequently, of the infinite wisdom of the Creator, and the sublime simplicity of his works.