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which may restore the balance; are speculations which have excited the hopes and fears of many. Whether he will profit by the positions and present superiority of Rus sia, to accomplish other projects long assigned to her system of policy, must interest all governments, not excepting the government of the East Indies; whose attention may also be more excited by the information that General Yermoloff, the governor of the Caucasus line, who probably at this very moment has reached the capital of PERSIA On an embassy, is an officer of the highest merit, and capacity as an administrator as well as a soldier; and that he has gone, assisted not only by the French officers employed by Napoleon, under Gardanne, in Persia, and whom Alexander, with the exception of three, engaged in the Russian service, but with the Reports and maps sent by that mission to Napoleon, and which being carried into Russia at the time of the invasion, were found during the retreat, in

two abandoned tumbrils.

"These reports and plans had convinced Napoleon, that the expedition to India was practicable; and it is a positive fact, that he had resolved on sending an united Russian and French force on that expedition, in case Russia had been compelled to make peace on his terms.

"There are two additional circumstances most important to influence opinion, if they cannot fix the judgment, as to the further proposed extension of the Russian power.

Alexander has already a much larger army than his defensive line requires, or his finances can justify; and yet he continues to increase his force.

"Russia, with a line of coast upon two seas, on which there is not navigation above half the year, and in one of them, the Baltic, no competitor, not content with an establishment of above eighty sail of the line in the ports of Archangel, Cronstadt, Revel, Sevastopol, Cherson; notwithstanding the pressure of the French war, has been incessantly building, and is building with incre asing activity, the heaviest line of battle ships.

"Alexander knows as well as any Brilish admiral, that ships of any force, or of any amount, are of no value without seamen to navigate them; and that seamen cannot be formed on inland seas alone. He also knows and feels as well as any economist in Europe, that ships are costly vanities, if built only for ostentation. There is no sovereign who would have been less inclined to divert his treasure from state necessities, for the indulgence of this unprofitable pursuit, than Alexander.

their country. Putant enim, qui mari politur, eum rerum poliri.

"It is not likely that he will be satisfied with a Dutch permit; but whether he will seek to establish himself in the ports of Norway, in Zealand, in the Archipelago, in the Mediterranean; or whether, like the son of Jupiter Ammon on the banks of the Hyphasis, he will say, 'Our empire shall have no other bounds than those which God has sent to the earth'-time will show."

In speaking of America as interested in counteracting Russian aggrandizement, our author introduces the following note.

"It may, however, interest the reader to know that the establishments of the Russians commence at Okotsh, on the Siberian coast, tend from thence by Kamschadka to the in a bay of the Pacific Ocean, that they esnorth-west coast of America, where the principal establishments have been long fixed in the populous island of Kodia (inhabited by hunters, and situated in 57 1-2 degrees north, and 152 1-2 west longitude from Greenwich,) and in Norfolk Sound, 57 degrees north, and 135 west longitude; where the fort is so considerable as to be armed with 100 pieces of cannon. Since the year 1813, however, the Russians have descended

the American coast, passed the Columbia doga, at 38 1-2 north, and only thirty miles river five hundred miles, and settled in Bafrom the Spanish establishments in Califormia; where they not only are trading with climate and fruitful soil, to feed their more great advantage, but are profiting by a fine northern possessions. The passage from the

north-west coast of America to the Persian four months; but a ship leaving Bussorah in Gulf may be averaged between three and April to profit by the S. W. Monsoon, would easily gain the N. W. coast of America in

three months."

force which the rest of Europe could arOur author proceeds to estimate the ray to oppose the designs which he ascribes to Russia. France he puts out of the calculation, considering a French army more formidable to the present dynasty of that country, than to any foreign nation. Austria, in his view, from the heterogeneous composition of her empire, and from her unconciliating deportment towards the people subject to her rule, is incapable of wielding the weapons in her hands; the subjects of Prussia are equally uncemented by community of interest, less numerous, and less compact; Turkey is bed-ridden-and England on her last legs!

"There is, therefore, evidence amounting Such is the cheerless survey presented to conviction, that he has always proposed by the author of this Sketch. We do to accomplish the instructions of Peter the Great, and extend his empire until he can not partake of all his despondency. The establish that real maritime power which hopes of the advancement of the happihimself and people have coveted more since ness of the world by the diffusion of polithey have seen so much commercial wealth tical wisdom and an increased regard to or, as they term it, colonial gold, flow into political justice, do not appear to us so

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absolutely desperate. We estimate not, indeed, much more highly the integrity, or the sagacity of the state-managers at the Congress of Vienna, than our author seems to do, but we cannot think that the crisis he forebodes, is very near. We can hardly believe that the peacesociety and bible-society patronizing Alexander will immediately be induced, even by the corrupting possession of power, to break through the limits which he has assigned himself; though the accumulation of strength in his passive hands may offer to a less pious successor a strong temptation to abuse it. In fact if the growth of Russia for the next century shall keep pace with her progress in the last-and every thing prognosticates it she will be beyond dispute the arbitress of the destinies of Europe. Her growing population yet bears no proportion to her capabilities of affording sustenance, and though the ratio of increase cannot be expected to hold till the maximum of numbers is attained, the judicious measures of Alexander have opened avenues to enterprise, and given a security to property, have produced a spring and provided a scope of action, the beneficial effects of which will be felt without diminution for an indifinite period, and which must result in the generation of a mass of power capable of overwhelming every pretension of rivalry. To have allowed such an empire to gain a foothold in Germany, and an ingress into the capitals of half the sovereigns of the continent, was, in the Allies, whilst they had other resources than remonstrance, an act of consummate folly.

We have devoted a larger space to this work than its merits claimed-from the

attention it has excited in England, and the expectation which has been awakened to it in this country-though it is just to allow that it contains much valuable information, whilst the boldness of its positions and speculations may lead to useful reflection. We cannot but again express our surprise that Sir Robert Wilson, the virulent accuser of Buonaparte, the chainpion of the crusades against him, the apologist of the original partition of Poland, should have undergone so complete a revolution of sentiment upon every subject as this book evinces. He might have retracted his calumnies, if he were convinced he had uttered any, without becoming an eulogist of Napoleon-and surely his vehemence in advocating what he is now satisfied was wrong, should have taught him temperance in the expression of opinions which he is still lia

VOL. 11.-No. 111.

ble to change. The invectives of the author of the Sketch against the government, and his aspersions of the character of his own country, however well founded, come with an ill grace from him, and discover a temper which takes away all weight from his indirect compliments to us.

We will conclude our review with an extract from his peroration, in which, to aggravate the distress he has portrayed, he holds up America, as the rival from whose enterprise and enmity England has most to dread.

"England already has lost the world's ho mage; no longer is she esteemed "the friend of the oppressed;" her promises have become a scoff and a by-word: she has alienated the good-will even of those she assisted in their usurpations; and where her cause once engaged thousands of voluntary champions, not one apologist is now to be found.

26

"There is not an Englishman on the Continent who has not been the object of insult, if not of execration.

"England, by her money, enabled Europe to combine and march against France; her assistance is acknowledged, but not with gratitude; such a sentiment would not have been excited if her assistance had been considered as disinterested; for, as Tacitus justly says, Beneficia eo usque læta sunt dum videntur exsolvi posse, at ubi multum antevenere, pro gratia odium redditur; but, on the contrary, her benefits are supposed to have originated from motives of mere self-inter

est, and, as such, to be destitute of all claim on European gratitude. Various pow ers feel that England also attaches herself to rival governments, not to preserve what she calls the balance of power, but to control the continental policy, and continue an exclusion from what they claim as a due share of maratime advantages.

"Hence that jealousy of any returning prosperity to England, since that prosperity

would afford stronger means to enforce these obnoxious checks; hence the desire to deprive England of the presumed sources of her wealth: hence the pleasure felt at the augmentation of the naval power of Ame rica, (for, although America might not be able for years to do what one of her Presidents once said she would do, draw a line of demarcation with her fleets beyond which no European flag should be seen without a passport still it is well known, that every single ship of the line built by America, requires, in case of war, a counteracting expenditure on the part of England, equal to the maintenance of three sail: that as the American marine increases, the English West India islands will require more garrisons, and the communications with India become more precarious ;) and hence, per haps these negotiations which have been carrying on from the quarter deck of the Washington in the Mediterranean, as well as the preference lately shown to the American

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ART. 6. MUSEUM OF NATURAL SCIENCES.
BY C. S. RAFINESQUE, ESQ.

15. Introduction to the ICHTHYOLOGY of the
United States.

known to them; this must be attended to by the general writers on North-American ichthyology. In the travels of Castiglione in Tname of Ichthyology; that science had the United States, published in Italian lowerin

HE Natural History of Fishes bears the

long been neglected in our country, but it has lately been studied with assiduity and success, and the knowledge of the useful inhabitants of our shores, rivers, and lakes, begins to be cultivated with zeal. Whoever has attended to that branch of Zoology has been rewarded by continual discoveries since the field was entirely new in North-America: those lately made by Mitchill, Lesueur, and myself, exceed our anticipation; but nevertheless we have not exhausted that immense field, and it is perhaps scarcely glanced upon. It is my intention previous to stating my own discoveries, to give an idea of the labours of former authors in that branch of science.

Catesby was probably one of the first naturalists that began to illustrate our Fishes: in his natural history of Carolina, &c. he has figured and described many fishes of the southern States, most of which have since been introduced in the Systema natura by appropriate names; but some of them are yet unnoticed in the works on Ichthyology, or considered as varieties. Linneus has likewise introduced in his Systema natura, some species communicated by Garden and Kalm, and Gmelin those described by Forster.

In the general natural histories of Fishes by Bloch, Castel, Schneider, Lacepede, Sonnini, and Shaw, published within a few years of each other, very few North-American fishes are introduced, except those already mentioned by Linneus and Gmelin: a few additions of new species are bowever to be met, described upon specimens in the European collections, and Lacepede has some species observed by Bosc. In the zoological Dictionary of Ray, in the ichthyological Dictionary of the French Cyclopedia, scarcely any are added; but some new species from Carolina are described by Bose in the great Dictionary of natural history published in Paris in 1804.

Those general writers have not noticed many fishes, partly described by travellers, such as Carver. Bartram, Mackenzie, Castiglioue, &c. probably because they were not

1790, some new fishes are described in Latin. Many new fishes are also mentioned and partly described in the late travels of Lewis and Clarke to the sources of the Missouri and the Pacific Ocean.

Some few species have been figured in the transactions of the Philosophical Society of Philadelphia by Latrobe; and in those of the Academy of Sciences of Boston by Peck.

Some observations on North-American fishes are scattered through the works of Dr. Mease, Dr. Mitchill's Medical Repository, &c. other observations by Descoutils. Fors ter, Gilpin, Clinton. Dunbar, Robin, Shultz, &c. may be seen in their travels or tracis.

Many new species have been observed by Dr. Benjamin Barton, Dr. Waterbouse, jun. Dr. Akerly, Dr. Samuel Mott, Messrs. Leconte, Say, &c. but they have not published them. The great Ornithologist, Wilson, had also observed some American fishes, and some of his observations are published in the American edition of Ree's Cyclopedia.

A German naturalist (perhaps Schoepf or Schneider) has described some new species from North-America, but I have never met with his work.

The descriptions of the fishes of New-York, by Dr. Mitchill, published in 1815, in the first volume of the transactions of the litera ry and philosophical Society of New-York,

must be considered as a standard work on

American ichthyology. This work, with the supplement which shall be inserted in the st cond volume of said transactions, will contain nearly two hundred species, one half of which are probably new. Although defective in many respects, by a want of sinonymy, iguorance of new genera, wrong reu nion of species, and imperfect descriptions of many, yet the good descriptions of several, the observations on their natural history, and the mass of new facts and species, contribute to render it a classical labour.

Mr. Lesueur, well known as the compa nion of Peron, &c. in his travels to Australia, is now in the United States; he visited lest year, in company with Mr. Maclure the lakes

Erie, Outario, Champlain, Saratoga, &c. the Chesapeak, the Alleghany, and the Atlantic shores of New-England, New-Jersey, &c. His discoveries have been ample, amounting to about sixty new species, different from those of Dr. Mitchill. He has begun to publish some of them in the Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, and he has established a new genus Catostomus, which I had likewise established, but not yet published. He will probaby give us gradually all his new species in said Journal, or in another work which he contemplates.

My own labours in that branch of natural science began in 1802 '3 and '4, when I observed many new species in the Delaware, Susquehannah, Chesapeak, &c. and in the Atlantic Ocean, some of which have since been described by Dr. Mitchill. The first species which I described was the Echeneis caudiselis, of which I sent the description and figure to the Linnean Society of London in 1811. In a pamphlet which I published in 1814 in French (Précis des Découvertes Somiologiques) I described five other new species of Atlantic or North American Fishes Sp. 27 to 31. Centropomus albus, C. luteus, Sparus mocasinus, Balistes fuscata, Chironectes variegata. In 1815 '16 and '17, I have discovered in the Atlantic Ocean, near Philadelphia, on the shores of Long-Island, in the Lakes Champlain, Saratoga, &c. in the Hudson, Fishkill, &c. about fifty new species omitted by Dr. Mitchill, and different (except very few) from those observed by Mr. Lesueur; several of which must form new genera. In this instance I must observe that little attention has been paid by Dr. Mitchill, &c. to the improvements on the genera of Fishes proposed by Bloch, Lacepede, Dumeril, and myself; unless those improvements in generic denominations and classifications are adopted, American Ichthiology cannot reach the perfection of European Ichthiology.

Some other new species have been communicated to me by Gov. Clinton, Dr. Mease, Dr. Mott, &c. which I mean to publish with mine. Last year I presented to the Literary and Philosophical Society of New-York a Memoir on the genus Sturgeon, (Accipenser,) and particularly the American Sturgeons, of which I have been able to describe or notice as many as fifteen species, all new except one previously described by Dr. Mitchill.

When all the discoveries of Mr. Lesueur and the supplements of Dr. Mitchill will be published, the number of North-American Fishes, known and described, will probably exceed three hundred and fifty species, while scarcely one hundred were mentioned by Linneus, of which a list was made by Forster in his Catalogue of the Animals of NorthAmerica; such a rapid increase in our knowledge of those beings, shows how slightly they had been studied: many species had even been considered as consimilar to European species, which a more accute survey has proved to be different, and very few (if any) are common to both continents.

This large accession of species will not ap

pear extraordinary to those acquainted with the treasures of nature, and who know that accurate observations and zealous exertions will almost any where be equally rewarded. If in the Island of Sicily, which is only seven hundred miles in circumference, and is situated among the countries most anciently known, I have been enabled to discover and add over two hundred and twenty new species to its ichthyology, it is reasonable to conclude that the Continent of North-America, exclusive of the Mexican Empire and the West-Indies, will afford at least six hundred and sixty such new species, of which about two hundred and fifty have lately been detected; but as many or more are waiting to reward the researches and labours of future observers. The fishes of Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Louisiana, Florida, &c. those of the lakes Huron, Michigan, Superior, Winiping, &c. of the rivers Mississippi, Mobile, Missouri, Arkanzas, Columbia, &c. and those of the North-West Coast of America, are scarcely known, or totally unknown. When those parts shall have been explored, and all the former discoveries embodied methodically, we may then hope to be enabled to frame a North-American Ichthyology somewhat accurate, if not complete.

That period is perhaps less distant than we are aware of; able observers will soon spread themselves over those regions, and many travellers will contribute their mite. I will also offer mine, and if every year rewards my exertions, as successfully as the two last, I may hope to add gradual and yearly discoveries to those already made.

16. Descriptions of two new genera of NorthAmerican Fishes, OPSANUS and NOTROPIS.

1. N. G. OPSANUS. Holobranchial Jugular. Body oblong thick attenuated behind, without scales, abdomen convex, no lateral line. Head large, broad, depressed above; eyes approximated on the top, separated by a furrow, and with an appendage behind: mouth large, lips thick, without barbs, lower jaw the longest, two rows of obtuse teeth to each jaw: Gill-cover large, soft, spinescent above, branchial membrane with nine ray. All the fins with soft rays covered by a thick skin, two dorsal fins, the second very long, the first short, and with few hard thick obtuse rays, anal short, vent nearer to the tail than to the head.

Observations. A very remarkable, and totally new genus of Atlantic fish, which has some analogy with the genera Trachinus, Uranoscopus. Corystion, Phycis, Batriclius, &c. It differs however from Trachinus by the situation of the eyes and their appendages, short ana! fin, backward vent, &c. from the genus Uranoscopus by the spinescent gillcover, which is not ciliated, characters of the vent and anal fin; trom Corystion by two dorsal fins, the anal fin, &c. From Phycis by the gill-cover, head, eyes, fins, &c. and from Batrictius by the double dorsal fin, want of barbs, &c. It will belong to the first natura order of fishes Deripia or the Jugulars, the

second natural family Gadinia, and the second natural sub-family Trachinia, see my Analysis of Nature. The name means looking up, and the following species will form the type of this new genus.

OPSANUS CERAPALUS. Appendage of each, eyes short, soft, and obtuse, gill-cover with an obtuse spine and a tubercle under it; body and head variegated of small, brown, flexuous lines, and irregular spots on an yellowish ground; top of the head and cheeks brown, belly white: first dorsal fin with three rays, the second with four diagonal brown stripes, the anal fin with three similar stripes; tail oval obtuse yellow, with three vertical brown stripes, jugular fins triangular acute with two rays.

History. The specific name of this fish means Soft-horn, the appendages behind the eyes having very much that appearance. I have detected this new fish in Angust, 1817, on the south shore of Long-Island: it lives in the sandy and shallow bottoms of the surrounding sea, and is sometimes taken along with other fishes in the nets and seines; but it is by no means a common fish; the fishermen scarcely know it, they call it by the name of Yellow-Kusk, Sand-Codling, Slimer, &c. which shows that they confound it with other species: they dont reckon it good to eat, and often throw it away on the beach, yet it is as good as the different species of Phycis or Kusk. It frequents the shores in summer to deposit the spawn, and is not seen in winter. Its length is about one foot, it is covered all over with a gelatinous slime, which renders it difficult to hold: the head is remarkable large, broader than the body, with swelled cheeks, the eyes are large, brown, and projecting, the curious appendages project directly behind them, they are brown, about one third of an inch long, and nearly cylindrical, the animal can move them and swell them; after death they are dejected and flaccid. The general colour of the fish is yellowish, but the fins are paler, and the belly quite white, without spots, while the remainder of the body is curiously interwoven with small vermicular lines and scattered spots. There is no appearance of lateral line nor scales. The jugular fins are white acute. situated under the gill cover or operculum. The pectoral fins are large rounded, spotted like the body, and with twenty rays. The first dorsal fin has three thick hard rays, the first of which is the shortest, and the second the longest; the second dorsal fin has thirty equal rays, the anal fin only eighteen. The tail has a slender base, and is quite ovate obtuse, the three stripes are a little bowed, with the convexity behind. It is worthy of attention that the bones of this fish are quite cartilagineous and soft, more so than those of many Sharks, Skates, &c. yet the gills are quite complete, furnished with a gill cover, and branchial rays! This fact affords another instance of the assertion I have made long ago, that the distinction of hard-boned and soft-boned fishes, is illusive and useless, since all the natural orders of fishes afford

animals with either sorts of bones, and there is a graduation in the whole class from quite hard bones to nearly gelatinous bones!

II. N. G NOTROPIS. Holobranchial abdominal. Body elongated compressed, back carinated nearly strait, belly not carinated, scarcely bowed, a lateral line and a longitudinal silver band; vent nearer the tail than the head. Head oval compressed, conver above, mouth diagonal large, jaws without teeth, the lower longer and mobil, the upper extensible: eyes very large: gill cover large, smooth valviform three branchial rays. One dorsal fin opposed to the interval between the anal and abdominal fins, which have nine rays.

Observations. The generic name means carinated or keeled back. It forms a remarkable new genus, belonging to the third natural order Gastripia or the abdominals, the sixteenth natural family Cyprinio, and the second sub-family Gymnopomia, (see Analysis of Nature,) together with the genera Cyprinus, Atherina. Hydrargyra, &e. It differs from the first by the compressed body, carinated back, lateral band, large mouth, deep cleft gill-cover, &c. and from the two last genera by the three branchial rays, nine rays to the abdominal fins, want of teeth, &c

NOTROPIS ATHERINOIDES. Head silvery, brown bove: body pale fulvous transparent, with a broad silver band; lateral line in the band: fins whitish, dorsal, and anal, with eleven rays, the first very short, tail slightly forked.

History. This new fish was discovered in Lake Erie by Gov. De Witt Clinton, who had the kindness to present me with many specimens; they are now deposited in the Lyceum of Natural History. I have ascertained that they belonged to a new gends, next to Athering, and the specific name which I have adopted implies such an affinity. Those fishes come on the shores of Lake Erie, and even in the river of Niagara, in the spring, in great shoals; but they are so small that they are scarcely noticed, and escape through the common nets; their usual size being from one to two inches, and very thin and slender: they are called Minny or Minnew, together with twenty different other species of fish, and often considered as the young of other fishes. They live in the depth of the lake at other seasons, and are probably common all over the great lakes. Their eyes are exceed ingly large, occupying nearly the whole fore. side of the head, the lips are very thin and membranaceous, the nostrils large, the gill cover is nearly round, and split above to the eyes; they have small thin broad scales, the rays of the fins are scarcely articulated simple and brittle: the pectoral fins have about fifteen rays, and the caudal fin about twenty four.

December 10th, 1817.

17. SECOND DECADE of new North-Ameri can Fishes.

11. Sp. Perca mucronata. Body nearly rhomboidal silvery, brownish on the back

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