1815.] A Voyage to Terra Australis.

225 herself to fall upon the reef. The Bridgewater thus escaped her by a few feet, and got safe out of the reach of the reef. The night was dark. It was uncertain how long the vessels would hold together, and the only chance of safety seemed to be in holding out till morning, when it was fully expected that the Bridgewater would come and take the crews aboard. The cutter was suddenly let down from the Porpoise; but it was supposed to be broken by the violence of the surf. Another boat was let down, and Captain Flinders swam to it, in order to get on board the Bridgewater, and inform Captain Palmer of the situation of the vessels; but the Bridgewater was sailing away, and Captain Flinders found that, with the wind against him, and only two' bad oars, it would be impossible to make his way to that vessel. He determined, therefore, to remain near the Porpoise till morning. He found the cutter safe and full of men, without any officers. He told them to remain near him till day-light. Fortunately the Porpoise had fallen over towards the sand bank, so that the sea did not beat over her, and she remained together without being stove in till morning The case was different with the Cato. She had fallen towards the deep water. Her upper works were immediately beaten in and destroyed, and every thing except the men washed overboard.

Next morning a dry sand bank with birds' eggs upon it, indicating that it was never covered by the tide, was perceived at no great distance from the Porpoise. Here they agreed to land, and to take on shore as many stores as possible from the Porpoise. The Cato's crew made their way by swimming to the Porpoise, and only three lads were drowned; but most of them were in their shirts, and they had to be supplied with clothes by the officers and men of the Porpoise. On this sand-bank they all landed. Captain Flinders assumed the command as senior officer. Almost the whole of the provisions and stores in the Porpoise were landed, and the whole party brought under the same order and discipline as on board his Majesty's ships. The Bridgewater sailed away, without any attempt to relieve the shipwrecked vessels, or to ascertain whether any of the crew were left alive or not: and Captain Palmer, on his arrival in India, gave information 'that the two vessels were wrecked, and that all on board had perished. The Bridgewater was herself lost on her homeward voyage to Britain, and Captain Palmer never more heard of. This was, perhaps, fortunate for himself; for his situation, after the true history of the shipwreck was known, would have been most uncomfortable, supposing him possessed of any feeling.

Wreck Reef, as the place of the shipwreck was called, lies in latitude 220 11 23'', south; and in longitude 155° 18' 50-5", east. It is distant from Port Jackson about 750 miles. Finding themselves abandoved by the Bridgewater, it was agreed in a consultation of officers, that one of them should endeavour to make his

in one of the boats to Port Jackson, in order to procure the means necessary to convey them to a place of safety. Captain VOL, V, N° III.

P

aten

way

Flinders was selected for this arduous undertaking, and he readily undertook it. Mr. Park of the Cato went with him as second in command. They had a crew of 14 men, and provisions for three weeks; so that they were rather too deeply loaded. However, they made their way without any accident, first to the coast of New Holland, and then along that coast to Port Jackson, in 13 days.

Governor King sent the ship Rolla, and two schooners, to bring away the unfortunate men of the wreck. One of the schooners was to bring back such as chose it to Port Jackson ; the other, of 27 tons burthen, under the command of Captain Flinders, with a crew of ten men, was to proceed to England; while the Rolla was to carry the rest of the officers and men to China. Captain Flinders reached Wreck Reef six weeks after he had left it, the stores and provisions of the Porpoise were put aboard the Rolla or the Port Jackson schooner; the men were all embarked to cheir various destinations; and Captain Flinders set out on his extraordinary voyage to England.

Sailing through Torres's Straits he arrived at Coepang in Timor, only four days after Captain Palmer, in the Bridgewater, had reached Batavia; thus demonstrating the great advantage of sailing through that strait, when compared with the round about way usually followed. From Timor he was obliged to make his way to the Mauritius, because his little vessel could not venture round the Cape of Good Hope without being repaired. He trusted to his French pass, that even if the war should have recommenced, he would be treated in a friendly manner in that island, and be allowed to continue his voyage to Britain. The Governor of the Mauritius was General De Caen, who had been sent out to Pondicherry at the peace of 1801 ; and, no doubt, expected to make a great figure in India ; but the breaking out of the new war in 1802 disappointed his expectations, by depriving the French of all their possessions in India. The Geographe, a French vessel, out

a on a voyage of discovery, with an English pass, had left the Mauritius on the very day that Captain Flinders reached it; and, contrary to the stipulations contracted by obtaining the English pass, had carried dispatches from the Mauritius to France. This induced General De Caen to detain Captain Flinders for some days. At first he pretended that he was an impostor, and treated him with laughtiness and vulgar insolence; but finding that the plea of impostor could not be continued, he next day, without making any previous apology for his former conduct, invited Captain Flinders to dinner. This invitation Captain Flinders declined, in consequence of the Governor's previous treatment of him, De Caen, it would seem, was offended at this display of spirit; and Captain Flinders's letters to the Governor, though very naturally drawn from him by the situation in which he was placed, contributed considerably to heighten the Governor's resentment. ; Captain Flinders, at the time, does not seem to have been fully aware of the character of

with a range

Bonaparte, or the maxims of his government: otherwise, he would not have expected any redress on account of the justice of his cause, or any shame in his adversaries, on account of the cruelty, injustice, or meanness of their conduct. The Cumberland was seized, Captain Flinders and Mr. Aken committed close prisoners in a tavern, and the crew confined in the common prison. He was afterwards sent to the Garden prison, a large house about a mile out of town, attached to which was a piece of ground for walking. Here he remained 20 months. He was then permitted on his parole to reside in Wilhem's plain, in the highest part of the island,

of two leagues all round. All the exertions that were made by the Governor General of India, Lord Bentinck, the naval commanders, the men of science in the Mauritius, the President of the Royal Society, were in vain. Even an order from Bonaparte did not produce the desired effect : De Caen probably assigning as a reason that Captain Flinders was too well acquainted with the island to be permitted to depart. At last, in 1810, when an immediate attack upon the island was expected, De Caen sud. denly allowed Captain Flinders to depart, without any new order from France; and even to go to the place from which the attack was expected. Captain Flinders conceives that De Caen wished to get back to France, to share in the glory of his former companions in arms; and that he set him at liberty, because he thought he might contribute materially to the capture of the island.

ARTICLE XII.

make ar in

Proceedings of Philosophical Societies.

of all

ROYAL SOCIETY.

On Thursday the 26th of January, a paper hy Mr. Hooke was read, On the Construction of Naval Charts. Ships are navigated within sight of land by means of naval charts ; in the open sea by means of charts of a particular construction, and by observations of the heavenly bodies. The paper was confined to the first of these. Naval charts at present cannot be used upon deck, without the risk of being destroyed. Mr. Hooke proposes to engrave them on stiff paper, and to varnish them well. He shows how the different problems requisite during a navigation along a coast may be solved; but these solutions could not be sufficiently understood from hearing the paper read, to give any account of them here.

On Thursday the 2d of February, part of a paper by Dr. Watson Philips was read, On the Cause of the Motion of the Heart of Animals. Various opinions on this subject have been entertained by physiologists. Of late, M. Gallois has endeavoured to show that this motion depends entirely upon the spinal marrow, and im

marrow

mediately ceases, when the spinal marrow is removed or destroyed. The motion of the heart, which continues for some time after it is removed from the body, he considers as similar to the motion of any other muscular body from stimuli; and the stimulus in this case is the arterial blood. Dr. Philips related a great pumber of experiments on rabbits and frogs, which appeared quite inconsistent with M. Gallois's hypothesis. Rabbits were rendered insensible by a blow on the occiput; the spinal marrow and brain were then removed, and the respiration kept up by artificial means. The circulation and motion of the heart continued as usual. When stimuli, as spirit of wine or opium, were applied to the spinal

or brain, the rate of the circulation was accelerated. When the hind legs of a frog are kept for two minutes in alcohol, the animal loses the power of motion. In this case it expresses great pain; but if tincture of opium be used instead of simple alcohol, little or no pain is expressed,

On Thursday the 9th of February, Dr. Philips's paper was concluded. He found that the peristaltic motion of the intestines continued after the brain and spinal marrow were removed. When the brain or spinal marrow were suddenly crushed, the effect upon the motion of the heart was much greater than when these organs were removed by cutting, or gradually destroyed by means of a wire. From these experiments Dr. Philips concludes that the action of the heart is independent of the brain and spinal marrow; but that it is capable of being affected by these organs. He conceives, with Haller, that the heart and muscles possess excitability independent of the brain and spinal marrow; that the difference between the voluntary and involuntary muscles depends upon the stimuli; and that animals possess three different sets of organs, the muscular, the nervous, and the sensorial, independent of each other, but capable of influencing each other.

On Thusday the 16th of February, a paper was read from Mr. Clift, describing experiments to ascertain the influence of the spinal marrow on the action of the heart in fishes.

At the same meeting a letter from Dr. Brewster was read, describing a new property possessed by the second surface of trans

thre

parent bodies.

LINNÆAN SOCIETY,

dac quart

On Tuesday the 7th of February, specimens exactly similar to Bovey coal, but brought from Constantinople, were exhibited to the Society by Mr. Sowerby. A communication, by Mr. Sowerby was also read, On a Species of Fossil Terrebratula.

At the same meeting, two communications from Dr. Mitchell of New York were read. The first gave an account of a singular species of pleuronectes found in the New York rivers. Dr. Mitchell is inclined to consider it as a variety of the white-bellied pleuronectes; though the differences are considerable. Among others, the belly is nearly as dark as the back. The second paper con

tained a description of a number of species of fish observed by Dr. Mitchell, and which are caught on the coast or in the rivers.

On Tuesday the 16th of February, a letter was read from Sir J. E. Smith to Mr. Macleugh, in which he shews, from a manuscript of the late Dr. Sibthorpe, that the lignum rhodium of Pococke, though not that of the ancients, is the liquidamber styraciflua.

At the same meeting, the conclusion was read of M. Vieillot's Novi Systematis Ornithologici Prolusio.

GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY.
Dec. 16, 1814.-Specimens from Maestricht from the Rev. E.
Honey were presented, and a notice relative to the mountain of
St. Pierre, near Maestricht, by the same, was read, and the thanks
of the Society were voted for the same.

The mountain of St. Pierre is a hill about 150 feet high, which commences within a mile of Maestricht, and extends about three leagues in the direction of Liege. On the side next to the Meuse, it forms nearly vertical cliffs, and thus affords excellent sections of the strata, which are almost horizontal, having only a very slight dip to the north.

The lower beds are decidedly chalk; alternating at every two or three feet, with beds of flint nodules : the fossils of this chalk, though less abundant, appear to exhibit the same species as those which occur in the chalk of England. Above these are beds resembling the former in colour, but harder, and gritty to the touch.

Upon these lie a series of beds of calcareous free-stone, of which the mass of the hill is composed, and in which the extensive subterranean quarries are situated. This stone, in the quarry, is yellowish, and so soft as to be readily cut with a knife; but, by exposure to the air, it becomes both whiter and harder. Interposed

. between these beds are thin ones, composed chiefly of fragments of madrepores and shells. Beds of fint also occur here, as in the chalk; but the distance between each bed gradually increases, so that those at the top of the series are separated by an interval of eight or ten feet. The fossils of the free-stone are very numerous ; the most common are madreporites, fungites, belemnites, nummulites, echinites, ostreites, and pectinites.

The top of the hill is covered by a bed of gravel, in some places of considerable thickness; containing rolled pebbles of flint, of quartz, of grey-wacke ; with veins of quartz, and of red sandstone.

The whole of this series of beds, with the exception of the gravel, is considered by Mr. Honey to belong to the chalk formation.

The reading of Dr. Macculloch's paper on Glen tilt was begun. Jan, 6, 1815.—The reading of Dr. Macculloch's paper on Glen tilt was continued.

ROYAL GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF CORNWALL,
Since our last report of this Society, we have to communicate