Referring to BIG-BONE LICK on the Ohio, it is observed that "Animals' bones of enormous size have been found here in great numbers. Some skeletons nearly complete were not long since dug up 11 feet under the surface in a stiff blue clay. These appeared to be the bones of different species of animals, but all remarkably large. Some were supposed to be those of the Mammoth, others of a Nondescript. Among these bones, were two horns or fenders, each weighing 150 pounds, 16 feet long, and 18 inches in circumference at the big end; and grinders of the carnivorous kind weighing from 3 to 10 1-2 pound each; and others of the graminivorous species, equally large, but quite differently shaped, being flat and ridged.— Ribs, joints of the backbone, and of the foot or paw, thigh and hip bones, upper jaw-bone, &c. &c. were also found, amounting in the whole to about five tons weight.

These bones were principally discovered by Doctor Goforth and Mr. Reeder of Cincinnati, who sent them by water to Pittsburgh, with an intention to transport them to Philadelphia, and make sale of them to Mr. Peale, proprietor of the Museum of that city. They were however, while in Pittsburgh, discovered by an Irish gentleman, a traveller, who purchased them, reshipped them down the Ohio, and thence to Europe.

In the directions for navigating the Missisippi, with notices of the settlements, is the following description of the CITY OF NATCHEZ:

THE CITY OF NATCHEZ

Occupies a very handsome situation and one that is uncommon on the Mississippi. It is built on a hill nearly perpendicular of about 200 feet in height from the surface of the river. This hill, called the Bluff, affords a fine prospect up and down the river for two or three miles each way. The houses in Natchez are mostly frame, with a great many doors and windows, for the admission of the cool breezes in the hot months; they are low, being generally but one story high, and constructed principally for the convenience of business. The city contains about 300 houses. The Bluff on which the town stands is about 200 yards from the river, and the intermediate space, called the Landing, is covered with a number of dwellings, taverns, dramshops, and trading houses. The bank being composed of a rich loose sand, the river is constantly making encroachments into this plain or bottom, and will in a few years, most probably, run close to the foot of the Bluff, and entirely annihilate this part of the city.

There is but one road from the Landing up the hill, along which are several Orange and Liquor shops, situated on the brink of the precipice. Though these shops might be undermined by a heavy rain, and precipitated down a steep of 100 feet, yet, such is the temerity of their holders that they do not seem to think of the danger they are in.

In the year 1805, a large portion of the Bluff on the lower border of the town sunk in to a considerable depth; some houses were destroyed, and others moved off with the earth without sustaining any injury.

Here are established several large Mercantile Houses, which are much engaged in the cotton business, and many others less extensive. The city has two printing-offices, issuing weekly gazettes, a number of publick inns, and many of the mechanick branches are carried on.

The staple commodity of this country is cotton, which is raised to great perfection, and with large profits to the Planters, who in fact accumulate immense fortunes to themselves by following it for a few years. Vast quantities of it is exported from Natchez yearly, to the different seaport towns in the United States, and to many of those in Europe; England particularly, whose manufactories of cotton indeed depend very much on the American cotton Planters for their supply of that article.

Indigo, rice, flax, tobacco, hemp, and pease, are cultivated here with great success, and some sugar is made. Black cattle and sheep thrive well. The Natchez country produces Maize or Indian corn, equal if not superiour to any other part of the United States; the time of planting it is from the beginning of March until the beginning of July. The cotton is generally planted in the latter end of February and the beginning of March. Wheat does not succeed well; Rye has been raised in some places with success. Plumbs, peaches, and figs are abundant; apples and cherries are scarce. The same kinds of vegetables raised in the middle states succeed here generally.

The same kind of mounds or tumuli found in different parts of the Western country bordering the Ohio, and indeed throughout the United States, are also discovered in the Natchez settlements. In all parts where new plantations are opened, broken Indian earthen-ware is to be met with; some pieces are in tolerable preservation, and retain distinctly the original ornaments; but none of it appears to have ever been glazed.

Natchez is a port of Entry, and vessels of 300 or 400 tons burden come up the river to the city, meeting with no other difficulty than the strength of the current and head winds. It is in Lat. 31° 33' N. long. 16° 15′ W. and is about 300 miles above New-Orleans. It has a post-office which receives and discharges the Mail regularly once a week. It is said that a line of stages is soon to be established from Lexington to New Orleans for the purpose of carrying the United States mail.

It is observed that the wool of the sheep in the Natchez district is more hairy and less valuable than it is in the middle states; but that the mutton is well tasted. It is also observed that domestick animals generally are less tame and docile, owing perhaps to their being more able to get their living in the woods and swamps throughout the year, than is afforded them in the middle and northern states; and to their feeling less dependent on man for protection and subsistence.

The tract of good upland in the Natchez district is not very extensive, being about 130 miles in length along the Mississippi river, and not more than 23 in breadth. This tract is remarkably fertile, but the country being high, and much broken with hills, a few years washing will render the soil of the cultivated parts less productive.

The making of sugar from the cane does not succeed very well in the neighbourhood of Natchez; but from Point Coupee down to the Gulph of Mexico, it is manufactured to advantage and is the staple commodity of that part of the Mississippi-Sweet and sour lemons grow in great plenty on that part of the river.

The climate of Natchez is very changeable in winter, but the summers are regularly hot, being about 14° of permanent heat beyond that of Pennsylvaand New-Jersey.

The description of the MISSISSIPPI is a valuable article of several pages; as is also the history of the discovery, settlement, and transfer of LOUISIANA, with its geography, population, &c. but for these we must refer to the book, which appears to much greater advantage in its native unadorned simplicity, than in the prostitute frippery with which it has been bedizened by Thomas Ashe, esquire.

ART. 3.

An historical account of the Small-Pox inoculated in New-England, c. c. by Zabdiel Boylston, F. R. S. The second edition cor

rected. London, 1726. Reprinted at Boston in N. E. 1730. pp. 53.

IT may, perhaps, be thought unnecessary, at this period to introduce to our readers a work on the inoculation of the smallpox. The advantages resulting from this practice have been established by the experience of a long series of years, the prejudices against its adoption have gradually disappeared, and the time probably is not far distant, when even the name of smallpox will no longer augment the catalogue of human miseries. Still, however, this pamphlet is interesting, as the production of an American, as an history of what may justly be considered as an epoch in medical science, and as a proof that truths derived from observation and experience will ultimately be acknowledged, though opposed by the clamours of the interested, the fears of the superstitious, and the obstinacy of the ignorant. These obstacles were encountered by Dr. Boylston, his practice was reprobated, and the inhabitants of the same town, which in 1793, voted in favour of a general inoculation, passed a resolve in 1721, that the practice of inoculation was accompanied with extreme danger to the patient, and followed by the most injurious effects on his person and constitution. "I hope the reader," says Dr. Boylston in his preface, "will excuse me for troubling him with some of the difficulties that I met with. I have been basely used and treated by some who were enemies to this method, and have suffered much in my reputation, and in my business too, from the odiums and reflections cast upon me for beginning and carrying on this practice in New-England."

The style of this work is simple, and consists principally of cases of inoculated small-pox, with observations on their pro gress and termination. The circumstance which first suggested to Dr. B. the possibility of communicating the disease by ino culation, was a paper on the subject, published a short time before in the Philosophical Transactions, and he gives the following history of its introduction into New-England.

"The small-pox, which had been a terrour to New-England, since first it paid a visit there, coming into Boston, and spreading there in April, 1721, put the inhabitants into great consternation and disorder. Dr. Mather, in compassion for the lives of the people, transcribed from the Phil. Trans. of the Royal Society, the accounts sent them by Dr. Timonius and Pyllarinus

of inoculating the small-pox in the Levant and sent them to the practitioners in town, for their consideration thereon. Upon reading of which I was very well pleased and resolved in my mind to try the experiment; well remembering the destruction the small-pox made nineteen years before, when last in Boston; and how narrowly I then escaped with my life. Now, when my wife and many others were gone out of town to avoid the distemper, and all hope given up of preventing the further spreading of it, and the guards were first removed from the doors of infected houses, I began the experiment; and not being able to make it on myself (such was my faith in the safety and success of this method) I chose to make it (for example sake) upon my own dear child and two of my servants."

The experiment was made, and though the result of it confirmed the belief of Dr. Boylston in the superiority of inoculated small-pox, " yet as the practice was new," says he, " and the clamour or rather rage of the people against it so violent, that I was put into a very great fright."

Notwithstanding, however, the success of his practice and the liberality with which it was conducted, particularly in the selection of his patients from his own family, the dangerous innovation, as it was denominated, produced a violent opposition in the whole "Esculapian tribe."

"They cavilled and said that Dr. Mather had not given a fair representation from Timonius and Pyllarinus's accounts. I prayed that they might be read; but Dr. Douglas, who owned them and had taken them from Dr. Mather, refused to have them read, or even afterwards to lend them to the governour to read.”

"And upon July 21st. 1721, being a third time called to an account for using this practice.....i then gave a publick invitation to the practitioners of the town to visit my patients, who were under that practice, and to judge of and report their circumstances as they found them...... Instead of this and reporting their circumstances justly and fairly as it was their duty and the people's right, some of them made it their business to invent, collect, and publish idle, unjust, and ridiculous stories and misrepresentations of the people's circumstances under it and the practice.".

"These were some of the difficulties and oppositions I met with in the beginning of this practice."

The subsequent pages of this little work are almost entirely occupied in detailing the cases with which he was intrusted. Notwithstanding the opposition from the "Faculty," the obvious difference in the degrees of violence in the natural and inoculated small-pox, gradually enlarged the sphere of his practice, and at length it included all the villages in the neighbourhood of Boston.

The comparative merits of the natural and inoculated smallpox are very concisely stated by Dr. Boyleston from the previous ravages of the disease and the result of his improved practice.

"In the year 1721, and beginning of 1722, there were in Boston 5759 persons who had the small-pox in the natural way, out of which number died

844, (this account I took from one of our prints published by authority) so that the proportion that died of the natural small-pox there appears to be one in six, or between that of six and seven.

"The following table will shew the difference between the success of the natural small-pox and that of the inoculated in New England."

From this statement it appears, that the whole number inoculated was 286, of whom 281 had the disease, one had it imperfectly, six were not infected, and six died; hence says he the proportion that dies of inoculated small-pox may be one in forty six or thereabout.

The following curious document may be contrasted with the vote of the town in 1793:

"At a meeting by publick authority in the town-house of Boston, before his majesty's justices of the peace, and the selectmen; the practitioners of physick and surgery being called before them, concerning inoculation, agreed to the following conclusion:

A resolve upon a debate held by the physicians of Boston, concerning inoculating the small-pox on the twenty-first day of July, 1721.

It appears by numerous instances, that, it has proved the death of many persons soon after the operation, and brought distempers upon many others, which have in the end prov'd deadly to 'em.

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