ture, which is now so beautifully and extensively displayed. The most perfect example of grau wacke, with which we are acquainted in New England, is at Pawtucket falls in Rhode Island.

Among the superincumbent rocks Mr. Eaton briefly notices the greenstone, which forms so grand and striking a figure in the geology of New England, extending with but little interruption from New Haven along Connecticut river. Of this we should have been pleased to have had a more detailed account.

At page 249 our author says, wherever I have had access to the basis of a greenstone trap rock in place, I found it rested on a fine grained variety, quite as fine as any specimens of European basalt.' Here again we are compelled to differ from him; but Mr. Eaton is not the only geologist among us, who has fallen into an error respecting basalt. We know of no locality in this country; all the rocks which have been called basalt are the compact greenstone of European geologists. The regularity of form in the concretions and the columnar structure so often seen in our greenstone have doubtlesss led to the application of a wrong name. It is to be regretted that we have no good definition of basalt. Mr. Jameson has given it a place among the simple minerals, and has enumerated all its properties with his usual minuteness; and in the third volume of the first edition of his treatise, gives the definition of Werner, that it is a simple substance, composed of indurated black coloured iron clay, and is distinguished from other fossils by its color, clayey and earthy aspect, its hardness and weight. This gives us but a very imperfect idea of the substance, and it is evident will not apply to what has been termed basalt by Mr. Eaton. So unsettled are opinions respecting this rock, that Daubuisson, than whom no one ever examined basaltic summits with greater attention, tells us in his admirable work on the basalts of Saxony, that he is not prepared to give a definition of it, but states with great exactness its characters and properties. Any one who will acquaint himself with these, will see how few of them appertain to the trap rocks of mount Holyoke, Deerfield, &c. Von Buch, we believe, considers olivin and augite as essential to basalt, and the adoption of this opinion would tend to remove much of the confusion, of which we in common with others have so much cause to com-' plain.

Mr. Eaton does not offer any opinion on the origin of trap rocks, a subject which has exercised the ingenuity of so many eminent naturalists of Europe; but from passages in various parts of the work we think he inclines to no one exclusive theory, but endeavours, in a most clumsy manner, to explain appearances, sometimes on the Wernerian and sometimes on the Huttonian bypothesis. As an example of the latter and at the same time as a specimen of our author's ingenuity and talent at description, we select the following account of the Salisbury iron mine.

It will seem to be taking a bold, or rather visionary ground, to say that the stalactitic [hematitic] iron ore of Salisbury mine, was once specular iron ore, imbedded in this range of talco-micaceous rock, similar to that of Hawley. But when the reader is informed that the only rocks in the vicinity of the mines are of this kind, very similar to those in which the specular ore of Hawley is imbedded, and that the alluvion embracing the ore in its present state appears, by mere inspection, to have proceeded from the disintegration of a similar rock, it will begin to appear some. what plausible. In addition to this, these iron stalactites are always pendent when laid bare before they are removed. They must therefore have been in a state of fusion as recently as the time when the alluvion was formed. And these stalactites are always suspended from masses intermixed with the soil in such a manner, that it is evident the iron was in a state of fusion when in contact with it. The soot, which still adheres to all stalactitic specimens, proves that the heat was continued after the ore was confined in its present state. If it was ever fused down from any rock, it must have been the same out of which the alluvion embracing it was formed. The cause producing such a high heat I shall not attempt to assign. But that the ore exhibits sufficient evidence of its having been recently fused, I believe no one can question, who has ever inspected it in place. I mean by recently, since all general strata were completed, and during the era of alluvial deposites.'

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The short chapter on alluvial deposites as applied to agriculture' contains nothing new or original. The description of organic remains, translated from Martin's Systema Reliquiorum, we consider the best part of the work.

In bidding adieu to Mr. Eaton, we would again express our pleasure at the exertions he has made, convinced that he has excited the attention of many persons in the interior of New England to the study of mineralogy, and we think he

deserves the thanks of every lover of science and the encouragement of the community. At the same time we feel it our duty to caution students not to fall into some errors, which Mr. Eaton might have avoided by a little more previous study and careful examination of characteristic specimens. This little work will be found a convenient guide to mineralogists who travel in New England, as it contains numerous localities of simple minerals, and even where errors have been committed respecting rocks, the attention will be directed to the places where they are said to occur, which otherwise might be passed unnoticed.

ART. XIII.-Documens historiques et Reflexions sur le Gouaernement de la Hollande par Louis Bonaparte. Ex Roi de Hollande. Paris, 3 vols. 8vo. 1820.

SINCE the Bonaparte family have been relieved from the task of governing the greater part of Europe, they have devoted their leisure to literary pursuits of different kinds. A number of publications has appeared, in the composition of which Napoleon is supposed to have had a more or less direct agency; and it is reported that he is preparing a complete account of his own life. Lucien has published one or more voluminous epics, and may be allowed to have placed himself in this way at least on a level with the celebrated Cottle. Our guest, the Count de Survilliers, has favoured the world with a moral tale; and the author of the work, which forms the subject of this article, produced, some years since, a sentimental romance, which appeared in the first edition under the title of Mary, or the Pains of Love, and in the second under the equally seducing one, of Mary, or the Dutch Women. The king of Westphalia is, we believe, the only one of these illustrious brothers who has made no contribution whatever to the stock of literature.

The work we are reviewing is a production of a different character from any of those which we have mentioned. If one may judge from the number of translations which have been made of it, few works have passed so soon into a circulation so extensive. Besides the English, Italian, and German translations, four separate ones have been made into the Dutch. It is a work of no high literary claims, and is merely

an unpretending account of the administration of Louis Bonaparte in Holland, preceded by a brief review of the previous incidents of his life, and including some notices of the origin of the Bonaparte family and of the early life of Napoleon. As there is no doubt of its genuineness, it is the most authentic document yet before the public with which we are acquainted, respecting these last subjects, and contains several new and interesting particulars. Nor is it altogether without its value in the part, which relates to the administration of its royal author. The history of the short lived kingdom of Holland, though not one of the most important episodes in the great political action of the last thirty years, is by no means destitute of interest; and the reign of Louis is in some points altogether unique among those of his brother vassal kings of the fashion and family of Bonaparte. He appears to have ascended the throne with unaffected reluctance, and under an influence on the part of his brother amounting to little less than absolute duress; and to have entered upon the office with a resolute determination not to be made the instrument of oppressing his subjects, to which he adhered with a firmness, from which nothing but absolute violence from the same quarter ever compelled him to recede, and to which he finally made a voluntary sacrifice of his title and dignity. He evinced perhaps some feebleness of mind and a kind of willing self-deception in imagining for a moment that he could carry this system into effect, and he would have shown more consistency and firmness had he persevered from the beginning at all hazards in refusing a post, which he must have known he should never be permitted to occupy, except in such a way as to accomplish the views of the power that placed him there. It may be, too, that he displayed at the last moment of his reign a want of cool and deliberate judgment in regard to the part he ought to act, and there are symptoms in his narrative of a hankering, subsequently to his abdication, after the throne which he had abandoned. But these are blemishes in an honourable and virtuous character. It is no trifling glory to form, as far as we are acquainted with the history of this period, an exception very rare, if not quite solitary, to the general meanness and depravity of crowned and titled personages. Louis was rewarded for it at the time by the sincere respect and warm affection of his subjects, and his name continues to be men

tioned by them with expressions of the same sentiments. They were then satisfied and still are, that although they suffered much during his reign from political oppression, it was against the desires and efforts of their sovereign. We are inclined to think that these particular features in the government of Louis Bonaparte are not universally known; and he was therefore right in attempting to prevent any misconstruction of his character by placing it before the public in its true light and in an authentic way.

We are pleased with the tone both moral and literary in which the work is composed. The style is plain and unpretending, and the author, in treating a subject extremely delicate throughout, bas manifested a singular discretion, and has abstained religiously from any details, which are in their nature scandalous, or which would have tended unnecessarily to call in question the characters of individuals. There was a continual temptation to adopt a different course, in the abundant materials at his disposition for gratifying the public hunger after anecdote and scandal. In this particular as in the principles of his administration, the author has sacrificed his temporary success to a sense of propriety and justice. We think we shall give pleasure to our readers, in laying before them some of the particulars of the life and government of Louis. There are interspersed in the work a number of letters before unpublished from Napoleon, which are among the few yet in print pretending to proceed from that quarter, whose genuineness can be depended on. We shall copy in the course of this article some of those which, from the style and contents, appear the most remarkable.

Louis repels with contempt the reproach of vulgar extraction that has been thrown upon his family, and maintains that they are of ancient and noble origin. He produces some documents to show that they proceeded from Tuscany and that the family enjoyed in that part of Italy a very distinguised reputation. He has in his possession a history of the sack of Rome written in the sixteenth century by Jacopo Bonaparte, with an appendix by another hand containing a highly flattering account of the greatness and nobility of the family. It appears, however, that the work remained in manuscript till a recent period, and that the appendix is also

*

We have had an opportunity of examining this curious MS. now in the possession of a gentleman of Boston.

New Series, No. 4.

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