ENGLISH PUBLIC WORKS. the paving is two-thirds laid down; and the trust have further to collect two shillings and sixpence in the pound on all rents of houses, built and building, within certain limits of the road (100 feet), towards lighting, watching, cleansing, and watering. This concern will cost nearly 100,0001., which is all subscribed for, and the divisions of the profits, like the dock concerns, is limited to 101. per cent. An additional branch to lead to the East India docks, is to be formed, at a separate expence of 20,0001. The grand junction canal is, at length, nearly finished; only 700 yards of the tunnel at Blisworth remains to be completed, and the Wolverton has embankment at proceeded on with more expedition than was expected. For the Literary Magazine. DR. GALL'S SYSTEM OF CRANIO- DR. GALL, a German physiologist, has lately obtained celebrity by the singularity of his opinions. He has adopted ideas directly contrary to those of Helvetius, as the basis of a system, to which he has given his name. He not only thinks that all differences in the human understanding and passions depend on organization, but likewise that the intellectual functions and faculties are as distinct as those of sight and hearing; that those faculties have their peculiar organs in the interior of the head; that all variations of character result from the different state of those organs, the combination of which forms the brain; that the skull exhibits externally, and, as it were, in relief, the marks of those internal differences. Hence you may, by inspecting it, discover great energy of vital power, a propensity to sensuality, coquetry and cunning, constancy and affection, courage and prudence, imagination, different kinds of memory, uncommon aptitude for the arts of drawing and The manner in which Dr. Gall distributes these different faculties in the brain is very ingenious: vital power occupies the centre, which is best protected; the organs of sense are nearly in the same direction. Those of the other intellectual functions are placed successively, from the inner to the outer. The intellectual functions being, according to this system, the most external, their power is betokened by the great convexity of the forehead, and the obtuseness of the facial angle, which the Greek artists have not increased in their ideal beauties, without giving them the expression of a divine intelligence, and all the appearances of a superior nature. Dr. Gall asserts, that the portion of the brain termed by anatomists its circumvolutions, confirms his doctrine; and he has there discovered a multitude of organs, to which the various propensities of man and his different intellectual faculties correspond. The upper part of the spinal marrow he considers as the particular organ of vital power. It is well known, that, in many parts of Germany, butchers kill their oxen by merely thrusting a sharp instrument between the first and second vertebræ of the brain. Not far from this, and near the upper and posterior part of the brain, are found the two organs of procreative power; so that the principal organ of life is next to those which nature has especially appointed to transmit it. The cerebral organs of the senses, or those parts which form the origin of the nerves instrumental in sensation, are placed anterior to those of vital and procreative power: but they betray themselves, it seems, by no external signs. Nearer the circumference, and round the central parts above-mentioned, he places different organs, adapted to various functions more or less closely connected with animal life, the farther they are remo ved from the medullary and internal parts. Between, but somewhat higher than the organs of procreative power, is situated that organ, which produces nervous and spasmodic affections; above this, is another organ, in which concentre the tender and benevolent affections; whereas, on the sides, and at different distances, are placed the organs of courage and cunning. The different kinds of memory, and the taste for music and painting, have organs situated in the anterior part of the brain; those where reside the genius for mechanical arts are near the sides; those of meditation and observation are placed somewhat higher. These are separated by kindness; above them is imagination; and below the latter, and near the sides, are the organs of sagacity, of wit, the external marks of which are said to be very perceptible in the skull of the poet Blumauer, which forms part of Dr. Gall's museum. According to the principles of Gallism, the brain contains several other organs, which give birth to different passions, and different modes of thought. To be acquainted with all the natural differences which skulls exhibit, you must see and handle them, he tells us, a good deal. In doing this, you must not employ the ends of the fingers, but the whole hand; for it is not great, but slight convexities, that you are looking for, and which the points of the fingers would not enable you to discover. Examine the heads of some persons endued with particular talents; then observe attentively the whole form of their heads, carefully noticing all remarkable convexities. In like manner, observe the heads of others possessing the same talents, compare them, and notice whether the skulls of the latter present the same convexities in the same parts. The same scrutiny should be extended to the heads of persons whom you know to be destitute of the talents by which the former are distin guished. Observe whether any convexities are to be found in the latter, and whether there may not even be depressions. If this appear in several cases, you may then conclude, with certainty, that in the region of the skull which has been so accurately observed, resides the organ of that talent which eminently distinguishes the one, and is wanting in the others. Similar observations should be made on strangers. Remark, with attention, the different convexities that appear on their skulls, and, according to the observations made, deduce the faculties and tempers of those persons, and endeavour to discover, by diligent inquiry and comparison, whether your deductions are true. You must endeavour to collect the skulls of persons with the history of whose lives you are well acquainted. This is difficult to be accomplished; and Dr. Gall, notwithstanding all his pains, possesses but a few, among which, however, are some very interesting ones, as general Wurmser's, Blumauer's, and Alxinger's (a celebrated comic poet of Vienna), together with those of some ideots who were incessantly occupied with a single frivolous pursuit. We shall be obliged to content ourselves with busts, which should be moulded with the utmost accuracy. To this collection should be added the skulls of all the animals that can be obtained, in order to compare them with the human heads. The skulls of animals which possess very striking qualities should, in particular, be examined. We should observe, with the most scrupulous attention, the different symptoms that take place in discases and injuries of the brain. In dissecting the brains of a great number of persons of his acquaintance, Dr. Gall has constantly observed a striking connection between their cerebral organs and their principal and characteristic faculties: he therefore scruples not to assign a particular instrument and theatre to DR. GALL'S SYSTEM OF CRANIOLOGY. each modification of the heart and understanding. He maintains that our intellectual and moral faculties are distinct, and even independent; that it is possible to exercise them alternately; and that the exertion, improvement, and even the extinction of one of them, frequently produces no effect on the others, which may consequently be supposed to have their seat in different regions of the brain. A man may use one of his intellectual faculties, while he suffers all the other to lie at rest, and thus beguile the fatigue of any labour, by bringing into action those functions of the understanding which the previous object had not employed. By varying the subject, our studies may thus easily be prolonged, and a brain fatigued by abstruse meditation may be refreshed by reading, and by those pursuits which give employment to the fancy. Besides, a great number of cases might be mentioned, in which different persons have been seen to lose one or more of their intellectual faculties, while they preserved the others unimpaired. A person has been known, in consequence of a paralytic attack, almost entirely to lose his memory, and to retain only the words Yes, no, very, very well, not at all, it is true, right, wonderfully, and others of the same kind. M. Villers, in his explanation of Dr. Gall's system, mentions an instance, equally extraordinary, of a lady, who, in consequence of an accident she met with during her first lying-in, lost the recollection of every thing that had occurred since her marriage. Such was her forgetfulness, that she pushed aside her husband and her child that was presented to her. This lady has never recovered the remembrance of the first year of her marriage, nor of the events that happened in it. Her relations and friends at length succeeded, by argument and the weight of their assurances, in persuading her that she was married, and had given birth to a son. She believes them, because she would rather Instances have been seen, when Thus Fabricius de Hilden mentions a young man, who, by a fall on the head, was rendered completely silly; and Haller an idcot, whom a wound in the head restored to his understanding. It is well known, that to the operation of trepanning, father Mabillon owed a sudden increase of his intellectual faculties. According to Dr. Gall, therefore, researches, both anatomical, psychological, and medical, agree in proving, that the different modifications of the heart and understanding are distinct faculties, and that the brain is not one organ, but an apparatus composed of several organs, the diversity of whose parts gives birth to all the varieties of the understanding and passions. Dr. Gall pretends to discover, by external signs, all the shades and varieties of moral affections and intellectual faculties. This second part of Gallism, which is called the Osteologic system of Gall, is founded on the connection between the brain and its osseous vessel, which must be very intimate, to enable the observer to form a judgment of the internal dispositions of the cerebral apparatus by the form of the skull, and to assign, on the different points of the surface of the head, as on a map, the regions which correspond to the different territories of the appetites or faculties. On the topography of the head, or the characteristic vallies and hills which distinguish its surface, the professor has bestowed uncommon attention, and, in a moment of enthusiasm, he writes: If the exterminating angel were at my command, woe to Kant, to Wieland, and other great men! And why has not some one preserved the skulls of Homer, Virgil, Cicero, Hippocrates, Boerhaave, Alexander, Frederic, Joseph, Catherine, Voltaire, Locke, Rousseau, Bacon, Newton, and the like? That he might not deserve a similar reproach, he has left no means unemployed, to collect, in his museum, the skulls of celebrated men. His activity in procuring these precious articles is unbounded; and at one time, every person at Vienna trembled for his head, and feared lest it should one day become the property of the greedy doctor. On this subject, many ludicrous anecdotes are related. Among the rest, M. Denis, librarian to the emperor, inserted a clause in his will, for the express purpose of securing his head from the researches of Dr. Gall. In spite, however, of all these apprehensions and precautions, the latter has assembled in his collections several skulls and many busts of celebrated men, but particularly of extraordinary persons, artists, poets, fools, robbers, and likewise of animals, which exhibit, in a very striking manner, the external signs of certain propensities, or faculties, that are never so strongly expressed in man. In these monuments, which the uninitiated observer beholds without interest or pleasure, Dr. Gall distinctly reads and discovers the history of the persons to whom they belonged; or, at least, the outlines of their intellectual and moral cha racter. Dr. Gall first made his doctrine public by his lessons, which he continued without interruption till 1792, when they were prohibited by the court of Vienna, which declared that the new theory of the head was calculated only to turn the brains of its subjects, and propagate materialism. For the Literary Magazine. ON THE CONDITION OF CHIMNEY SWEEPERS. BY some accident, the benevolent in England have had their attention excited by the miserable condition of the chimney sweepers. Not only single men have applied themselves, with zealous diligence, to the discovery of some methods of alleviating the evils incident to that wretched class of beings, but numerous societies have been formed for that purpose. Their first effort was to destroy the evil at the root, by offering premiums to such as would devise practicable modes of cleaning chimneys, without obliging any one to go up and down them. These efforts have been attended with the most beneficial consequences. Several machines have been contrived for sweeping chimneys, which completely answer the end, and the master chimney sweepers have, in many cases, been prevailed upon to adopt the use of them. A reflecting mind can scarcely fail to enquire, whether the evils, which are deemed of such magnitude in England, may not exist, in a greater or less degree, among ourselves. Is the method of constructing chimneys in America essentially different from that practised in London, by which the business of a chimney sweep is made less noxious and disgustful in this city than in that? Is the difference between wood and coal of any importance in this respect? Or ought our sensibility to the sufferings of our fellowcreatures be blunted, on the present occasion, by recollecting that the chimney sweeper is, in Philadelphia, generally a negro? Familiar as we are with the figures of these wretched children in our streets, their forlorn appearance, their naked limbs, bare heads, and filthy tatters seldom fail to excite a momentary sympathy in the passenger. They are justly consi dered as formingthe lowest step in hu man society; and surely a condition, which is justly stigmatized as the lowest, must be subjected to uncommon miseries. And though it should appear, that the chimney sweepers in Philadelphia and New York have a lot less deplorable than those of London or Liverpool, yet the actual miseries of their condition may call loudly for relief, and relief may be as effectually given in one country as in the other. Men seldom allow their attention to pierce beyond the surface, the obvious appearances of things. Our chimneys must be cleaned: the man whose trade it is to do it is called, and, with the payment of the fee, all further attention to the subject is dismissed. We rarely see the operation performed. We are either abroad or asleep at the time, and all that we know is the consequent expence, and the consequent security of the operation. What is the real nature of the task, what its influence upon the health or morals of the child that performs it, what treatment he receives from his immediate master or employer, are considerations that never molest us. Such appears to have been the case, for many centuries, in London. The same negligence and inattention prevailed among the better classes of society; and provided the service was well performed, the householder was entirely indifferent to the means. Of late, however, the wretched chimney sweeper has obtained some portion of benevolent regard, and it is not by any means improbable that the profession on its once footing, will, in a few years entirely disappear. The means by which they are likely to effect this are certainly well worthy our attention. The population of our cities is incessantly increasing. The business of chimney sweeping, with all the evils that belong to i must increase in the same proportion. If the business is rendered more unwholesome by the use of coal, we must recollect that the use of coal is daily gaining ground, and will one day, it is probable, entirely supplant that of wood. I hope some of these remarks may excite a second thought in some of my readers, and that the subject, which I have thus attempted to draw from its silence and obscurity, may not, the moment I lay down my pen, return again to oblivion. It may be useful to subjoin to these remarks some account of the machine, which, among many others recently invented, seems best adapted to the purpose, and which is consequently in highest repute. The principal parts of this machine are the brush, the rods for raising the brush, and the cord for connecting the whole together. The brush consists of four fanshaped or wing-like portions, which are connected to a squared piece of wood by hinges, in order that when it is ascending the chimney, it may take up as little room as possible, and when descending may spread out and sweep the soot down; by a contrivance exactly like that which prevents a common umbrella from flapping down, the wings are prevented from falling into their contracted form, when once properly expanded. The substance generally made use of for the brush is what is called whisk, but other materials may be substituted if thought preferable. The rods are hollow tubes, two feet and a half in length, having a metal socket of a conical form at the lower end of each, the bottom edge of which socket is rounded off to prevent the cord from being cut. Some of these sockets are furnished with a screw, for the purpose of confining the cord, and preventing the d from separang; under this screw is a piece of metal which immediately presses against the cord. The upper ends of the rods are made somewhat taper, and have a small motion in the sockets. The cord is fastened by a knot at the upper end of the brush, and is passed through the whole series of |