which the engineers have traced out or those which he himself has drawn; and that he ought also to possess a general knowlege of those works which are erected in fortifying towns or cities, in order that he may be able to direct, with the more certainty and skill, the movements, with the execution of which he is intrusted. We are then informed that this collection of questions, which, for reasons mentioned, the writer was induced to compile in 1778, is drawn from the best treatises on the art of war, according to the principles of Marshal de Vauban. It is divided into four chapters, the first of which treats on Fieldfortification, which is distinguished into three sorts, the Little, the Mean, and the Great.-The Little, he says, consists of small works, as épaulemens, redans, redoubts, trenches, traverses, batardeaux, abbatis, criques or ditches dug in marshes to interrupt the passage of them, pits or trous de loup, &c.-The Mean, he defines to be a collection of closed redoubts, joined by means of lines, straight or broken.-The Great, he says, is formed by bastions joined with curtains. He makes it also comprehend small forts or Fortins, and the works that are thrown up on the outside of castles, villages, boroughs, and small open towns.

Chapter II. relates to the fortification of places, divided into natural and artificial. The former is defined to be that which results from the very nature itself of places; as the situation of one on the summit of a mountain, the avenues or roads to which can easily be shut up; and positions protected by declivities, or places surrounded by inaccessible morasses. Artificial Fortification is separated, as in other treatises, into regular and irregular. The author calls fortification regular, when the figure of the place is a regular polygon, and all the sides of the enceinte are equally fortified; and it is irregular, when the figure of the place is an irregular polygon, and has each of its sides fortified on the principles of regular fortification;' that is to say, has each front regularly constructed, or as the faces of the bastions, as well as the flanks, equal to each other. This definition of irregular fortification, however, is from being legitimate or correct: because it frequently may, and will indeed oftener than otherwise, be necessary to make both the faces and the flanks, even in the same front, unequal, in order to proportion, as it ought to be in every construction both in permanent and in temporary or field-works, the fire of h part to that which the enemy can bring against it. In the latter kind, whenever they are of any extent, and do not rely consist of small redoubts or minute works, it is almost always necessary to do this in order to occupy the ground properly. Although the due occupation of ground by such constructions,

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L.

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in the carrying on of field-operations, is the most essential branch of military instruction, it forms no part of the education of youths who are intended for the profession of arms at any of our public seminaries; and we do not recollect that any writer on fortification, or other person, furnished any general rule for this purpose, till our countryman Mr. Glenie printed one in 1783, which he had not long before applied to practice, and which is certainly remarkable both for simplicity and for universality and facility of application. (See his "Concise Observations on Military Construction.")

The third chapter is on the Attack of Places, and the fourth and last treats on their defence; in regard to both of which, the construction is communicated in the form of questions and

answers.

Several omissions may be detected in this small performance, relative to some essential points both in temporary and permanent fortification, as well as its attack and defence. It must unquestionably be acknowleged, however, that the tract is much better calculated for communicating general notions respecting these subjects, than the printed collection of questions and answers which is in use at the Academy at Woolwich, which we have compared with this, and in which we find various manifest mistakes.

M. Fossé uniformly gives the dimensions of the materials and the works which he mentions, in the measures adopted by the French since their Revolution, viz. mètres and centimètres, instead of the toise and its subdivisions. It may not therefore be an iss to state the proportion between the toise and the mètre, which is their standard measure, and is supposed by them to be the ten-millionth-part of a quadrant of the terrestrial meridian. From the measurement of an arc of nine degrees and a haif, on the meridian from Dunkirk to Barcelona, they inferred that this quadrant contains 5,130,740 toises. Consequently, the toise is to the mètre as 10,000,000 to 5,130,740, or as 1000 to 513 nearly; or the mètre is equal to 5,078,444 French feet, or 32,817 English, nearly. The decimi tre is the tenth part of amètre, and the centimètre is the tenth part of a decimètre, or the hundredth part of a metre.

ART. VII. M. MILLIN's Travels in the Southern Departments of

IWE

France.

'(Article concluded from p. 493 of our last Appendix.

Je left this intelligent and amusing traveller at Hyères when we parted with him at our first interview; we are now prepared to attend him through the remainder of his routes

and

and though we cannot, for an obvious reason, present a full account of his rambles, we shall consult the amusement of our readers by selecting such occasional sketches as we may deem worthy of transcription.

The next place of importance which M. MILLIN intended to visit was Nice: but, as no road leads directly from Hyères to that city, the traveller was obliged first to return to Toulon. Hence following the line of coast to Frejus, he traversed roads bordered with olive-trees and hedges of pomegranates; and having passed a plain richly decked with vineyards and cornfields, he reached the mountain of Averne, which, in addition to its picturesque scenery, abounds with mineral productions. As he walked along, he plunged at every step up to the ancle in a sort of micaceous sand resembling silver and gold, which, by reflecting the rays of the sun, produced the most brilliant effect. So rich do these sands appear, that a representative of the people, not versed indeed, (as the author observes) in the study of mineralogy, crossing this mountain in 1793, eagerly collected a quantity of this beautiful sand, and carried it with him to the Convention as a proof of the negligence of the administrators of the department of the Var, who trod under their feet treasures adequate to sustain the expence of the war against all the kings of the universe.' After the mineral, the traveller enumerates the vegetable riches of the district: but these objects must not detain us. We shall not, however, omit to advert to a circumstance which rather interrupted M. MILLIN's herborizing. Ascending a hill from which he obtained a view of the sea, three English cruizers were perceived in chase of several small French vessels. The battery on the coast fired on the enemy: but we were alarmed at the danger to which our barks were exposed.' These fears appear to have soon subsided; for we next hear of the travellers dining comfortably on the brink of a fountain under the shade of some mulberry-trees. After this repast, they proceeded from the antient castle of La Molle to Cogolin, and thence to Saint Tropez, the country about which is very sterile: but, the air being sharp and pure, it is never infested by the plague, though at times this disease visits the adjoining districts. At Saint Tropez, some small trading-ships are built, but fishing is the chief occupation of the inhabitants. As this town contained nothing curious, the Inspector of the Customs proposed to amuse the travellers with a sight of the drawing of the madrague, (or net for catching the tunny-fish,) and offered to accompany them. The little bark which we had occasionally used, stretching along the coast, and taking advantage of the wind, had escaped the English corsairs, and arrived as soon as

we did at this port. Before day-light we embarked in it for Fréjus. The fishermen had promised not to draw their madrague till we came; and we did not keep them waiting, but reached them at day-break.'

Fishing for the Tunny is prosecuted in different ways: but the best and most certain methods are the thonnaire and the madrague.

The thonnaire, provincially tounaire, is in some places only an inclosure formed by nets for catching the tunny. Seamen are placed to observe the arrival of the fish, and to give a signal by hoisting a flag. Vessels then come to the spot at which the fish have assembled; some of the people encompass them with nets, and some drive them towards the shore, where they catch them with other nets. At St. Tropez, and on the coast of Provence, the tounaïré is a net placed in a spiral form; in which the tunnies when caught are almost always dead, because it closes their gills and choaks them, for which reason the madrague is preferred, which takes all sorts of fish. It is supposed that the name madrague or mandrague, probably used by the antient Marseillois, was derived from the Greek para, which signifies a fold, inclosure, or fence. It is, in fact, a vast inclosure, composed of three large nets, divided by others into many chambers or compartments. Before the net, towards the open sea, is a long passage (allée), formed by two parallel nets, which is called chasse. The tunnies, running in between them, enter the madrague; and, passing from chamber to chamber, they arrive at last at what is called the chamber of death, or the corpou, or corpus. After every thing had been made ready, the fishermen drew up the nets of each chamber, in order to force the fish to enter that which would prove fatal to them. George, the king of the madrague, soon joined us with his fishermen we followed him to the corpou, and he threw some drops of oil on the sea, and entirely covered his head with a cloth, to enable him to perceive whether any fish were in the inclosure *. He had fastened at the bottom of his vessel an ass's head, to entice the tunnies, which generally go to the edge of the corpou to see this head. The king of the madrague, after having performed his examination, makes a signal to the proprietors, or to those who rent under them, if the fishing has been successful. When it is abundant, the notice is communicated by other signals, and all the boats are pushed off, filled with persons attracted by curiosity; who, surrounding the madrague, rend the air with their songs and acclama

tions.

Nothing extraordinary attended the fishing at this time. The net contained only small fish, which is always a proof that no tunnies are on the spot, because, if they were, the small fish would have been devoured. The tunny-fishery has been less productive since the war,

W repeated the experiment after him, and found that the oil diffused on the surface did, in fact, enable us to discern the fish more easily.'

for

for they are easily frightened, and the firing of the batteries placed along the coast appears to have kept them at a distance.

Two madragues are at Saint Tropez; and the spot on which they are placed is rented of the Government at 10,600 francs. Their maintenance is moreover an object of considerable expence. Two nets are necessary to each, because sometimes a shark entangles himself in them and breaks them; they are also exposed to other accidents; and unless means of replacing them were provided, the fishing must be discontinued. Each net costs 3000 francs, or about 150l. sterling.

For the net of the corpou, 250lbs. of cork are required, which sells at 15 francs per quintal or hundred. This net sometimes remains for a year or two in the sea: but those which form the internal chambers and the chasse, or entrance-passage, are changed every six months. The sea, in the spot on which the madrague is fixed, is forty fathoms deep.

The tunny, called scombre thon, or scomber thynnus, Linn., has been in request from times the most remote: the writings of the antients often make mention of it; and its figure is consecrated on their medals. The Romans held it in the highest estimation as an article of food; and Pliny has not deemed it beneath him to notice the precedence which they gave to certain parts of this animal over the rest; they preferred the flesh of the belly, and this is the part of which epicures in the present day are most fond.

The tunny is eaten fresh in all places to which it can be conveyed sweet. Different methods of keeping it are employed. The antients, who were acquainted with several processes, called the .salted tunny milandryum, (Plin. xxvi. 7.) because it resembled in colour the shavings of the oak somewhat burnt. Now the practice is to cut the tunny into slices, which are salted, or rather pickled, being dipped in oil after it is impregnated with the salt. The oil which is detached from these fish, when they are washed, and which is pressed out before they are seasoned, is used by tanners. The price of the pickled tunny varies according to the quantity furnished by the madragues.'

After this view of the tunny-fishery, which is an object of as much importance in the Mediterranean as the herring and salmon fisheries are in the north of Europe, M. MILLIN and his suite crossed the Gulf of Grimaud, the Sinus Sambracitanus of the Romans, and went to Fréjus; a port which will be celebrated in the future history of France, since here it was that Bonaparte landed from the frigate Le Muron, on his eventful return from Egypt. From Fréjus the travellers sailed to Antibes; which port, with that of Nice, the next place of importance that was visited, engages much notice. Indeed, the accounts of it fill many pages: but as this city, with the surrounding districts, has been often described, we shall pass over this portion of the tour; only mentioning, en passant, that excursions by water were made from Nice to Menton, Monaco,

and