“There, Nymphs! alight, array your dazzling powers, With sudden march alarm the torpid hours; On ice-built isles expand a thousand sails, Hinge the strong helms, and catch the frozen gales. The winged rocks to feverish climates guide, Where fainting zephyrs pant upon the tide; Pass, where to Ceuta Calpé’s thunder roars, And answering echoes shake the kindred shores; Pass, where with palmy plumes, Canary smiles, And in her silver girdle binds her isles; Onward, where Niger’s dusky Naiad laves A thousand kingdoms with prolific waves, Or leads o’er golden sands her threefold train In steamy channels to the fervid main; While swarthy nations crowd the sultry coast, Drink the fresh breeze, and hail the floating frost: Nymphs! veil’d in mist, the melting treasure steer, And cool with arctic snows the tropic year.” “If the nations who inhabit this hemisphere of the globe, instead of destroying their seamen and exhausting their wealth in unnecessary wars, could be induced to unite their labours to navigate these immense masses of ice into the more southern oceans, two great advantages would result to mankind, the tropic countries would be much cooled by their solution, and our winters in this altitude would be rendered much milder, for perhaps a century or two, till the masses of ice became again enormous.”—ED.] * * * * * [DR. THOMAS BEDDOES, born at Shiffnal in 1760, was a scientific Physician far in advance of his age; his _Popular Essay on Consumption_, 1779, his tracts entitled _Hygeia_, 1801, &c., may still be studied with profit. He paid particular attention to the medical use of the permanently Elastic Fluids, and avows that as “one rash experiment on a patient would demolish a plan on which the hope of relieving mankind from much of their misery is founded,” he made preliminary experiments on himself in the case of _Oxygene_ and _Consumption_, as alluded to in the text, _À propos_ of the artificial distribution of disease, it may be mentioned that in _The Batchelor_, p. 189, is a method for “discharging the Plague”.