(———), the celebrated, though unfortunate, traveller, was a native of North America, but of what province we have not learned. We are equally ignorant of the year of his birth, and the rank of his parents; but have no reason to think that they were opulent. From his early youth he displayed a strong propensity to visit unknown and savage countries; and to gratify that propensity, he lived for several years with the American Indians, whose manners and habits he seemed in some degree to have acquired. Afterwards he sailed round the world with Captain Cook in the humble station of a corporal of marines; and on his return, he determined to traverse the vast continent of America, from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean.

This design being frustrated by his not obtaining a passage Ledyard, passage to Nootka Sound, he determined to travel over land to Kamchatka. With this view he went over to Offend, with only ten guineas in his pocket, and proceeded by the way of Denmark and the Sound to the capital of Sweden, and endeavoured to cross the Gulph of Bothnia on the ice; but finding, when he came to the middle, that the water was not frozen, he walked round the gulph to Petersburgh. Here he found himself without stockings or shoes; but procured relief from the Portuguese ambassador, and obtained leave to proceed with a detachment of flores to Yakutz. He made this journey of six thousand miles, and there met Mr Billenge, an Englishman, whom he had known on board Captain Cook's ship. From thence he went to Oczakow, on the coast of the Kamchatka Sea; but being too late to embark that year, returned to Yakutz to winter. Here he was, on some suspicion, seized, conveyed on a sledge through Northern Tartary, and left on the frontiers of the Polish dominions. In the midst of poverty, rags, and disease, he however reached Koningsburg, where he found friends that enabled him to reach England.

On his arrival in London, he waited on Sir Joseph Banks, on whose credit he had, in his distress, received at different times 25 guineas. Sir Joseph communicated to him the views of the African Association, and pointed out the route in which they wished Africa to be explored. On his engaging at once in the enterprise, Sir Joseph asked him when he would be able to set out. "To-morrow morning," replied Ledyard, without hesitation. At this interview the president of the Royal Society declares, that he was struck with the figure of the man, the breadth of his chest, the openness of his countenance, and the rolling of his eye. Though scarcely exceeding the middle size, his figure indicated great strength and activity. Despising the accidental distinctions of society, he seemed to regard no man as his superior; but his manners, though coarse, were not disagreeable. His uneducated genius was original and comprehensive. From the native energy of his mind, he was adventurous, curious, and unappalled by dangers; while the strength of his judgment united caution with energy. The track pointed out to him was from Cairo to Senaar, and thence westward in the latitude and supposed direction of the Niger.

He was not ignorant, that the task assigned him was arduous and big with danger; but instead of shrinking from it, he said, on the day of his departure, "I am accustomed to hardships; I have known both hunger and nakedness to the utmost extremity of human suffering; I have known what it is to have food given me as charity to a madman; and I have at times been obliged to shelter myself under the miseries of that character to avoid a heavier calamity. My difficulties have been greater than I ever owned, or ever will own to any man. Such evils are terrible to bear, but they never yet had power to turn me from my purpose. If I live, I will faithfully perform, in its utmost extent, my engagement to the Society; and if I perish in the attempt, my honour will be safe; for death cancels all bonds."

After receiving his instructions and letters of recommendation, this intrepid traveller sailed from London on the 30th of June 1788; and in 36 days arrived at Alexandria. Proceeding to Cairo, where he arrived August the 17th, he visited the slave markets, and conversed with the travelling merchants of the caravans. These sources of information, generally neglected by travellers, enabled him to obtain, at a very small expense, more correct information concerning the African nations and their trade, the position of places, the nature of the country, the manner of travelling, &c., than could have been easily obtained by any other method. He thus learned, that the Arabs of the desert have an invincible attachment to liberty, though it is singular that they have no word to express liberty in their language. The Mahomedans of Africa are a trading, superstitious, and warlike set of vagabonds. He saw near 200 black slaves exposed to sale, who had been brought from the interior parts of Africa; their appearance savage, but not like prisoners of war; they had head ornaments, and their hair plaited in detached plaits of great length. Another parcel, which had come from Darfor, were mostly women; and the beads, and some other ornaments which they wore, were Venetian. They were well formed, quite black, had the true Guinea face, and curled hair. Mr Ledyard was informed, that the king of Senaar was a merchant, and concerned in the caravans; that 20,000 negro slaves are imported into Egypt annually. Among some Senaar slaves, he saw three of a bright olive colour, but their heads uncommonly formed, the forehead the narrowest, longest, and most protuberant he ever saw.

The Senaar caravan is the most rich; that of Darfor is not equally so, though it trades with almost the same commodities. Besides slaves, these are gum, elephants teeth, camels, and ostrich-feathers; for which are received in exchange trinkets, soap, antimony, red linen, razors, scissors, mirrors, and beads. Wangara, to which the caravans also trade, was represented to Mr Ledyard as a kingdom producing much gold; but the king seems to intermingle with commerce as well as the potentate of Senaar; for in order to deceive strangers, and prevent them from guessing at the extent of his riches, he was reported to vary continually the gold used in barter, which it is his province to regulate, and of which he issues at one time a great quantity, and at others little or none. A caravan goes from Cairo to Fezzan, which they call a journey of fifty days; and as the caravans travel about 20 miles a day, the distance must be about 1000 miles; from Fezzan to Tombuctoo is 1800 miles; from Cairo to Senaar about 600 miles.

Such was the information which Mr Ledyard derived from the merchants of the caravans in Egypt; but when he was about to verify it by his own observations, and had announced to the Association that his next dispatch would be dated from Senaar, he was seized with a bilious complaint, which frustrated the skill of the most eminent physicians, and put a period to his travels and his life at Cairo. It is needless to say how much his death was regretted, or how well he was qualified for the arduous enterprise in which he had engaged. The person who, with such scanty funds, could penetrate the frozen regions of Tartary, subsist among their cruel inhabitants, and ingratiate himself with the ferocious Moors of Egypt, could hardly have failed to obtain a kind reception from the gentle and hospitable Negro, had no untoward circumstance intervened. At Senaar, indeed, his risk would have been great; and Mr Bruce was decidedly of opinion, that a man so poorly attended as Mr Ledyard, could never have made his escape from that treacherous and ferocious people. The observations of this accurate observer on the female character, though they have been repeatedly quoted in other works, are well entitled to a place here; and with them we shall conclude this sketch of his life:

"I have always (says he) remarked, that women in all countries are civil and obliging, tender and humane; that they are ever inclined to be gay and cheerful, timidous and modest; and that they do not hesitate, like man, to perform a generous action. Not haughty, not arrogant, not supercilious; they are full of courtesy, and fond of society; more liable, in general, to err than man; but in general also more virtuous, and performing more good actions than he. To a woman, whether civilized or savage, I never addressed myself, in the language of decency and friendship, without receiving a decent and friendly answer. With man it has often been otherwise. In wandering over the barren plains of inhospitable Denmark, through honest Sweden, and frozen Lapland, rude and churlish Finland, unprincipled Russia, and the wide forest regions of the wandering Tartar; if hungry, dry, cold, wet, or sick, the women have ever been friendly to me, and uniformly so. And to add to this virtue (for worthy the appellation of benevolence), these actions have been performed in so free and kind a manner, that if I was dry, I drank the sweetest draught; and if hungry, I ate the coarsest morsel with a double relish." For a fuller account of Ledyard, see The Transactions of the African Association, or A View of the Late Discoveries in Africa.

Hyperbolic Legs, are the ends of a curve line that partakes of the nature of the hyperbola, or having asymptotes.

Lemington Priors, is a village two miles east of the town of Warwick, famous for its mineral waters. One salt spring, which rises near the church yard, has been long known, as well as another which rises in the bed of the river; but the most remarkable spring was discovered in the year 1792. The waters of both springs have been analyzed with great accuracy by William Lambe, M.A., late Fellow of St John's college, Cambridge, who has given us the following synoptical table of the substances contained in them:

| Gascon Fluids contained in a Wine gallon in Cubic Inches. | |----------------------------------------------------------| | Hepatic gas - | | Azotic gas - | | Carbonic acid gas - |

| Solid contents of a Wine gallon in Grain. | |----------------------------------------------------------| | Carbonat of iron - | | Oxide of iron and manganese - | | Oxygenated muriate of iron and manganese - | | Sulphur - | | Muriate of magnesia - | | Muriate of soda - | | Sulphate of soda - | | Sulphate of lime - |

In the course of his experiments, for which we must refer to the original memoir, in Transactions of the Manchester Society, Mr Lambe thinks he discovered the origin of the muriatic acid. He found a coincidence, very unexpected, between the hepatised solution of iron and the oxygenated muriate of iron. "I had almost concluded (says he), from the resemblance between the properties of this salt and the phenomena of the water, that the water contains this very salt. Now, I conclude, that they contain a matter, be it what it may, produced by the action of hepatic gas on iron. But they are the very same facts which form the basis, upon which each separate inference is built. Does it not follow, then, as a necessary consequence, that the hepatised solution itself contains a muriate of iron highly oxygenated, and that therefore in this process muriatic acid is generated? This conclusion seemed authorised by reason, and experiment has confirmed it."