siderable portion of them find their way into the United States.-The imports into Quebec have of late years been very much augmented. In 1839, 1175 ships, with an aggregate burden of 383,844 tons, arrived there. The St. Lawrence is seldom frozen over below the city; but the masses of floating ice, kept in constant agitation by the flux and reflux of the tide, render its navigation impracticable from the end of November, or beginning of December, to some time in the month of April. QUETELET (Lambert Adolphe), was born at Ghent, in the Netherlands, in February 1796, and received his education in the university of that city. Through the recommendation of the mathematician Garnier, whose personal acquaintance he had the good fortune to make, he was, at a comparatively early age, appointed professor of the mathematical and physical sciences in the Athenæum of Ghent. He next became the director of the observatory there, a post which he yet occupies. He is the author of various scientific papers that have appeared in the Memoirs of the Brussels Academy, of which learned association he is the perpetual secretary, or in the "Correspondance mathématique et physique," edited at first conjointly with Garnier, and subsequently by himself alone. But he has also published a number of popular works on science which are very meritorious in their way, and have passed through several editions. The works referred to are his "Astronomie populaire" and "Astronomie élémentaire," the "Resumé d'un cours de physique générale," his "Physique populaire de la chaleur," his "Instructions populaires sur le calcul des probabilités," &c. - The attention of M. Quetelet has latterly been very much directed to statistical inquiries. These have been prosecuted in a philosophical spirit, and with a constant reference to utility in the conclusions to be arrived at. His statistical works are the following:"Recherches statistiques sur le royaume des Pays Bas;" "Recherches sur la loi de croissances de l'homme aux différents ages;" "Recherches sur le penchant au crime aux differents ages;" "Recherches sur la reproduction et la mortalité de l'homme aux différents ages;" and the most important of all, that entitled "Sur l'homme et le développement de ses facultés, ou essai de physique sociale" (2 vols., Paris, 1835).-M. Quetelet is at present editor of the "Annuaire" and the "Annales de l'observatoire" of Brussels. QUINET (Edgar) was born at Bourg, in the French department of the Ain, in February 1803. His father was a Frenchman and a Roman Catholic; his mother a native of Germany and a Protestant. He received an education preparatory to being admitted into the Polytechnic School. But his admission to it being postponed unexpectedly, on account of the extraordinary number of candidates who presented themselves, his friends procured for him at Paris an appointment (surnuméraire des finances) in the financial department of the government. The duties assigned him were of a nature far from being congenial with his tastes, and left him no leisure for the prosecution of literary pursuits. He accordingly resigned the appointment, and engaged in the study of the law, while at the same time occupying himself much with literature. Immediately after being admitted to the bar, he commenced his career as an author by the publication of a small work called the "Wandering Jew." His health having suffered from long-continued mental application, he travelled for the restoration of it, first to England, where he changed his intention of coming to the United States, and next to Germany, for the purpose of completing with advantage a translation into French of Herder's "Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit." At Heidelberg he remained for more than a year (1827-28), enjoying the advantage of daily intercourse with Creuzer and other eminent German scholars. Here, too, an earnest desire to visit the classic land of Greece was excited in him by the literary atmosphere in which he lived. He wrote, accordingly, to M. de Martignac, then at the head of the administration in France, suggesting to him the plan of a scientific expedition to the Morea. The expedition, as is well known, took effect; and M. Quinet was selected by the Institute to be one of its members. On his return to France, he published his work "De la Grèce moderne et de ses rapports avec l'antiquité." He visited Italy during the years 1830-31, to collect materials for a treatise on the fine arts which he projected, and then went once more to Germany, where he continued for several years, chiefly at Heidelberg. In 1839, he quitted that city to become a professor in the Faculty of Letters at Lyons; and towards the end of 1840, he was invited to Paris to fill the new chair of the Literature of the South of Europe, in the College of France. His inaugural lecture, the subject of which was the Revival of Letters and Italian civilization, was delivered in the beginning of 1842.-Besides the works already mentioned, M. Quinet QUINET-RADIATION. is the author of a "rapport" made to the French minister of the Interior "sur les épopées françaises du XIIe siècle" (1831); the "poem in prose" of "Ahasvérus" (1831); the " poems in verse" of "Napoléon" (1836), and "Prométhée" (1838); "L'Allemagne et l'Italie," a poetical narrative of his travels in those countries; &c. He has also contributed a great number of valuable and interesting articles to the "Revue des deux mondes." And very lately he has distinguished himself as one of the prominent champions of the University in its contest with the clergy or the "Jesuits," on the question of the liberty of instruction claimed by the latter. QUINTANA (Manuel Jose) was born at Madrid in 1772. He received his preparatory education in that capital, and then prosecuted his studies at Cordova and Salamanca. The profession which he had chosen for himself was that of the law; but he was diverted from the practice of it by the various public offices to which he was successively appointed. He took an enthusiastic part on the side of the Spanish patriots in their contest against Napoleon, for the establishment of their na tional independence; and, during its continuance, he drew up most of the proclamations and manifestos issued by the Cortes, wrote a number of patriotic songs, and, besides editing a literary journal, he contributed largely to a political one. For these services rendered by him to his country, when Ferdinand VII. resumed his absolute authority in 1814, Quintana was thrown into prison; whence he was only RA 505 liberated by the revolution of the Isle of Leon, in 1820. He again filled different public offices, until the events of the year 1823 obliged him to consult his safety by retiring to his estate in Estremadura. In 1828, he received a formal permission from the government to return to Madrid. He was, in the following year, named to be one of the "proceres" of the kingdom and a member of the council of state; and, subsequently, he became a senator, and secretary of the senate. - Quintana published a volume of lyrical poems in 1802. The best and most complete edition of his poems, however, appeared in 1825, under the title of "Poesias inclusas las patrióticas y las tragedias: El duque de Viseo y El Pelayo" (Madrid, 2 vols. 1821). As an editor, he has distinguished himself by the publication of the "Poesias selectas castellanas desde el tiempo de Juan de Mena hasta nuestros dias" (Madrid, 3 vols. 1808; 2d ed., much enlarged, 4 vols. 1830), accompanied by biographical and critical notices, and by the publication also of select specimens from the Spanish epic poets (2 vols. 1833). And besides being one of the most popular poets of his country, he has earned for himself, by the publication of his "Vidas de españoles célebres" (1st vol. 1807; 2d and 3d vols. 1830-33), the reputation of being one of her best prose writers. QUIROGA.* From 1830, with the exception only of a few months of the year 1836, when he held the appointment of Captain-General of Arragon, General Quiroga lived in retirement, till his death, which took place at St. Jago in 1841. R. ADIATION. The sun and all luminous and heated bodies produce sensible effects at a distance; and these are of various kinds, although in the present state of science they are all referred to four distinct principles, which have received the names of the luminiferous, the calorific, the chemical, and the phosphorogenic radiations.-1. The phenomena of the luminiferous radiation have been sufficiently described under the heads of Light, Optics, Polarization, &c., in the preceding volumes of this Encyclopædia; and the additions which have been made to this branch, since the publication of those volumes, are not of much popular interest.-2. The additions, however, which have been made to our knowledge of the calorific radiation, or, in other words, to the subject of radiVOL. XIV.-64 ant heat, are highly important. The labours of Melloni, Forbes, and others, with the aid of the delicate thermo-electrical apparatus, have shown that there is as great a diversity in the rays of heat as in those of light. Bodies, at different temperatures, emit rays of heat possessing different physical properties, which are manifested by their different capacities of penetrating different substances. Thus, of 100 rays of heat from the flame of a lamp, 54 are transmitted through a plate of glass of a given thickness; while out of the same number of rays from copper heated to 732 degrees of Fahr., only 12 pass through the same glass; and from the same piece of metal heated to 212 degrees, not a single ray is transmitted. The heat from the sun principally consists of rays of the greater penetrating power, although it | polish of the silver, and thùs produce the contains a small quantity of those of the darker shades of the picture. The imopposite kind. It is also found that the pression is rendered permanent by coating heat which has passed through one plate the surface of the plate with a very thin of glass loses a less per centage by absorp- transparent film of gilding, which is aption in passing through a second plate. plied in the liquid way. The chemical The permeability of different substances radiation, like that of the calorific, posfor light and heat are very different; a sesses the mechanical properties of reflecplate of black glass, perfectly opaque, will tion, refraction, dispersion, &c.-4. When transmit a considerable portion of heat; a diamond is exposed to the direct light while, on the other hand, a plate of per- of the sun, and then removed to a dark fectly transparent alum stops all the rays room, it is observed to shine with a pale of heat from a source of low temperature. bluish light, which has received the name The substance which intercepts the least of phosphorescent. The same effect is amount of heat is transparent rock-salt; produced by exposing the diamond to the and hence lenses of this substance are used radiation from a spark of electricity, proinstead of those of glass for concentrating duced by the discharge of a Leyden jar. rays of heat. It is also proved that the Although that which renders the diamond rays of heat are capable of single and dou- visible in the dark is ordinary light, yet ble refraction, dispersion, and polarization, the emanation from the spark which is the and, in short, that they possess all the me- exciting cause of the luminousness, is not chanical properties of the rays of light.—itself light, but a peculiar radiation, differ3. It has long been known that the rays ing in its physical properties from the of the sun possess the power of producing other emanations we have mentioned. chemical transformations. If moist chloride of silver be exposed to the different parts of a spectrum, produced by passing a solar beam through a prism, it will be more rapidly darkened in the violet than in the red ray; and the effect will also be produced in the space occupied by an invisible ray beyond the violet. But the most interesting discovery in reference to the chemical emanation, is that of M. Daguerre, of fixing the picture of the camera obscura. For this purpose, a plate of silvered copper, highly polished on the silvered side, and cleansed from all grease or foreign matter, is held for a short time over the vapour of iodine, which combines with the metal, and forms over the surface a film of iodide of silver. The plate thus prepared is transferred to the camera; and the image of an external object, produced by an achromatic lens, is thrown upon it; the chemical radiation from the object decomposes the iodide at the points where the light is most intense, and leaves the silver in its metallic state. The plate is next submitted to the vapour of mercury, which condenses, in the form of very mi-a simple action at a distance, like that of nute globules, on the places where the iodide has been decomposed; and when the remaining iodide is washed off by a solution of hyposulphite of soda, the parts which had been exposed to the more intense radiation are marked by the white appearance of the globules of mercury, which thus form the light parts of the picture, while the parts which had been less acted on by the chemical rays exhibit, in greater or less degree, the original dark That it is not light, is readily proved by the following experiment of Becquerel and Biot. Two diamonds being equally exposed to the emanation from the same electrical spark, the one being placed under a thick plate of glass, and the other under a plate of transparent quartz, after the discharge of the jar the diamond under the quartz is observed to glow as brilliantly as if nothing had been interposed between it and the spark, while that under the equally transparent plate of glass exhibits little or no sign of a similar excitement. The emanation, therefore, which produces the glowing, cannot be light, since it does not penetrate glass, although it is readily transmitted through quartz. For the same reason, it is not identical with the chemical emanation; and it also differs from heat in not being screened by a plate of alum. It however agrees with the other emanations in possessing the mechanical properties of reflection, refraction, polarization, &c. -The effects of the several radiations we have described cannot be referred, as has sometimes been supposed, to gravitation, or magnetic attraction and repulsion. The phenomena are essentially different. Gravitation, for example, is an instantaneous action between bodies at the greatest distance from each other, while, in the phenomena of light, time is required to transmit the action of something through the intervening space. Again, the action of this something, whether it be matter or motion, is not continuously uniform, but consists of a combination of direct and lateral motions, such as can be best repre- | Denmark, is at present a professor in the sented by the undulations which pass along university of Copenhagen, and has distina tended cord, agitated at one end. Such guished himself by the attention with a motion cannot be referred to the ordina- which he has studied the subject of the ry laws of mechanics, unless we assume antiquities of the north of Europe. Among it to take place in a highly elastic medium, a number of memoirs and other works pubconsisting of inert particles held in a state lished by him, some of them under the of normal equilibrium by attraction and auspices of the Society for Northern Anrepulsion. The simple explanation of all tiquarian Researches, which was founded the phenomena we have mentioned, is to by him in 1825, may here be mentioned, refer them to different undulations in a as the most remarkable, his " Antiquitates medium of this kind, which fills celestial Americana" (Copenhagen, 1837. 4to.). It space, and exists between the particles of consists of a selection from the writings gross matter. The adoption of this hypo- still extant of the northern historians in thesis has not only given a rational expla- the original Icelandic, accompanied by a nation of the phenomena previously known, Latin and a Danish translation, together but has also led by logical deductions to with explanatory dissertations and resome of the most interesting physical dis- marks. The editor regards the testimony coveries of the present century. Accord- rendered in this volume as establishing ing to this hypothesis, which, from the conclusively the fact, often before confiprecision with which it represents the dently enough asserted without the requiphenomena, is now called a theory, the site proof, that the ancient Scandinavians different colours of light are due to undu- discovered America in the 10th century, lations of different lengths, continually and several hundred years, therefore, before excited in the medium by the constant the voyage of Columbus. But farther, he agitation of the particles of the luminous body. In order to explain the phenomena of polarization, we are obliged to admit that the vibrations are like those of a stretched cord, namely, at right angles to the direction of propagation of the wave; a polarized beam, according to this conception, is one in which all the vibrations are turned into the same, or parallel planes. A beam, thus constituted, will more readily be transmitted through crystals in some directions than in others, and will exhibit different physical properties on different sides. It is evident, however, since all the emanations exhibit similar mechanical actions, that whatever hypothesis we adopt for the explanation of one of them, must be applied, with proper modifications, to the others. We may suppose the difference between them to consist in different lengths of vibrations, and also in the form of the undulations. The remarkable fact discovered by Fresnel, that two rays of light can be so thrown on each other as to produce darkness, is apparently entirely incompatible with the supposition of the materiality of light; while it is a logical consequence of the theory of undulations. It is probable that an analogous fact will be established in reference to each of the other radiations; and, indeed, Professor Henry of Princeton has lately found indications of a reduction of temperature in the case of the interference of two rays of heat. RAFN (Charles Christian), born in 1795 at Brahesborg in the island of Funen, in thinks that there is now no longer any doubt of their having, from the 11th to the 14th century, repeatedly visited the coasts of N. America, and even established settlements in the territory of the present states of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Another publication, closely connected with the preceding, is the "Historical Monuments of Greenland," issued by Rafn conjointly with Finn Magnusen (Copenhagen, 1838. 2 vols.)—In addition, too, to his literary labours, Rafn has rendered himself conspicuous in effecting the establishment of public libraries in Iceland, in the Faroe Islands, and in the Danish colony of Godthaab in Greenland. RAGUET (Condy) LL.D. was born in Philadelphia, on the 28th of January 1784. He was the only son of Claudius Paul Raguet, an enterprising French merchant, who arrived in the United States during the revolutionary war, and married and settled in Philadelphia. Mr. Raguet, as he has often been heard to say, was the first son of a Frenchman born in Pennsylvania. He passed through his college studies in the University of Pennsylvania with some distinction, as a Latin and Greek scholar, and in after life so far kept up his acquaintance with these languages as, to use his own observation, "to have a good command of the Greek Testament, of which he daily read a chapter, and occasionally also to apply himself to the best Latin authors." After leaving the University, he read law for about 18 months, with his maternal uncle, Mr Jonathan W. Condy, at that time a suc- pendence of the island of Hayti than had cessful practitioner at the Philadelphia yet been given to the public. In the year bar, but better known as the first clerk of 1806 he embarked in commercial business the United States House of Representa- in Philadelphia, and for many years aftertives, in the Congress then sitting in Phi- wards found himself fully and prosperously ladelphia.-Mr. Raguet, owing to the re- occupied in its pursuit. He enjoyed the Cuced pecuniary circumstances of his respect and confidence of his fellow-citimother, (his father having died in France, zens, and was selected by them for the in 1793,) was obliged, about the year 1802, discharge of various important civic trusts. to give up the study of the law, and was He was one of the founders, and a maplaced in the counting-house of a respect- nager, of the Philadelphia Savings' Fund able merchant, with whom he continued Society; and he became president of the to the end of 1803, actively and assiduously | Pennsylvania Life Annuity Company, and devoting himself to business, and enjoying also president of the Philadelphia Chamthe.confidence of his employer. Young ber of Commerce. During the war of 66 as he then was, not being quite twenty years of age, a voyage to the West Indies, as supercargo, was offered to him. He accepted it, and entered on a commercial career, which he pursued in after life with systematic diligence, steadiness, and probity.-Cape Français, in the island of St. Domingo or Hayti, the first port he visited, was then in the possession of the recently emancipated negroes and mulattoes, under a military government. Having a vigorous and active mind, with an ardent temperament, and all the advantages of a liberal education, the opportunities for observation which this visit afforded Mr. Raguet were soon turned to profitable account; and after remaining at Cape Français about four months, he published in one of the Philadelphia journals, on his return to the United States, what he styled A Short Account of the present State of Affairs in St. Domingo." This was his earliest literary production given to the public. In the latter part of the year 1805, Mr. Raguet once more visited St. Domingo, and remained nearly eight months at Cape Français, chiefly occupied with commercial affairs, but always finding time to note down the interesting events daily passing under his eyes. Constant intercourse, and even intimacy with the principal officers of the government, enabled him to collect much valuable information relative to the state of the island; and, on his return home, having also had access to the best published accounts of St. Domingo extant, he published a memoir, entitled "A Circumstantial Account of the Massacre in St. Domingo, in May 1806."-His contributions to the public journals were so well received, that, between the month of June 1809 and that of January 1812, he contributed to the "Port Folio" a regular series of papers, under the title of "Memoirs of Hayti," which embodied a more detailed history of the revolution and inde 1812 with England, Mr. Raguet took an active part in the measures adopted for the defence of Philadelphia. He was elected captain of a company of volunteers, and, in the summer of 1813, performed a tour of duty with this and other companies, which were embodied for the protection of Philadelphia and its neighbourhood. In August 1814, a large force was raised for the defence of the shores of the Delaware, when he was elected and served as a lieutenant-colonel in one of the volunteer corps.-In 1815, Mr. Raguet was chosen a member of the House of Representatives, and afterwards a member of the Senate, in the State Legislature. During his whole legislative career, of 6 years, he enjoyed the confidence of his constituents, and established for himself a high reputation for statesmanship. Although never considered an orator, or even a leader in debate, the information he possessed, and the calm and modest manner in which he communicated it, secured for his speeches not only the ear of the House, but an attention that gave them great weight. Moreover, his uniform mildness of demeanour, and polished courtesy towards all, everywhere made him friends, without in any way impairing a firmness of purpose, which proved the sincerity and directness of his objects. He enjoyed the confidence and support of his political friends, without embittering the feelings or exciting the hostility of his political opponents. His reports to the Legislature, from various committees, furnish the best evidence of his ability as a statesman.— In the spring of 1822, Mr. Raguet was appointed by president Monroe consul at Rio Janeiro, in Brazil, where he arrived on the 8th of September following. Shortly afterwards, our government intrusted to him the negotiation of a commercial treaty with that country; and Mr. J. Q. Adams, then secretary of state, was so well satisfied with the ability with which he had |