marked in all the limbs; the other son had one hand and one foot naturally formed...

Abigail Green inherited these supernumerary limbs from her mother, whose maiden name was Kendall, and she

had five fingers and a thumb upon each hand, and six toes on each foot.

Kendall with Mr.

Green pro

The marriage of duced eleven children, whom Abiah Colburn's mother, who was one of the eleven, reports to have been all completely marked; but the present family are unacquainted with the history of the other ten branches, and they do not possess any knowledge of their ancestors beyond Kendall, the great grandmother of Zerah Colburn.

Numerous examples of the hereditary propagation of peculiarities have been recorded; all family resemblances, indeed, however trifling they may appear to a common observer, are interesting to the physiologist, and equally curious; though not so rare as those described in the preceding history. In every department of animal nature accumulation of facts must always be desirable, that more reasonable inductions may be established concerning the laws which direct this interesting part of creation: and it might be attended with the most important consequences if discovery could be made of the relative influence of the male and female sex in the propagation of peculiarities, and the course and extent of hereditary character could be ascertained, both as it affects the human race in their moral and physical capacities, and as it governs the creatures which are subdued for civilized uses. Nor is it altogether vain to expect that more profound views and more applicable facts await the researches of men, who have as yet only begun to explore this branch of natural history, by subjecting it to physical rules.

Though the causes which govern the production of organic monstrosities, or which direct the hereditary continuance of them, may for ever remain unknown, it still seems desirable to ascertain the variety of those deviations, and to mark the

course they take, where they branch out anew, and where they terminate, There is doubtless a general system in even the errors of nature, as is abundantly evinced by the regular series of monstrosity exhibited both in animals and vegetables.

It has happened, in my professional capacity, that I have had to extirpate a supernumerary thumb from each of the hands of two girls, who were both idiots, though the families to whom they belonged were unknown to each other. I have seen many instances of supernumerary thumbs and supernumerary fingers in persons to whom the singularity was not hereditary, and I have read of many others; but whether of my own experience, or of authentic record, the redundancy has been on the outer side of the little finger, and outer side of the thumb, never on the back or inside of the hand, or on the sides of the intermediate fingers; and in similar cases as to the toes, the rule has been invariably the same. In the Sacred Writings an example of this kind is given, 2 Samuel, ch. xxi. ver. 20, " And there was yet a battle in Gath, where was a man of great stature, that had on every hand six fingers, and on every foot six toes, four-and-twenty in number; and he also was born to the giant." The same account is repeated in 1 Chronicles, ch. xx. ver. 6.

In the Elementa Physiologiæ of Baron Haller, numerous examples of this deformity are cited from various authors, with some instances of their hereditary descent, and others of a cutaneous junction between the extra limbs and the next adjoining.

That local resemblances, such as those of external parts, the hands, the feet, the nose, the ears, and the eye-brows, are hereditary, is well known; and it is almost equally evident, that some parts of the internal structure are in like manner transmitted by propagation; we frequently see a family form of the legs and joints, which gives a peculiar gait, and a family character of the shoulders, both of which are derived from an hereditary similarity in the skeletons. Family voices VOL. V. No. 18.

2 E

are also very common, and are ascribable to a similar cause. Apparently many of our English surnames have been taken from the hereditary peculiarities of families, and the same practice existed among the Romans. Pliny in his eleventh book, chap. xliii. relates an instance of a Roman poet, named Volcatius, who had six fingers on each hand, and received the surname of Sedigitus in consequence. He also states, that two daughters of a noble Roman, named M. Curiatius, had each six fingers, and that they took the surname of Sédigitæ. Persons who had the surname of Flaccus were so called from their pendulous ears; and numerous other instances are recorded by classic writers, of surnames being derived from family marks.

Anatomical researches have not been so generally extended as to determine the prevalence of internal peculiarities, and perhaps they do not reach to the sanguineous system. I have known two instances, in two different families, of the high division of the brachial arteries having the ulnar branch placed above the fascia of the biceps muscle at the inner bend of the elbows, and yet the father, the mother, the brothers and sisters of those two persons were not so formed. Those marks called nævi materni, which are derangements of the sanguineous vessels, are not hereditary, whilst less remarkable changes in the ordinary skin are often so. I have lately seen a man, and who is now living, who has a small pendulous fold attached to the skin of his upper eyelid, and the same peculiarity has been transmitted to his four children. It would have been interesting to know whether any similarity of structure existed in the families of the two rare examples of a total transposition of the abdominal and thoracic viscera. (Phil. Trans. for 1674, No. cvii. p. 164, by Dr. Sampson, and vol. Ixxviii. p. 350.)

In particular breeds of animals the characteristic signs are generally continued, whether they belong to the horns of kine, the fleeces of sheep, the proportions of horses, the extensive varieties of dogs, or the ears of swine. In China the varieties

of gold or silver fishes are carefully propagated, and with us, what are vulgarly called "fancy pigeons" are bred into most whimsical deviations from their parent stock.

As wild animals and plants are not liable to the same varia tions, and as all the variations seem to increase with the degree of artificial restraint imposed, and as certain animals become adapted by extraordinary changes to extraordinary conditions, it may still be expected that some leading fact will eventually furnish a clue by which organic varieties may be better explained. A few generations of wild rabbits, or of pheasants, under the influences of confinement, break their natural colours, and leave the fur and feathers of their future progeny uncertainly variegated. The very remarkable changes of the colour of the fur of the hare, and of the feathers of the partridge, in high northern latitudes, during the prevalence of the snow, and the adaptation of that change of colour to their better security, are coincidences out of the course of chance, and not easily explained by our present state of physical knowledge.

The Volcano of Albay.

FOR the following very interesting account of a late eruption of the Volcano of Albay, the editors of the New York Commercial Advertiser are indebted to the politeness of captain Bailey, of the schooner Cintra, who arrived on Monday, April 3d, 1815, in 110 days from Manilla. This volcanic mountain is situated in the province of Camarines, on the southern part of the Island of Lucon, or Luconia, one of the Philippine Isles in the Indian Ocean.

Five populous towns were entirely destroyed by the eruption; more than twelve hundred of the inhabitants perished

amidst the ruins; and the twenty thousand who survived the awful catastrophe, were stript of their possessions and reduced to beggary.

Dreadful and memorable occurrence, that took place in the Province of Camarines, on the 1st day of February, 1814. [Extracted from a Pamphlet in the Spanish language, printed at Manilla.]

More than thirteen years had elapsed, during which the volcano of Albay, by some called Mayon, had preserved a continued and profound silence, without giving the least sign of its existence. It was no longer viewed with that distrust and horror with which volcanoes usually inspire those who inhabit their vicinity. In the year eighteen hundred its last eruptions took place, in which it emitted a great quantity of stones, sand and ashes, (as had always been usual) and occa sioned considerable damage to the same villages that it has now completely destroyed; rendering useless a great number of fertile fields, which thenceforth were converted into arid and frightful sands. In the latter part of October of that year, the last eruption happened, and caused more damage to those villages.

Since that time we had not remarked any circumstance indicative of the existence of the volcano, and therefore all the apprehension that it had formerly inspired was gradually dissipating.

In this state was the volcano on the first day of February last. No person reflected, in the slightest degree, upon the damages and losses that so bad a neighbour had been in the habit of occasioning. We had become persuaded, in consequence of so long a silence, that it was now completely extinguished, and that all those subterraneous conduits were closed, through which it attracted to itself and kindled the combustible materials which it had formerly so continually thrown out. Nor had we seen or remarked any signs which might indicate to us before hand what was about to take place. In