ON PHYSIOGNOMY.

DEDICATED TO THE LADIES.

In order to invest this subject with more interest, each of the passions, sentiments and intellect are described in verse, in order to exercise the higher order of faculties, also to render their action and influence on the character more conspicuous and the more easily retained in the memory. The author hopes he has also added to the attraction of this very interesting subject, by describing the various emotions of the mind, as transitorily depicted on the countenance, and which, undoubtedly, if long or habitually indulged in, permanently leaves its impress there; from which, no doubt, persons largely endowed with the perceptive faculties, are enabled to form a very correct estimate of the leading passions by a close observance of the features. Hence we conceive the science of Physiognomy has originated, and which is undoubtedly the key to the leading passions and feelings of individuals. We are, however, far from supposing it can be reduced to any systematic mode of investigating character. From its wonderful and beautiful mobility and ever-changing expression and variableness, it may be compared to the fleeting summer cloudNow lighted up with heavenly azure brightness, Anon dark, driving clouds and tempests lower, And sheeted lightnings rend earth's fairest flowers, And ruin stalks abroad to desolate the land: So most wondrous beauty (the more 's the pity,) May be transformed, with vengeful ire,

To frightful rage and horrible distortion

Dread foes to peace, to friendship, and to love.

There is one singular fact, important to the ladies, particularly those who are desirous of preserving unimpaired the beauty with which heaven has favored them: it may not be uninteresting to learn, that public speakers and many others have declared that by certain expressions of the features the corresponding emotions of the mind are produced with a vivid intensity. This probably proceeds from the nerves, muscles, &c. which connect certain parts of the brain with corresponding parts of the face; so that ladies who wish to preserve this precious gem, their beauty, must ever indulge in the kind and gentler emotions, and avoid all irritation, both of look and feeling, as they would the Scylla and Charybdis, or the wreck of beauty and loveliness.

THE preceding cuts are correct representations of the upper and lower view of various parts about the base of the brain of an adult intellectual person.

The brain is divided into two halves, or hemispheres, each of which are united by means of minute filaments or thread-like substances, embedded in cortical and medullary matter, radiating in various directions, crossing each other, communicating the two hemispheres of the brain, the Medulla Oblongata, the Medulla Spinallis, the various organs of sense, and all parts of the body.

The intercommunication of these remote nervous filaments with those in the brain is instantaneous. The nerves of volition and sensation act in the same manner.

The singular and extraordinary effects of electricity and galvanism on the human body, animate or inanimate, point to this subtle fluid as entering largely into the animal economy, the nerves appearing to act as the conductors of electricity, which moves with a velocity of four hundred thousand miles per second, or about the same velocity as light.

The brain proper is called the cerebrum, and the smaller brain the cerebelum. The former is much more voluminous and various in its form, structure, and functions, and wherein are located the organs of the various passions, intellect and sentiments; the smaller brain, or cerebelum, being solely the organ of physical love, and gives rise to the feeling of Amativeness, although it has recently been conjectured it is also the seat of the organ of voluntary motion

The brain is protected by three distinct membranes or coverings, in which it is enveloped. The first is the pia mater, which closely adheres to the surface of the brain, dipping into the sulci, or cavities, and conveying innumerable blood-vessels to it. The second is named the tunica arachnoida, resembling a spider's web in fineness. It secretes a fluid to lubricate the pia mater and the dura mater, or third covering, which is attached to the brain, and also adheres to the inner surface of the skull.

The skull is curiously formed of eight separate bones-one frontal, two parietal, two temporal, one occipital, one sphenoidal, and one ethmoidal-each united by sutures or seams. The growth of these bones is each of them independent of the other, and commences growing from its own centre, and in old age firmly intersect each other by means of curious dove-tailed seams, which are much more serrated in the Caucassian skulls than the Carib, and still more simple in animals, &c.

The formation of the skull may be regarded as an excrescence, or shelly covering, of a secondary growth, (as seen in children.) It is designed for protection to the brain, and not to impede its growth, as some appear erroneously to imagine.

Previous to the anatomical researches of the founders of this science, the brain was supposed to be merely the root from whence originated the whole nervous apparatus which proceed from it to every part of the human structure, which led many distinguished anatomists and philosophers to conjecture that the brain was in some measure the sensorium, or seat of the intellectual powers; but nothing definite was known of its structure or functions until the discoveries of Drs. Gall and Spurzheim.

Our limits will not permit us here to show the singular correspondence of the mind, &c., with this its instrument, not only in the human family, but to the lowest order of being. The complication of structure, and large size or volume in man, orang, &c., is wonderfully contrasted with the smallness of volume and extreme simplicity of structure in the lower order of animals, reptiles, &c., being in the latter reduced to a mere point or particle of gelatinous matter, entirely destitute of convolutions, or appendages of nerves, &c., as we find in the higher order of beings.

To those desirous of pursuing this study in detail, we have much pleasure in recommending the splendid work of Spurzheim on the Anatomy of the Brain.

FOUR DIVISIONS OF THE HEAD.

The cut No. 59, with the line perpendicular from the ear, e to a, represents the anterior and posterior portion of brain, and the line through the eye and ear represents the base or foundation of brain by which we can estimate the proportion of brain to the whole head or face inclusive. The line from the nose to forehead gives the facial angle. The line from C to B divides the sincipital from the occipital region, the portion above being peculiar only to man, including the intellectual and sentimental or controlling organs-the portion below being the propelling or selfish propensities, which are common to man and the lower animals.

FOUNDATION OF PHRENOLOGY.

PHRENOLOGY is a derivation from the Greek, phren and logos, or the science of mind. This compound word is the adoption of Dr. Spurzheim, the distinguished associate of Dr. Gall. To the latter belongs the high honor of being the first to discover this new science of mind, or, in other words, the mode of ascertaining man's peculiar innate talents and original powers of mind by a reference to his cerebral organization, or form and volume of brain. Like most other exact sciences, it has been of slow progress, and has not been rashly adopted, but is the result of a most laborious, patient, and minute investigation of the human cerebral structure, in its endless and interesting varieties, both in states of perfect health and every stage of the various diseases to which we are subject. The human brain-that gordion knot, which has puzzled the sages of ancient and modern times, and which they could only untie by cutting-has now, for the first time, been completely unravelled, and its most wonderful beauty, complication of structure, and harmonious adaptation to its functions, been laid open by the labors of these distinguished physicians and philosophers.

Further; in order to satisfy the-most incredulous, they have carried their indefatigable researches to those minute points in creation, or most simplified of animals and reptiles, and even to those minute animalculæ, the ephemeral existence of a day. The results of their investigations of human and comparative Phrenology have appeared in volumes of facts, sufficient to satisfy the most incredulous of the reality of this science, and of its high importance to the happiness and well-being of man. Their united labors were indeed conducted with singular ability, zeal, and enthusiasm, and which have comparatively left little to their successors but further to establish and confirm if possible their previous discoveries.

To the great Dr. Gall we owe the rude discovery of the science; and whilst as yet in its incipient stages of existence, he had both incorrectly named the doctrine itself and also several of its most important functions. This resulted, in a great measure, from the fact of his having discovered the several organs when in an excessive state of development, or as manifested in their abuses. As an instance, from the comparison of the heads of notorious, incorrigible thieves, although there might be many dissimilar forms of heads, yet in this one particular region of Acquisitiveness he found a very great enlargement. It was this fact which led him erroneously to suppose a particular faculty or organ of stealing. This was also precisely the case from an examination of the heads of murderers, by discovering the organ of Destructiveness enormously developed, and which he incorrectly named the organ of murder. On this account a stigma has attached to the science, which its opponents