had afcended and vegetated along thofe pieces of oak-wood (the wood having ferved as a precipitant) and formed shrubs on them. What feems very fingular, is, that all thofe fhrubs have refumed with time the metallic form. M. Hellot, to whom we are indebted for this obfervation, prefented to the Academy a piece of this wood, which had been sent to him from Cheify. The metallic vegetation is feen plainly on it, and it is now kept in the cabinet of the king's garden, as a very curious article of natural history.

How many questions of natural philofophy, on which we are now divided in opinion, would have been folved if our obfervations were of a more ancient date! Let us therefore endeavour to be more ferviceable to pofterity than the ancients have been to us; and, if we cannot tranfmit to them a true picture of this world, let us at least, if poffible, leave behind us the ne ceffary materials for forming it.

wards go gradually along the fhore to the fouthward.

The first thing the fishermen fet about when they arrive on the coaft, is to catch bait; this is done in the fame manner as we do trouts with a fly, only with this difference, that the rod is thrice as thick as ours, and not tapered away fo much towards the point. The line is made of fix fmall brafs wires, twisted together: the hook is about five inches long, and is not bearded; the fhaft is leaded fo as it may lie horizontally on the furface of the water; and the hook is covered with a fifh's fkin, except from where it bends, to the point; then getting within a quarter or half a mile of the fhore, they carry fo much fail as to cause the bark to run at the rate of four miles an hour, when two or three men throw their lines over the ftern, and let the hooks drag along the furface of the water; the fish, taking the hooks for fmall fish, fnap at them, and, when hooked, the fishermen fwing them into the barks with their rods. The Canarians call these fish taffarte: they have no fcales, and are fhaped like mackarel, but as large as falmon; they are exceeding voracious, and fwallow all the hook, notwithftanding its being fo large. If it was bearded, there could be no fuch thing as extracting it without cutting open the fish. I have feen three men in the ftern of a bark catch an hundred and fifty taffarte in half an hour. It fometimes happens that a bark will complete her lading in these fish only. Another fort of fish, which these people call anhoua, is taken in the fame manner; this is fomething bigger than a large mackarel, and

ferves as well as the taffarte for bait. There is another fort of bait called cavallos, or little horse mackarel, but fomething more flat and broad, it is about a span long, and is catched with an angling rod and line with a very small hook, baited with almost any thing that comes to hand. When a bark has got a fufficient ftock of bait, fhe leaves her boat, with five or fix men, near the fhore, to catch taffarte and anhoua, and runs out to fea a good distance off, until the gets into fifteen, twenty, thirty, forty, or perhaps fifty or fixty fathoms depth of water, where fhe anchors, and all the crew heave their lines and hooks overboard, baited with taffarte, anhoua, &c. and fish for famas, or bream as we call them, and for cherney, or cod. The lines are all leaded, in order to caufe the hooks to fink near to the bottom of the fea, where these fifh fwim. When a bark is fo for tunate as to meet with fine weather, and is well provided with bait, fhe will be able to complete her cargo in four days. This I have often had opportunity to obferve. But as the trade or northeaft wind commonly blows fresh on that coaft, the barks only anchor in the offing about mid-day, when there is a lull between the land and fea breeze; and when this laft-mentioned wind begins to blow fresh, they weigh their anchors, ftand in to fhore, and come to an anchor in fome bay, or under a head-land, and then the crew fall to work, clean and falt the fifh which they catched that day. By the time this is done, it is about five or fix o'clock in the evening, when they go to dinner or fupper, for they make but one meal the

whole

whole day, which they cook in the following manner. In every bark the crew has a long flat ftone for a hearth, upon which they kindle a fire, and hang a large kettle over it, in which they boil some fifh; they then take a platter, and put fome broken biscuit in it, with onions fhred fmall; to this they add fome pepper and vinegar, and then pour in the broth of the fifh: no fort of foup or broth is more delicious than this. After having eaten of this excellent foup, they finish their meal with roafted fifh, for they throw the boiled fifh, of which the foup was made, into the fea. Soon after this repast, every man looks about for the most commodious place where to fall asleep, for no bedding are made ufe of in thefe veffels. About five or fix in the morning they get up, leave the boat near the fhore, weigh anchor and stand out to fea as before, and never taste victuals before the fame time next evening. No man who knows the toil, fatigue, cold, and heat which thefe filhermen undergo, will ever charge the Spaniards with laziness.

The method of curing thefe fifh is this: they cut them open, clean and wash them thoroughly, chop off their heads and fins, and pile them up to drain off the water; after which they are falted, and ftowed in bulk in the hold. But because they do not, like the French who fish on the banks of Newfoundland, wash their fifh a fecond time and re-falt them, they will not keep above fix weeks or two months.

It is ftrange to think that the Spaniards fhould want to fhare the Newfoundland fishery with the English, when they have one

much better at their own doors; I fay better, for the weather here, and every thing elfe, concurs to make it the best fishery in the univerfe. What can be a ftronger proof of this than the Moors on the continent drying and curing all their fish without falt, or by any other process than expofing them to the fun beams? For the pure wholefome air of that climate, and the ftrong northerly wind which almost conftantly prevails on this coaft, totally prevents putrefaction, provided the fifh are split open, well washed, and expofed to the fun until they are perfectly dry.

As thefe veffels feldom go to fish on any part of the coast of Barbary, to the windward of the iflands, and are obliged to ply against the fresh northerly winds which almost continually prevail there, they are conftructed in such a manner that they hold a good wind, as it is termed in the fea-language, being very fharp fore and aft, and full and flat in the middle. They are rigged brigantines, and carry a large flying fore-top fail, but in general no main-top-fail, nor ftayfails; they all carry large fpritfails, but no jibs. I have known thefe barks to beat to windward from Cape Blanco to Grand Canaria in twelve days, though the dif tance is above four hundred miles, Their method of plying to windward is this: they weigh about fix or feven o'clock in the morning and ftand off to fea, with the land-wind, until noon, when they put about, and ftand in fhore, with the fea-breeze; when they come close in with it, they either anchor for the night, or make fhort tacks until day-light, when they ftond out to fea, till noon,

as

as before. The difference between the land and fea-breezes on this coaft is generally four points, and they both blow a fresh top-fail gale. When they get ten or fifteen leagues to the windward of Cape Bazador, they ftand over for the ifland of Grand Canaria; if the wind happens then to beat north-eaft, they fetch the port of Gando, on the fouth-eaft part of that island; but if the wind is at north-north-east, they only fetch the calms, into which they pufh, and there foon find a fouth-west wind to carry them clofe to Canaria, from whence the greater part of them go to Santa Cruz, and Port Orotava, to 'discharge their cargoes; the reft go to Palmas in Canaria, and to Santa Cruz, in the island of Palma. They do not stop at these places to fell the fish, but leave them with their agents, to fell them at leisure and to the beft advantage. The common price is three halfpence per pound, of thirty-two ounces, which is the weight here used for flesh and fish; fometimes they are fold for a penny, and never higher than two-pence. The regidores or cavildo, in the islands, always regulate the price.

Inftead of encouraging this moft ufeful and profitable branch, the magiftrates in these islands take every method to hurt it; for they moft impolitically fix a price on the fifh, and clog the trade with foolish and unreafonable duties, befides forbidding the fishermen to have any dealing or intercourfe with the Moors on the coaft where they go to fith; which is a very great hardship on them, as they are often obliged, when they meet with bad weather, to go afhore there for fuel and water. However

they privately correfpond with them, to their mutual advantage; for the Canarians give to the inhabitants of the Defart, old ropes, which the latter untwift and fpin into yarn or twine for making fishing-nets; they alfo give them bread, onions, potatoes, and fruits of many kinds: in return for which the Moors allow them to take wood and water on their coaft, whenever they are in want of these moft neceffary articles, and make them prefents of oftrich eggs and feathers. The inland Moors would punish their poor countrymen, who live on fifh by the fea-coaft, if they knew of their correfpondence with the Canarian fifhermen: but this does not prevent that intercourse, as neceffity obliges thefe people, fo different from one another, to conform to the laws of nature, however contrary to the precepts of both their religions. But this profitable communication has lately been interrupted, as I fhall have occafion to obferve in the defcription of that part of Africa.

Thefe barks generally make eight or nine voyages in the fpace of a year. From the middle of February to the middle of April they remain at Canaria to careen, repair, &c. because at that feafon of the year the fish are found only to the northward, where the fhore lies almoft fouth-weft-by-weft, or weft-fouthweft, confequently open and expofed to the north-weft winds, which fometimes blow there in February, March, and April, and make that part of the coaft to be what we call à lee-fhore.

When I first frequented the coaft of the Defart, the Canary men went no farther to the fouthwar

tha