1813.] that these strata Cure for the Rot in Sheep. 317 Schisti forms one side of a deep valley, the parts of the Alps which he described beyond which another chain rises, formed having observed them myself: and I could of granite, porphyry, and other strata of not but admit his conclusions, which their class. On this M. de Saussure re- therefore became the base of the extenmarks, "that it is impossible to suppose sion that I have given to my geological of breccia have been system in my works published in Eng formed in their actual position. And land. that to maintain that fragments of stones, some of the size of the head, have been detained on a vertical surface till the al. most impalpable particles forming Schis. tus, still floating in a liquid, have covered and imbedded them, is an absurd suppo-sition." I hope this will be for Mr. FAREY a demonstrative proof, that the vertical, or strongly inclined strata, containing extraneous bodies, must have been formed in an horizontal situation. Such was, for M. de Saussure, the leading fact, which made him acknowledge, against his former opinion, that these strata must have been formed hori. zontally; which conclusion he extended to all the strata, as in their actual position those of different kinds lean against each other, either in the same ridge or in successive ridges. He describes in § 916 et seq. of his Travels, the aspect of that part of the Alps, viewed from the summit of an insulated mountain, the Cramont, about 10,000 English fathoms in height: be observed their parallel ridges, from those of granite in the central part, to the calcareous on the outside of the chain. The summit of each ridge is dis. sected into pyramids, having the same inclination as their visible strata. Each of these ridges, consisting successively of different kinds of Schisti, he knew, by immediate observations, to contain strata of breccia; and he also knew that the succeeding calcareous strata contained marine bodies, but in that succession they are all inclined towards the granitic ridge, forming an angle about 50° with the horizon. After this description he con cludes, § 919, that since the strata of breccia, and those which contain marine bodies, have necessarily been formed in an horizontal position; all the strata parallel to them and leaning against each other, up to those of granite, must also have been produced in an horizontal position; and his last conclusion is, that it must have been by some catastrophe that, from horizontal strata, mountains had been formed, in which the strata are in such different positions, and all broken, When I received that volume of Mr. de Saussure's Travels I was already in England, but I remembered alniost all Had Mr. Farey been acquainted with Mr. de Saussure's Voyages dans les Alpes, or had he even read the numerous extracts which I have given of them in my "Elementary Treatise on Geology," he would undoubtedly have acknowledged that I had many reasons to conclude that all the strata have been formed in an ho. rizontal position, and that the valleys have been produced by their catastrophes. If the notes which I took concerning these objects, in my Travels through Derbyshire, had been sufficiently detailed in every place, I know, from recollec tion, that it is the same there as in every other mountainous country. However, I must not give that as a proof; but I shall return to this field of Mr. Farey's obser vations for other phenomena which I have observed there very characteristic of ca J. A. DE Luc. tastrophes. Windsor. To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. I SIR, Tis a considerable time since I first saw the question on the rot in sheep, and hope by your communicating the fol lowing that it may have the desired effect, as I never knew it fail, although the animal should have appeared in the last stage. A strong decoction of elderberry well. sweetened with honey, and given every morning, in about a gill at a time, or, if very bad, night and morning, will speedily bring about amendment; their pasture, possible, should be changed; however, by the above means, &c. I have reared fine flocks, where it was said, in consequence of that complaint, sheep could not have been kept. if April 15, 1813. AN OBSERVER. profusion of Henry VIII. had reduced him, notwithstanding his rapacity, to such difficulties, that he had been obliged to remedy a present necessity by the pernicious expedient of debasing the coin; and the wars in which the Protector had been involved had induced him to carry still farther the same abuse. The usual consequences ensued. The good specie was hoarded or exported; base metal was coined at home, or imported from abroad in great abundance; the common people, who received their wages in it, could not purchase coinmodities at the usual rates; a universal diffidence and stagnation of commerce took place; and loud complaints were heard in every part of England." SIR, T strikes me that, besides the insa lubrity of the water, when passed through iron pipes, an additional disadvantage will be found to arise from the galvanic action of the water, impregnated with saline particles, on the two metals, iron and lead, the metal used for solder, (as the copper bottoms of ships are found to decay very fast, when jron nails are made use of:) so that I expect the iron will rapidly oxydate at the joints, and consequently require more frequent repair, than even the common wooden pipes: but experience alone will verify, or contradict this sup. position. dangerons inflammable, phosphorus, from the frequent inflammation of which, very many have severely suffered. The box may be had complete, for two or three shillings; or, which is better, procure a hundred of the matches for eight-pence, and having got a small plain (not glass stoppered) bottie, put into it some strong sulphuric acid, with some sand, merely to Fender it less fluid. On touching the mois tened sand with a match, it immediately kindles. Use a sound common cork. The less the bottle is, of course the less room the apparatus will take in the pocket. It appears to me to be the most complete, convenient, and I might say economical thing of the kind ever brought into public ae. To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. Y SIR, OUR correspondent Ε. Α. W. states, the fi st who that the water conveyed by the West Middlesex Company through iron pipes, came in almost unfit for family use, and that he was consequently induced to change back again to the New River Company. Whether iron-pipes are injurious or not I cannot pretend to determine, but beg leave to acquaint lum with a circumstance of which he ap pears to be totally ignorant, viz. that the New River Company were introduced the use of iron-pipes, to which he seems to make so great an oba jection, and therefore he still is liable to the ill effects of them (if any), although in a lesser degree; and they still continue the practice mlaying them down wherever they have occasion for extending their works, or renewing the old mains: as cast. iron, when buried underground, never decays, and of course when this expence is once incurred they have no occasion for that frequent charge attendant on the use of wooden pipes, which last so short a time, and are always out of repair, to the great annoyance of those who are suppled by ineans of them. January 8, 1813. G. P. To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. SIR, F the causes enumerated in my last made it difficult to understand what was the law, there was still another which deserves notice as contributing to increase that difficulty to those who might be desirous of consulting its volumes for gui dance or information. This was a schism between the writers, whose Responses, as related in my last, were sanctioned with the authority of law. They were divided into two sects, called the Procu leian and Sabinian; these first took their rise, towards the end of the republican government, from Ateius Capito and An istius Labeo, two eminent lawyers of that period; but were afterwards formed into parties by Sabinus and Proculus, the former of whom flourished under Tibe rius, and the latter under Vespasian. Under one or other of these leaders most of the succeeding lawyers, till the reign of Aurelius and Verus, ranged themselves; and the discord introduced, in the course of one hundred and sixty years, by this division, completed the darkness and per plexity in which legal researches were enveloped. A striking proof of the un settled condition of the laws is found in i 1813.] History of the Justinian Reform. the injunction of Valentinian the Third, in a rescript to the senate, contained in his confirmation of the Theodosian Code, by which the judges are commanded, in cases where opposite opinions were delivered by the written oracles of the law, that they should be governed by the majority, and in case of equality should determine on the side which Papinian supported. Such was the state of the Imperial laws when Justinian undertook the task of reducing them to order. It required the industry of a whole life to become acquainted with the multifarious contents of the infinite volumes through which they were dispersed. That knowledge, when accomplished, was besides of little use, except to the emolument of those who monopolised it; for it was impossible to attain any thing like certainty, or to foretel how the judges would decide, in the multitude of conflicting decisions and jarring opinions. To reduce the law into a reasonable compass, which might be accessible taall; to give clearness, unity, and precision to its rules; and, in a word, to make it a path in which inen might walk with safety and firmness, instead of a mazy, dark, and trackless wilderness, was an object worthy of imperial grandeur, the accomplishment of which confers more valid renown upon its author than any extension of territory or any brilliance of triumph. Justinian was the son of obscure parents; but his uncle Justin, having raised himself from the condition of a husband. man to the imperial dignity, associated hism in the government in the year 527, and four months after left him sole pos. sessor of the empire, in the forty-second year of his age. He had not completed the second year of his reign when he be -gan to take measures for the fulfilment of his great undertaking. It may be doubt. ful whether he designed from the first so comprehensive a reformation as he after wards effected; certain it is that he seems to have been afraid to enter all at once upon so stupendous a work, and his first step was only to make a compilation of the best and most useful Constitutions of the emperors his predecessors, and form them into one code. A similar compilation bad been made, and sanctioned as authentic, by Theodosius the Younger, near a hundred years before; but this, as well as the unauthorized collections of Gregorian and Hermogenes, contained so many superfluous, clashing, and contradictory constitutions as to render them of little use in procuring clearness and 319 certainty even in that single branch of the law. This important work the emperor entrusted to a committee of ten persons, of great learning and abilities, who had borne the first offices of the state. His object in his prefatory proclama tion was, as he declares, to shorten lawsuits and retrench the multitude of laws. To this end he instructed the coinmissioners to begin by a careful revisal of the three former codes, and of all the other imperial constitutions of his predeces sors, whether Pagan or Christian, and from thence to extract a series of plain and concise rules, omitting all superflaous preambles, all repetitions and contradictions, and with liberty to extend, limit, or alter, their sense as they should deem most conducive to future utility. They were then to arrange them under separate titles, that, by thus bringing whatever related to the same subject under one point of view, its import might be better understood; and they were further directed to place the several constitutions under the same head, according to their respective dates. To the work thus compiled he affixed his own name, calling it the Justinian Code; and from this alone, for the quicker dispatch of business, the imperial constitutions were to be quoted on all future judicial decisions. It was divided into twelve books, and each book into titles, with several sinaller subdivisions, and includes all the imperial decisions that were thought worth preserving, from Adrian to Justinian. The men whom he had selected for this duty justified the choice by their diligence at least, for the whole was finished in little more than a year, and received the solemn confirmation of the emperor in the year 529. Justinian, either encouraged by the benefits found to result from this performance, or having from the first intended it only as an introduction to a more extensive plan of reform, which he hesitated to enter upon at once, was not long after the publication of the code before he determined upon a work of much greater extent and utility, which was to go back to the very beginning of the Roman government itself, and to comprehend all the sources and divisions of Roman jorisprudence which have been enumerated, and of which the Constitutions forming the Code just mentioned were only one branch. The chief of these were the Responses of the lawyers and the Edicts of the magistrates, which, with the com ments ments of subsequent annotators, were scattered about in 2,000 volumes, and were subdivided into more than 300,000 verses or sentences. His next object therefore was to take a minute and careful survey of this indigested mass of discordant materials, to separate and arrange its parts, and from thence to form one regular and connected body of laws to be the future standard of justice to the whole empire. The magnitude and difficulty of the undertaking seems to have staggered and alarmed him, as he himself declares in his mandatory letter to Tribonian, but intreating the divine favour upon his labours he determined to persevere. The whole direction of this laborious and momentous concern was committed to Tribonian, whom he empowered to call to his assistance any number of the most skilful advocates, statesmen, and politicians that he should approve. The first business enjoined by their instructions was to peruse the writings of all the great professors whom former princes had entrusted with the power of interpreting the law, and from thence to select the most material parts, rejecting all superfluities or contradictions, so that one principle might suffice for one subject, In their determinations upon questions, either of expediency or equity, they were not to be biassed by the multitude or majority of authorities, as the single opinion of even an inferior writer might in some instances be preferable to that of a majority: so that if any doctrines could be ex. tracted from writings of less general merit, that was capable of throwing a better light upon a passage even of Papinian himself, they were directed to adopt it without hesitation. They were likewise indulged with the same liberty as before in forming the Code, to admit, reject, or alter, whatever they thought most conducive to the perfection of the work, and what they had so adopted was to be received as law, without being liable to be impeached or invalidated. These col lections were to be distributed into fifty books, and these again into certain titles, in imitation either of the Code or of the Perpetual Edict, as the compilers should judge most proper. They were to contain the marrow of all the ancient laws for 1400 years. No laws were to be revived which had been abolished by long disuse, but those only were to prevail which had been the most constantly practised in courts of justice, or approved by the uniform reception of the metropolis. The spirit of these instructions, whether conceived by Justinian, or, what is more probable, by Tribonian, displays a mind admirably calculated for the impor. tant business which they had in view, and worthy to be attentively considered by all who shall hereafter imitate his designs. The emperor neither presumes on one hand to annul the whole fabric of existing laws with the rash intention of striking out an entirely new and original system, mor, on the other, is he deterred by a weak veneration for antiquity from removing whatever deformed or incambered it. All reforms, to promote the true interests of mankind, must be con. ceived and conducted in this spirit. And while innovation is governed by these principles and controuled by these limits, however it may be assailed by the clamours of timid or interested opponents, it will ensure the applause of the wise and good, as affording the only means of adjusting the institutions of mankind to the ever-varying circumstances and wants of society. As one of the best qualities of an absolute monarch, is a disposition to listen to good counsel, it is no derogation from the praise of Justinian that he was indebted both for the suggestion and ac. complishment of his immortal work to the advice and direction of Tribonian, who was appointed, in conjunction with others, to compose the Code first published, and to whom the sole direction of the Digest was committed, with a power to select his co-adjutors. The masterly result and the celerity of his labours leave no doubt of his talents and industry. His moral character has been impeached by the malevolent calumnies of Suidas; but upon the authority of less suspicious writers, as well as the improbability of such a plan being conceived and executed by a man of the description given by that writer, we may conclude with Monsieur Terriere, that he was not only a man of a sweet and complaisant temper, but of strict morals. He had filled the situation of quæstor, or master of the household, an officer second in dignity only to the prætorian præfect, who seems to have been the confidential adviser of the crown on all law matters. It is to be regretted that we have not a more exact account of the character and capacity of Justinian. The same Greek author just mentioned has enden. voured to blacken lus reputation by reporting that he was a prince of dull phlegmatic constitution, utterly unsequainted 1813] History of the Justinian Reform. quainted with polite learning; and a work pretended to have been discovered by a monk in the library of the Vatican, without date or age, but impudently fathered upon Procopius, would have stripped him both of virtue and understanding. But since the forner authority is entitled to little credit, in opposition to all historical evidence, and modern criticism has almost demonstrated the latter work to be an imposture, there seems no reason to doubt the fidelity of those authors who have commended him, not only for his indefatigable care in reforming the Roman jurisprudence, but for his wisdom, piety, justice, and munificence. Indeed, the uniform success of his wars, the number and splendour of his public works, and, above all, his success in accomplishing what so many of his predecessors had meditated without success, incontestably prove him to have been endowed with those great qualities which raise him above the vulgar class of sovereigns. But to return to the compilation of the Digest: Tribonian and his associates obeyed the imperial mandate with the greatest alacrity; and though allowed ten years, a time short enough for so extensive a work, contrived to perform it in about three. It was probably owing to this precipitancy in the compilers, that the work was certainly not executed with that precision and exactness, which the emperor appears, from his instructions, to have in. tended; and which, if strictly pursued, would have made it the pride of human wisdom and policy. This elaborate work was completed in the year 533, and ushered into the world under two solemn instruments of confirmation. The name it is most usually known by, is the Digest, from the order into which it is reduced; but from the comprehensiveness of its plan, it is likewise called the Pandects; and, with all its irregularities and imperfections, is the best of its kind that has ever yet appeared among the most refined and cultivated nations. The subject matter of it includes every essential rule that concerns the rights of private property, the regular administration of justice, and whatever else can promote the true interests, or secure the tranquillity of civil society. While the Digest was preparing for publication, the emperor gave orders to Tribonian, in conjunction with two other eminent professors, Dorotheus and Theophilus, to collect all the fundamental principles of the ancient law into a ma. MONTHLY MAG, No. 240. 321 nual, containing four books, which he To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. A SIR, S it is not generally known that the haulm of potatoes, if cut off and planted, will take root and produce potatees, and as the practice, if general, Τι would |