it is conjectured that their general winter retreat is in

that country.

Mr. I. E. Savage, and Mr. W. Harrison, also sent communications on this Query.

QUERY 64.

Answered by Mr. D. Copsey.

The Jews were accustomed to express themselves by actions as well as by words: in times of trouble they rent their garments, went barefoot, and put dust on their heads. This method of conveying their meaning by allegorical expressions was common among the eastern nations as well as the Jews.

Salt was esteemed an emblem of perpetuity on account of its qualities; so that sowing the ruins of a city with salt might denote the continuance of its desolation. In Numbers, ch. xviii. v. 19, the sacrifice of the children of Israel is said to be " a covenant of salt for ever, before the Lord ;" and in 2 Chron. ch. xiii. v. 5, Abijah, king of Judah, addressing Jeroboam and the tribes which had revolted, observes, "That God had given the kingdom of Israel to David for ever by a covenant of salt.

The custom of sowing an overthrown city with salt, might also be intended to imply a lasting monument of vengeance; as in Gen. ch. xix. v. 26. "Lot's wife, being turned into a pillar of salt, became a memorable example to all who should hereafter be disobedient to the word of God.

Answered by Mr. E. S. Eyres.

It is well known that salt has a property of destroying the fertility of land, therefore Abimilech, to shew his utter detestation of Shechim, not only "beat down the city," but "sowed it with salt," in order to render its site an entirely useless piece of ground, being neither an inhabited place, nor fit for the purposes of agriculture.

Mr. J. Bamford is of the same opinion.

QUERY 65.

Answered by Mr. A. Nesbit of Farnley.

The commencement of the medical profession, whe ther we regard it as an art or a science, or both, is lost in the darkness of the earliest ages.

The most ancient physicians of whom we read, are those who embalmed the body of Jacob, by order of his son Joseph. The sacred writer styles these physicians servants of Joseph; whence we may be assured, that they were not Egyptian priests, who are generally considered to have been the first physicians. Jacob died about 1689, B. C.

We read that when Asa, king of Judah, who began his reign about 955, B. C. was diseased in his feet, "he sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians:" hence we may conclude, that the medical art was, at that time, practised among the Jews, by regular professors.

The celebrated poet Homer, who is said to have died about 907 years before Christ, mentions many persons among the Greeks, that were acquainted with the science of medicine. To enumerate them all would be a needless task; suffice it to say, that Chiron, Esculapius, Apollo, Prometheus, Hercules, Theseus, Telamon, Peleus, Achilles, Machaon, Podalirius, and Palamedes, were among the number; the last of whom is said to have prevented the plague from infecting the Grecian camp, after it had ravaged most of the cities of the Hellespont.

He

Among the Greeks, however, Æsculapius was reck. oned the most eminent practitioner of his time; and his name continued to be revered after his death. was ranked amongst the gods; and the principal knowledge of the medical art remained with his family, until the time of Hippocrates, who reckoned himself the seventeenth in a lineal descent from Esculapius, and who was truly the first that treated of medicine in a regular and rational manner.

Hippocrates was born in the island of Cos, 460 years before Christ, and is the most ancient author whose writings have descended to the present day hence, he is justly styled the father of physic and the prince of

physicians. He not only treats of anatomy, surgery, and physic, but also of the effects of sleep, watchings, exercise, rest, diet, and air; and of all the benefit or mischief we may receive from them. He practised physic in Greece, and became so eminent, that he was sent for to the court of Perdiccas king of Macedon, who was thought to be ill of a consumption; but, it is said, Hippocrates soon discovered that he was in love with Phila, his father's mistress.

Artaxerxes, king of Persia, also offered him one hundred talents, and several entire cities, if he would endeavour to remove a pestilence which raged in his territories; but Hippocrates rejected the proposal, and returned the messenger this generous answer: "Tell your master that I am rich enough, and that I cannot, with honour, accept his offers, nor go to cure barbarians, who are enemies to the Greeks." He was likewise applied to by the Senate of Abdera, to cure their countryman Democritus, whom they considered as mad; but Hippocrates declared, that the philosopher was the only man in the city who was perfectly in his senses.

The people of Athens conferred on him great favours, and voted a public maintenance for him and his family; and some writers affirm, that they erected a statue of gold to his honour, and decreed him a crown of the same metal. His memory is still venerated in his native island, and the inhabitants shew with pride, a house in which they say he resided. He died 361 years before Christ, at the advanced age of 99, leaving behind him an immortal reputation.

Answered by Mr. J. Smith.

Though we may suppose the science of medicine to be of remote antiquity, we have no satisfactory account of it previous to the time of Hippocrates. From this philosopher, who flourished about 400 years before the christian æra, medicine first acquired the form of a distinct science; but the exact time when it was first practised by regular physicians, has not been accurately ascertained.

Mr. Baines and Mr. Bamford also answered this query.

The term Whig was originally a name given to the friends of civil and religious liberty, who, after long struggling against the Tories, and other supporters of the arbitrary power of the house of Stuart, at last prevailed, and established our present happy constitution in church and state, by the revolution of 1688, and the settlement of the succession in the house of Hanover. The origin of the term is stated by Burnet to have been as follows:-"The southwest parts of Scotland have seldom corn enough to serve them round the year, and the northern parts producing more than they need; those in the west come in the summer to buy at Leith the stores that come from the north; and from a word whiggum used in driving their horses, all that drove were called whiggamors, and shorter, the whigs. Now in the year before the news came down of Duke Hamilton's defeat, the ministers animated their people to rise and march to Edinburgh; and they came marching at the head of their parishes with an unheard-of fury, praying and preaching all the way they came. The Marquis of Argyle came and headed them, they being about six thousand. This was called the whiggamors inroad; and ever after, all that opposed the court, came in contempt to be called whigs; and from Scotland the word was brought into England, where it is now one of our unhappy terms of disunion." The appellation of tories was first given to a set of banditti in Ireland, whose summons to surrender was expressed by the Irish word toree, i. e. "give me." It was thence transferred to the adherents of Charles I. by his enemies, under the pretence that he favoured the rebels in Ireland. This is the most popular account, and yet it is certain that the terms whig and tory were but little known till about the middle of the reign of Charles II. M. De Cize relates, that it was in the year 1678 that the whole nation was first observed to be divided into whigs and tories; and that on account of the famous deposition of Titus Oates, who accused the Catholics of having conspired against the king and state-the appellation of Whig was

given to such as believed the plot, and tory to those who held it fictitious.

Mr. Bamford, Mr. Copsey, and Mr. J. Smith sent communications respecting this query, agreeing in substance with the above.

QUERIES PROPOSED FOR DISCUSSION

IN THE NINTH AND SUCCEEDING NUMBERS.

1 Qu. (67) By Mr. E. S. Eyres, Liverpool. Having lately had some controversy with the Rev. Thomas Cormouls, A. M. who entirely denies the Newtonian theory of the universe, dividing his "refutation" into many parts; in the first of which, he not only denies the truth of Newton's law of the squares of the distances, but substitutes one of his own, in which he says "bodies of the heaviest materials fall only with an increase of eight feet per second;" he says an half pound iron ball falls very nearly forty-two feet in two seconds, instead of about sixty-four. Now as this is a subject of great importance, I should be much obliged to any of the correspondents of the Enquirer who could inform me of an accurate method of measuring the fall of bodies in given times, or the times of falling through given spaces.

2 Qu. (68) By Mr. M. Harrison, Crosland, near

Huddersfield.

What intention had the ancients in teaching the doctrine of the transmigration of souls?

3 Qu. (69) By the same.

How are the dormouse, and other animals, supported during their torpid state?

4 Qu. (70) By the same.

Does the panifying fermentation of bread paste, differ in its principle from the acetous?

5 Qu. (71) By the same.

In whatever situation a seed may be placed in the earth, after germination the radical descends directly