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ANNUAL

OF

SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY:

OR,

YEAR-BOOK OF FACTS IN SCIENCE AND ART

FOR 1859.

EXHIBITING THE

MOST IMPORTANT DISCOVERIES AND IMPROVEMENTS

IN

MECHANICS, USEFUL ARTS, NATURAL PHILOSOPHY, CHEMISTRY,
ASTRONOMY, GEOLOGY, ZOOLOGY, BOTANY, MINERALOGY,
METEOROLOGY, GEOGRAPHY, ANTIQUITIES, ETC.

TOGETHER WITH

NOTES ON THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE DURING THE YEAR 1858; A LIST
OF RECENT SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS; OBITUARIES OF
EMINENT SCIENTIFIC MEN, ETC.

EDITED BY

DAVID A. WELLS, A.M.,

AUTHOR OF PRINCIPLES OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY, PRINCIPLES OF CHEMISTRY,
SCIENCE OF COMMON THINGS, ETO.

BOS LON :
GO U IY DA MDOP IN EOLN,

59 WASHINGTON STREET,
NEW YORK: SHELDON AND COMPANY.
CINCINNATI: GEORGE S. BLANCHARD.
LONDON: TRUBNER & CO.

1859.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by
GOULD AND LINCOLN,
In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED

BY W. F. DRAPER, ANDOVER, MASS.

NOTES BY THE EDITOR

ON THE

PROGRESS OF SCIENCE FOR THE YEAR 1859.

Tue Twelfth Meeting of the American Association for the Promo-
tion of Science was held at Baltimore, Md., April 28th to May 5th,
1858. In the absence of both President and Vice-President elect,
the chair was taken by Professor Caswell. The attendance of members
was somewhat smaller than usual, and the whole number of papers
presented was ninety-five ; of these thirty-three pertained to the sec-
tion of Astronomy, Physics, and Mathematics; nine to Meteorology ;
fourteen to Geology and Geography ; eighteen to Chemistry, Mineral-
ogy, and Geology ; and twenty-one to Philology and Miscellaneous.

The meeting adjourned to meet at Springfield, Massachusetts, on
the first Wednesday of August, 1859. Professor Stephen Alexander,
of Princeton, was chosen President for the ensuing year, and Professor
Edward Hitchcock, of Amherst, Vice-President.

The Association was addressed at length by Dr. Hayes, the Sur-
geon of the Kane Arctic Expedition, in behalf of a renewed effort to
reach the open Polar Sea, described by Dr. Kane. He proposes to or-
ganize and lead an expedition, starting in the spring of 1860, and fol-
lowing the route pursued by Dr. Kane. The details of the plan, as
given by Dr. H., were as follows:

The expedition would require two years for its operations, and in
view of the rich and valuable experience of the last, he could not but
deem it probable that the next attempt would prove successful. There
was needed for the expedition one vessel of one hundred tons, equipped
for two and a half years, and twelve men. It would greatly add to the
convenience of the party to be provided with a small steam-tender of
thirty tons, with a shifting screw ; except for the necessity of conveying
provisions, even so large a vessel as one of one hundred tons would not
be necessary. The party should leave the States early in April, giving
time to lay in additional fresh provisions on the Greenland coast, and

al

IV NOTES BY THE EDITOR

so materially to reduce the cost of outfit. Before the last of August it
should push up Smith’s Sound to the ice-belt, with the intention of win-
tering as ‘igh as the 80th parallel, if possible. Smith’s Sound, fortunately
for this route, runs diagonally to the course of the general current —
thus operating to keep Grinnell’s Land free of floating ice. Under this
western shore it might be possible to work the steam-tender through
the leads left by the southward drifting ice, even into the heart of the
Polar Sea. But this was a doubtful reliance on which they would not
too much depend. It would be necessary by three or four journeys
with the dog-sledges to make depots of provision as high in Grinnel’s
Land as on the 82d parallel. This was perfectly feasible ; each dog
could be depended on to carry seventy pounds weight, thirty-two miles
a day, on aration of thirteen ounces of pemmican. In April,the party
should leave the vessel, the men conveying the boats upon sledges until
(and the inference was that it would be bythe middle of May) the ice-
belt had been crossed and the open sea reached. Dogs could not drag the
boats — they were not competent to the conveyance of any such dead
weight. But experience had shown that over the smooth ice, as this
was likely to be, men could easily walk sixteen miles a day, dragging
on sledges a weight of one hundred and ten pounds for each. To avoid
the incumbrance of so much canvas, they would take no tents, but rely
for shelter upon the snow-house, which could be constructed in an hour,
and which was better than the tent for protection. Furs and carbo-
naceous food must be their reliance for warmth. While travelling, the
pemmican (dried meat and tallow, of which four pounds is equal to
fourteen pounds of green meat) must be the sole reliance as food. The
Doctor believed that the climate was eminently a wholesome one. The
danger from cold and scurvy had been greatly lessened by the experi-
ence of the last few years. Dr. Kane sailed too early to avail himself
of the wonderful advantages now furnished in the concentrated fresh
meats and vegetables, for protecting from and curing scurvy.

At the conclusion of Dr. Hayes’s address, a resolution was adopted,
referring the matter to'a committee of seven, with instructions to report
on the expediency of uniting with Dr. Hayes in his efforts to fit out an
expedition.

The Twenty-eighth Annual Meeting of the British Association for
the Advancement of Science, was held at Leeds, September 22—26,
Professor Owen in the chair. The attendance was good, and the papers
of more than ordinary interest.

The meeting for 1859 was appointed to be held in Aberdeen, Prince
Albert being the President elect.

The annual report of the Council stated, that since the discussion at
the last meeting at Dublin, relative to the formation of a “ Catalogue
of the philosophical papers contained in the various scientific transac-
tions and journals of all countries,” this important work has been
commenced under the auspices and at the expense of the Royal

ON THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. ¥

Society. It is purposed that it should include the titles (in the original
languages) of all memoirs published in such works, in the mathemat-
ical, physical, and natural sciences, from the foundation of the Royal
Society to the present time, the titles to be so arranged as to form
ultimately three catalogues — one chronological, or in the order of the
memoirs in the several series; one alphabetical, according to authors’
names, and, lastly, a third, classified according to subjects.

The Council, moreover, lament that their application to the Gov-
ernment for an expedition to the vicinity of Mackenzie’s river, for the
purpose of observations in terrestrial magnetism, was not successful ;
but they anticipate an important accession to scientific knowledge from
the expedition to the Zambesi river, which was sanctioned by the
Government, and sent out under Dr. Livingstone.

The following resolutions were adopted: Resolved, that represen-
tations be made to the Meteorological department of the Board of
Trade, of desirableness of connecting with its arrangements a system
for the observation and record of Oceanic and Littoral Earthquakes,
and of the occasional occurrence upon the coasts of Great Sea Waves,
and, if practicable, of bringing such into immediate operation.

That it is highly desirable that a series of Magnetical and Meteoro-
logical Observations, on the same plan as those which have been
already carried on in the Colonial Observatories for that purpose
under the direction of Her Majesty’s Board of Ordnance, be obtained
to extend over a period of not more than five years, at the following
stations: 1. Vancouver’s Island; 2. Newfoundland; 3. The Falkland
Isles ; 4. Pekin, or some near adjacent station.

That an application be made to Her Majesty’s Government to obtain
the establishment of Observatories at these stations for the above-
mentioned term, on a personal and material footing, and under the
same superintendence as in the Observatories (now discontinued) at
Toronto, St. Helena,and Van Diemen’s Land.

That provision be also requested at the hands of Her Majesty’s
Government, for the execution, within the period embraced by the ob-
servations, of magnetic surveys in the districts immediately adjacent to
those sattions, viz., of the whole of Vancouver’s Island and the shores
of the Strait separating it from the main land, — of the Falkland Isl-
ands, and of the immediate neighborhood of the Chinese Observa-
tory (if practicable), where situated,—on the plan of the surveys
already executed in the British possessions in North America and in
the Indian Archipelago.

An interesting map has been prepared, under the auspices of the
Association, by Robert Mallet, of Dublin, with a view of illustrating
the surface distribution of earthquakes, the position and situation of all
volcanoes, fumaroles, and solfataras, now active, or presumed to have
been so, within historic or recent geologic periods, as well as the scismic
(from the Greek word signifying earthquakes) bands in position and

*

Vi NOTES BY THE EDITOR

relative intensity. The area of supposed land and sub-oceanic sub-
sidences are also indicated. The map conveys at a glance the portions
of the globe in which volcanic eruptions are most prevalent. These
appear by contrast to be the islands and oceans surrounding Borneo,
where alone are given upwards of one hundred indications, the Gulf
of Mexico, and the Andes of South America. In the northern regions,
Iceland alone stands out in marked prominence ; whilst the whole of
Africa, with the exception of the Cape and its northern boundary, and
the continent of South America east of the Andes, appear to be totally
unaffected by the laws of earthquakes. The greatest area of subsidence
appears to be in the Pacific Ocean, extending in a direction southeast
from the Philippine Islands to Pitcairn’s Island.

The National Association (Great Britain) for the Advancement of
Social Science, held its second anniversary meeting in Liverpool, in
October, with distinguished success, about three thousand persons being
in attendance. The special object of the association, as stated in the
constitution of the Society, is “ to form a point of union among social
reformers, so as to afford those engaged in all the various efforts now
happily begun for the improvement of the people, an opportunity
of considering social economics as a whole.” At the Liverpool meet-
ing, Lord John Russell presided, and delivered the introductory ad-
dress. During the continuance of the session, an address of great
interest was also delivered by Lord Brougham, on “ Popular Education
and Popular Literature.” From this address we make the following
extract, in which the author illustrates the benefit accruing from the
labors of the Society for diffusing useful knowledge, and defends the
publications issued by it from the charge of encouraging superficial
acquirements: “ When it is said, or sung, by such objectors, that ‘a
little learning is a dangerous thing,’ we can see no harm in adding, that
there is another thing somewhat more dangerous — great ignorance ;
not to mention that the one cures itself, while the other perpet-
uates itself—ay, and spreads and propagates, too; for it is almost
as true in point of fact that they who have learned a little have their
half-satisfied curiosity excited to obtain more full gratification, as it
is false in point of fact that sobriety results from excess of drinking.
We object, therefore, to this hackneyed maxim, not because it is hack-
neyed, but because it is unfounded; as illogical when delivered in
plain prose as inapposite when clothed in humorous verse — the false-
hood of the position in the one case being equal to that of the
metaphor in the other. ‘Better half a loaf than no bread,’ is the old
English saying. ‘ All wrong,’ say the objectors, ‘a little food is a
dangerous thing ; rather starve than not have your fill.’ ‘ Better be
purblind than stone blind,’ is the French saying. ‘ No, cry the ob-
jectors; ‘if you can’t see quite clearly, what use is there in seeing
at all?’ ‘In the country of the blind, says the proverb, ‘the one-
eyed man is king.’ Our objectors belonging to the people there

ON THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. Vit

would dethrone the monarch by putting out his eye. But they had
better couch their blind brethren to restore their sight, and then
his reign would cease at once without any act of violence, any coup
d’ état. Here is a well of precious water, and we have got a little of
it in a tankard. ‘ What signifies,’ say the objectors, ‘such a paltry
supply ? It would not wet the lips of half a dozen of the hundreds
who are athirst.’ True, but it enables us to wet the sucker of the pump,
instead of following their advice to leave it dry; and, having the han-
dle, we use it to empty the well and satisfy all. A person gains some
information, it may be only a little. Say the objectors, ‘ He is super-
ficial’ Would he be more profound if he knew nothing? The twi-
light is unsafe for his steps. Would he be more secure from slipping
in the dark? But he may be self-sufficient, may think he knows
much, and look down upon others as knowing little. Is this very likely
to happen if the knowledge he has acquired is within reach of all and
by the greater number possessed ? ‘The distinction is the ground of
the supposed influence upon his demeanor towards others; when that
difference no longer exists, the risk of his manners being spoiled is at
anend. The most trifling instruction which can be given is sure
to teach the vast majority of those who receive it the lesson of their
own deficiency, and to inspire the wish for further knowledge. But
suppose, as must happen in many cases, that no great progress shall be
afterwards made, at least it is certain that the proportion is most incon-
siderable of those who are not the better for what they have learned,
and of those who are the worse for it the number cannot really be said
to have any existence at all. It must always be kept in mind that
there are two descriptions of persons to whom popular literature is ad-
dressed, and who may in different ways profit by it — those who from
their natural capacity and natural inclination, as well as from possess-
ing a certain leisure, can so far improve themselves as to become really
accomplished in the branches of knowledge which they study, and
the great bulk of the community who can never go beyond giving
a very moderate attention to books, can in fact read but very little.
Let us first consider the former class, which, though small compared
with the mass, is yet again divided into two, those of ordinary talents,
but anxious to learn, and those whose thirst for knowledge is not only
very great, but accompanied with capacity to excel, possibly even with
original genius. Both classes benefit incalculably by the helps which
popular literature extends to them. Their love of knowledge is both
excited and gratified, and let us observe their progress. The different
works which are prepared encourage and enable them to proceed. At
first they are attracted by some tale or anecdote, or biographical
account. Soon after they find in the same paper a popular exposition
of a subject in science or literature. This inclines them to go further,
and the treatises furnished by the Useful Knowledge Society are with-
in their reach on different subjects, suiting the line they desire to

VIII NOTES BY THE EDITOR

follow, and in various kinds in point of difficulty, and thus adapted to
the progress they may have made, from Mr. Marcet’s plain and
elementary explanations, up to the treatises of learned professors like
those of the Astronomer Royal, Sir D. Brewster, and Professor de
Morgan. So great and varied are the helps afforded to students in
humble life that it has been said that there can be no such thing
now as a self-taught person. Let us only reflect how mighty would
have been the comfort to such students in former times could they
have enjoyed such facilities. What would Franklin have given
for them, who, living on a vegetable diet on purpose to save a few
pence from his day’s wages for the purchase of books, was fain to
learn a little geometry from a treatise on navigation he had been
happy enough to pick up at a bookstall, something of arithmetic by
having fallen upon a copy of Cocker, and from an odd volume of
the Spectator gained a notion of the style he afterwards so powerfully
used? What would Simpson have given for access to books, who
could only get, from the accident of a peddler passing the place where
he was kept by his father working at his trade of a weaver, the copy
of Cocker containing a little Algebra, and even when grown up could
only, by borrowing Stone’s translation of L’ Hopital from a friend, ob-
tain an insight into the science of infinitesimals, on which two years
after. he published an admirable work, while continuing to divide his
time between his toil as a weaver and as a teacher? Brindley, the
great engineer, was through life an uneducated man; Rannequin is
said never to have learnt the alphabet; and both executed great works,
but with difficulties and delays which reading would have spared them.
Harrison, too, though he had received an ordinary education, yet only
while working in his trade of a carpenter, became acquainted with
science by some manuscript lectures of Sanderson falling in his way ;
and so hard did he find it to obtain adequate knowledge on the subjects
connected with his mechanical pursuits, that forty years were spent in
perfecting his admirable improvements on the construction of time-
keepers, and bringing them into use. It would be going too far to hold
that Franklin’s genius, both in physical and political science, could have
done greater things had his original difficulties in self-education been
removed ; but we may safely aflirm that both Brindley, Rannequin,
and Harrison, would have effected far more with the helps which their
successors have had ; and of Simpson no doubt can be entertained that,
even amid the distractions of his trade, his short life would have been
illustrated by far greater steps in mathematical science. For it is an
entire mistake to suppose, with some of his biographers, that his
genius was not original, and fitted to make great advances in his
favorite study. The late proceedings respecting Sir Isaac Newton’s
monument, have led to ascertaining that Simpson had made the same
approaches towards the modern improvement of the calculus which its
illustrious inventor himself had done, but kept concealed; and no

ON TH= PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. Ix

doubt can be entertained that the germ of the great discovery of La-
grange and Laplace on the stability of the solar system, is to be found
in the last and most remarkable work of Simpson. It is truly delight-
ful to contemplate such feats of genius, so scantily aided, in a hard-
working mechanic, patronized by none.”

The Thirty-fourth meeting of the German Association of Science
and Medicine, was held at Carlsruhe, September 17th, 1858, under
the presidency of Prof. Eisenlohr. Nearly twelve hundred members,
representing all the states of Europe, were present, and many papers
of great interest were offered.

The “ Societe Zodlogique d’Acclamation,” of France, still continues
in the full tide of successful experiment. A foreign correspondent
of Silliman’s Journal enumerates the following as a part of the ser-
vices it has already rendered :

In 1854, it purchased half of the only herd of yaks which had
come to Europe ; and now the yak, through its care, has become ac-
climated without difficulty, and has prospered. In 1855, it distrib-
uted nearly a million of bulbs of the yam (Dioscorea Batatas) ; now
the yam is cultivated at large over Europe, and it promises to rival
the potatoe, when through successive sowings it shall have lost its long
form. The Society has spread everywhere the Sorghum sugar cane,
(Holeus saccharatus), which already furnishes to the departments of
middle and southern France abundant forage of good quality, while
at the same time, through its saccharine juices, it promises to be as
valuable to the southern provinces of France as the beet to the north-
ern. Ithas procured young plants of the Loza, a species of Rham-
nus, from which the Chinese extract the fine green color called the
Kao. It has imported two herds of Angora goats, which reproduce
perfectly in Europe without manifesting any symptoms of degenerat-
ing. It has not only acclimated the silk worm of the Ricinus (Bom-
byx Cynthia, or Palma Christi silkworm, a native of India), which is
already in France to its twenty-fifth generation, but it has done more,
in succeeding in varying its nourishment, by substituting the leaf of
the very common Fller’s Teasel (Dipsacus Fullonum) for the Ricinus
(Rk. Europeus), which is rare, and does not grow in our climate with-
out great care; and it has almost succeeded in regulating the time of
hatching, so as to make the birth of the worms correspond with the
development of the leaves on which they are nourished. It has al-
ready nearly accomplished the propagation in the open air of a silk-
worm living on the oak. In has raised, in the Jardin des Plantes,
two new kinds of Chinese oaks. It has undertaken to grow the white
nettle of China, with which fabrics may be made more firm than those
of linen or the indigenous hemp. It has promoted the culture of the
oleaginous pea, excellent as food, and affording an abundant oil. It has
received in portable greenhouses the wax-tree and varnish-tree in
good condition, with the insects which frequent them. Finally, through

x NOTES BY THE EDITOR

M. D. de L’Huys, its Vice-President, it has succeded in procuring
from the slopes of the Cordilleras numerous tubercles of potatoe, in
order to renew in Europe this so valuable species, which, through
exaggerated culture and long-continued disease, has lost a part of its
qualities.

The report of the Meteorological Department of the English Board
of Trade, published June, 1858, states that much information relative
to winds and currents has been recently collected from various seas,
from many foreign stations on land, and from the Pacific and Atlantic
oceans. By very numerous trials, the specific gravity of nearly all the
oceanic surface has been ascertained ; and itis believed that these re-
sults will render further observations of the kind unnecessary, except
in peculiar and limited localities, for some special object. Distilled
water being taken as 1:000, the specific gravity of oceanic water is
found to be nearly 1:027. The lowest temperature hitherto recorded
(between 2-300 and 2:500 fathoms below the surface) has been 35
deg. in the North Atlantic, South Atlantic, and Indian oceans, and 86
deg. the highest temperature anywhere at sea on the surface. The
total pressure of the barometer varies so little throughout the year
within certain limits of latitude near the equator, or rather at about
5 deg. of north latitude in the Atlantic, that (allowing for the six-
hourly change) any ship crossing that part of the sea may actually
compare her barometer with a natural standard, invariable within
those small limits of 2-100ths to 3-100ths of an inch. Hygrometric in-
quiries are steadily, though slowly, proceeding. Magnetism has not
occupied much thought, because it is zealously attended to in other
departments of the Government. The report rather gives a general
idea of what is being done, than the actual results of the labors of the
department.

The managers of the Royal Institution, London, intrusted with the
award of the Actonian prize for the best essay “ On the wisdom and
goodness of the Creator as displayed in the Radiation of Heat,” have
reported that, in their judgment, no essay had been received by them
within the period of seven years since the last award in 1851, of suf-
ficient merit to entitle the author thereof to the prize of £105; that,
consequently, no prize was awarded this year; and that the £105
intended to have been awarded, would, pursuant to the trust-deed, be
retained, and awarded, with another sum of £105, in 1865, of which
due notice would be given.

The present Emperor of the French, in 1852, decreed that a prize
of £2,000 should be awarded to the person who, in the course of the
ensuing five years, should make the most useful application of the
Voltaic pile, and he charged a commission, consisting of M. Dumas,
M. Becquerel, M. Pelouze, and M. Despretz, of the Institute, and of
other eminent scientific men, to select the recipient of the prize. This
commission has recently reported to his Majesty, that, after carefully

ON THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. XI

examining all the improvements in the application of the Voltaic pile
made during the last five years in all the countries of Europe, it does
not think any of them of sufficient importance to merit the prize ;
and accordingly, the Emperor, in compliance with its recommendation,
has decreed that the prize shall remain open for a second period of
five years.

A French gentleman, named Breant, =e died some years back,
bequeathed the sum of £4,000 to the Academy of Sciences of Paris,
to be given to the ian of a sovereign cure for the cholera. In
1854, the Academy reported that, though numerous persons had com-
peted for the prize, none of them had obtained it; and during the
last year it again reported that though, since 1854, as many as fifty-
three memoirs or communications on the subject had been sent in, not
one was deserving of the promised reward. The field, consequently,
is still open to competitors.

An imperial ukase has been issued at St. Petersburg suppressing
the teaching of Latin in all the colleges of the empire. The time
hitherto devoted to this study is to be added to that of the positive
sciences.

The London Geographical Society has awarded the Victoria Gold
Medal for 1858, to Prof. A. D. Bache, Superintendent of the United
States Coast Survey, for his extensive and most accurate surveys of
America, and for the additions made by him to our knowledge of
geography and hydrography, Another gold medal has been also pre-
sented to Capt. R. Collinson, R. N., for his successful discoveries in
the Arctic Regions, and for having, in Her Majesty’s ship Enterprise,
penetrated further to the eastward, through Behring Strait, than had
been reached by any other vessel.

At a recent meeting of this society, also Sir R. I. Murchigon read
an account of a highly. interesting journey through the Elboorz Chain
of Central Asia, and of the ascent of the lofty volcanic mountain of
Demavend, by Mr. R. F. Thomson and Lord Schomberg Kerr, both
attached to the Persian mission. Having succeeded in reaching the
summit of Demavend with instruments, the adventurous diplomatists
have determined its height to be 21,500 feet, and have thus deprived
Mount Ararat of the reputation, so long enjoyed, of being the high-
est point in Central Asia.

The directors of the Geological Survey of Great Britian, have re-
cently presented to the State Cabinet of New York, and the Museum
of the Geological Survey of Canada, at Montreal, a complete set of
the duplicate fossils collected during the survey of the United King-
dom. ‘These collections are carefully labelled, and, in their future
locations at Albany and Montreal, will constitute an important ad-
dition to the resources of American geologists.

Some discussions of interest have taken place during the past year
in reference to the existence of an ethereal medium in the inter-

XII NOTES BY THE EDITOR

planetary spaces; and M. Babinet, before the French Academy, has
asserted that we have no evidence whatever upon the subject. Encke,
however, has taken occasion of the reappearance of the comet bearing
his name to again promulgate his belief in the existence of the ether,
and claims that its resisting influence on the above-named comet is
more manifest than ever ; while M. Faye, following Babinet, has re-
plied that he is unable to see how Encke’s views can be maintained.

Mr. Hind, the English astronomer, in a recent publication, offers a
protest against the names given to the young members of our plane-
tary family He says:

“A few months since, my attention was directed, by Sir John Her-
schel, to the inconvenience and confusion which are being gradually
introduced into the nomenclature of the minor planets by the accept-
ance of names easily mistaken, either in speaking or writing, for others
belonging to planets previously discovered. I have been fully sensible
of the liability to error or misapprehension thereby induced, and am
desirous of recording a protest against any further continuance of
what must eventually become a positive nuisance to those who are
more particularly occupied with the observations and calculations
bearing upon this numerous group of planets. Thus, we have al-
ready: Thetis, Themis; Lutetia, Letitia; Iris, Isis; Vesta, Hestia ;
Pallas, Pales. It will naturally be the wish of every discoverer of a
planet that his enfant trouve should be known to posterity by the name
which it has borne during his lifetime ; but if the practice to which
allusion is here made, be suffered to continue much longer, there is
certainly a probability that a day will arrive when, for the sake of
their general convenience, astronomers will consign these troublesome
names to oblivion, and substitute others less liable to engender confu-
sion. ‘This consideration alone, we might suppose, would prove suffi-
ciently powerful to induce hesitation on the part of the discoverer
before accepting any name likely to be objected to on the score of
similarity with that of a planet previously found.”

The following is a list of the comets now known or supposed to be
periodical, or which belong to our solar system. The periodicity of
the last twelve, or of those whose computed times or revolution exceeds
fourteen years, with the exception of that of Halley, can, however, only
be rendered certain by their actual return at the expiration of the
predicted time. It will be seen that, in all but seven instances,
the comets bear the names of the astronomers by whom they were
firstobserved. In these seven exceptions, titles have been selected by
the discoverers, principally from the names of individuals whom they
have desired to honor :

Comet of Period-in years. Discovered by
Encke - - - - - -' - - 33 Pos cS = Se =e eS
Blanpain - - - - - - - 48 Blanpain - - - - - = 1819

DeVieos > v=. =tereostih <b De Vico + - - - - & -=)1844

ON THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. XIII

Comet of Period in years. Discovered by

Brorsen — Bruhns - - - 5.6 ene eet et” SETS ree
Lexell - = eye 5.6 Messier == "-“- = = = 1770
Pons— Winnecke - - -~ 5.6 | Winnecke a ae
DArtest «26 <--teene 6.4 DAIS < nyhye cin sev se, = (R851
Thar wat, ide = ee ee Montaigne - - - - - - 1772
Faye - ee ESTER ee Faye at ee Seer Pats
Pen meddaruoay yd oamngatg Piers eye LY. S e4G
Mecha Tuttle” 2° 2°. 13’ cree eres eB Bi —
Westphal - - - - - 69.0 Westphal - - - - - - 1852
San = a aS ee Pons i im, ine eg te io a AS
De Vico - - - - - - 72.8 Jesuits Se SMS ore tS O46
Olbers - - - - - - += 74.0 Olbersvreo el oe - stirs 1815
Brorsen - - - - - - 75.0 Brorsen c= .:e).25 see) 1847
Halley - - - - - - - 76.1 ApIen.n3: sre ome copte, L538]
Flamsteed - - - - - 190.0 Flamsteed - - - - - - 1683
Oleott "=. Oe PTO rect = oo Se ee EST
Charles V. - = - - ‘= 2920 Fabricius = ©.) -) =) -> - 1556
Bremiker - «-.-.- = - $44.0 Bremiker - - - - - - 1840
Brorsen - - - - - - 401.0 BromseRe. ser megieins j=0.24NB46
Perry - - - - - - - 4220, tei A ee ee YA

An able article in the July (1858) number of the Westminster Re-
view, on “ Recent Astronomy, and the Nebular Hypothesis,” takes de-
cided ground against the results of what it terms “ the rash speculations
of late years,” as embraced in the belief that all nebule are galaxies of
stars. The writer defends the nebular hypothesis with much force
of argument, and asserts that “ the various appearances these nebule
present are clearly explicable as different stages in the precipitation
and aggregation of diffused matter.” He asserts that, on the one hand,
all the leading phenomena of the solar system, and the heavens in
general, are explicable “ by the nebular hypothesis,” and, on the other
hand, that “the common cosmogony is not only without a single fact
to stand upon, but is at variance with all our positive knowledge
of nature.

M. Wolf, of Zurich, in a letter addressed to General Sabine, states
that further researches into the phenomena of the relation between
the spots on the sun and terrestrial magnetism have led to the
discovery that there is even a greater correspondence between the
solar spots and terrestrial magnetism than he had originally imagined,
and that sufficient data now exist to satisfy even the most skeptical of
the actual correspondence between these phenomena.

The European Statistics of Suicide, recently published in France
by Mr Lisle, show that England is no longer at the head of the dreary
list. The French author proves that France is the highest in the
scale, and Russia lowest. In London, we have one suicide in 8,250
people. Paris gives one in 2,221. For the whole English population,

2

XIV NOTES BY THE EDITOR

the suicides reckon one in 15,900; France, one in 12,489. The
north of France is the most prolific in suicides, that district yielding
nearly half of the whole number in the entire empire.

The following is an abstract of a paper recently presented to the
Berlin Academy by M. Dieterici on the population of the earth: The
author estimates the actual population of the earth at 1,283 millions,
viz., Europe, 272; Asia, 750; America, 59; Africa, 200; and Aus-
tralia, 2. The average of the valuations made by geographers gave,
he says, the number of the inhabitants of Europe at 258 millions; but
as most of them, owing tothe period when their works were published,
had not the advantage of the several census taken within the last
fifteen years, the number of 272,000,000 was that which came nearest
to the truth. The progressive increase in the population of Europe
was, moreover, enormous. In 1787, according toacalculation made by
order of Louis X VI., it amounted to 150 millions; and in 1805, it had
reached 200 millions. It was more difficult to estimate the population of
Asia, for geographers who had written during the last twenty-five years
on the subject, had shown extraordinary differences of opinion. Some
had given to that part of the world only 390 millions of inhabitants,
whereas China alone contained a greater number. ‘The figure of 750
millions might be considered as near as possible to the truth, when the
difficulties of getting at any exact estimate was looked to. As far as
regards Africa, still greater uncertainty prevailed. ‘The author, how-
ever, has carefully availed himself of the works of the last explorers
of the central portion of that country, as well as of the official returns
from Algeria, Senegal, and the Cape of Good Hope. ‘The estimate
made by him may be, perhaps, about one-quarter or one-fifth too high.

At the last meeting of the British Association (Leeds, 1858), Mr-
William Fairbairn, in an address, thus briefly reviewed the prospects
and recent progress of Mechanical Science in Great Britain: Malleable
iron, now applied to the construction of bridges, was capable of great
development, and there was no span between the limit of one thousand
feet which might not be compassed by the hollow girder bridge. With
respect to steam navigation much remained to be done, with the object
of giving uniformity of strength and security of construction. The
Leviathan, with all her misfortunes, was a magnificent specimen of
naval architecture, the cellular system, so judiciously introduced by Mr.
Brunel, being her great source of strength. He was so persuaded of
the security of the principle upon which she had been constructed, that
he had no doubt she would stand the test of being suspended upon the
two extreme points of stem and stern, with all her machinery on board ;
or she might be poised upon a point in the middle, like a scale-beam,
without fracture or injury to the material of which she is composed.
He expressed the hope that the necessary funds would be forthcoming
to complete her equipment, and that we should then see her dash-
ing aside the surge of the Atlantic at a speed of eighteen to twenty

ON THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. eV

knots an hour. In Great Britain there are now 9,500 miles of rail-
way ; and taking, at a rough calculation, one locomotive engine with a
force of 200 horses power to every three miles of railway, and assum-
ing each to run 120 miles per day, we might thence calculate the dis-
tance travelled over by trains to be equal to 380,000 miles per day, or
138,900,000 miles per annum. To transport these trains required
a force equivalent to 200,000 horses in constant operation thoughout
the year. In the locomotive engine there has been no improve-
ment of consequence during the last two years, excepting only its
adaptation to burning coal instead of coke; but in the formation of the
permanent way, considerable improvements had been effected, especi-
ally in the jointing of the rails by the process known as fish-jointing.

Admiral Moorson in alluding to the lack of progress in some
departments of Naval Architecture, and especially as regards the ca-
pabilities of marine steamers, expressed his opinion that if experiments
were conducted at sea under a vast variety of conditions as to form,
size, and circumstances, rules might be established which would serve
to determine much of what was now the subject of controversy, and go
far to remove the reproach on the great maritime nations of the world,
which was contained in the following passage of a work by Mr. Scott
Russell: “ It is admitted that out of every three steam-vessels that are
built, two fall very far short of fulfilling the intention with which they
were constructed.”

During the past year the publication of an American Mathematical
Journal, edited by Mr. J. D. Runkle, of Cambridge, has been com-
menced, under the endorsement of the American Association for the
Promotion of Science, and the best mathematical talent of the country.
It proposes to include in its pages solutions, demonstrations, and
discussions, in all branches of the science, as well as in all its various
applications ; also notes and queries, with notices and reviews of all the
principal mathematical works issued in this country or in Europe.

A gallery of portraits of distinguished scientific men is now in the
course of publication at Vienna, and will consist, when complete, of a
folio volume of one hundred lithographic plates, executed in the highes
style of art, — each portrait being accompanied with a‘leaf of text.
The gallery commences with Humboldt, and following him there are three
or more in each of the departments, — Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry,
Astronomy, Meteorology, Geography, Geology, Mineralogy, Betany,
Zoology, Anatomy, and Physiology. The physicists included are:
Amici, Baumgartner, Biot, Brewster, Ettingshausen, Faraday, Han-
steen, Herschel, Jacobi, Magnus, Miiller, Neumann, Plucker, Pog-
gendorff, Pouillett, Weber, and Zantedeschi.

A portion of the report of the Canadian Geological Survey on the
organic remains of Canada, has been recently published by Mr. Bil-
lings, Paleontologist of the survey, and treats of the Cystidex, Star-
fishes, and bivalve Crustaceans. It is a work of great merit, enlarging

xVI NOTES BY THE EDITOR

our knowledge of one of the obscurest departments of Paleontology.
Besides Cystideze and Star-fishes, a new genus called Cyclocystoides,
containing discoid species of Echinoderms, is described by E. Billings
and J. W. Salter. It is remarkable that the Canadian Lower Silurian
rocks have furnished twenty-one species of Cystidez, while in New
York only one has been found in the rocks of that age.

During the past year, the remarkable work of De la Rive, on Elec-
tricity, has been completed by the publication of the third volume, and
the entire work may now be regarded as the most complete treatise on
the subject of electricity extant. As to the cause of terrestrial mag-
netism, the author inclines to the theory, that it resides in the sun,
which acts upon the earth as in the ordinary experiment by rotation a
magnet acts upon a body having a rotating movement. But whence
the magnetism of the sun ?

Within a very recent period a newspaper in the Maori, or native
New Zealand language, has been started at Wellington, N. Z. It is
called the “ Messenger of Port Nicholson.”

The London Atheneum for March 13, 1858, contains a letter from
Capt. Freeling, Surveyor-General at Adelaide, in respect to the
explorations undertaken in the central part of Australia to determine
whether a navigable inland sea existed there, as has been supposed.
No water was found on which a boat would float. “I was away,” says
Capt. Freeling, “ more than two months, and during that time must
have travelled a thousand miles, and I verily believe that there is
no other country in the world where so much barren land exists in a
similar space. It is really wonderful to see the masses of stone which
lie on the hills and plains as on a newly Macadamized road, as well as
the absence of grass in places where the stones are not so thickly
spread; but all this barrenness may easily be accounted for by
the fact that but little rain falls to promote fertility. Occasionally, as
in March of this year, an extraordinary rain-fall occurs; then the
creeks, which are for years together dry, pour down an amazing
volume of water, flooding the lands in their neighborhood, and
eventually discharging themselves over a vast, slightly hollowed plain,
which then has all the appearance of a large inland sea. Test it,
however, as I did, by walking three miles into it, and you then see its
- true character, and are able to state positively that the summer heats
will not have continued long before the whole is evaporated.”

During the past year another European expedition into Central
Africa has been organized. Its projector is Baron von Krafft, whose
intention is to visit the interor of Soudan. He has embarked for
Tripoli, and will probably take the route from Ouargla to Djebel Hog-
gar, a route which has never been followed by Europeans.

A letter from Baron Krafft to Humboldt, dated April 10, 1858,
from Algiers, expresses the desire of the author to continue the dis-
coveries of Dr. Barth, so far as limited resources will allow. He will

ON THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. XVII

travel in the incognito of a Turkish physician, provided with allopathic
and homeopathic medicines, and attended by an Algerian Moor, who
is acquainted with the native method of practice. An aneroid baro-
meter, several thermometers, two compasses, a chronometer, a sextant,
and a telescope, are the instruments which he carries. He intends,
however, to devote himself chiefly to such observations as can be made
without his instruments ; to collect minerals and plants; to inquire into
the trade, language, history, and literature of the people whom he visits ;
and to determine with the greatest possible accuracy the various routes
of caravans, and their various stopping-places. The route of travel
which Baron Krafft has marked out for himself is from Tripoli to
Ghadames, and thence to Ain Salah and Timbuctoo. Then he pro-
poses to visit Lake Tsad, and afterwards to go, according to his strength
and means, either east to Wara and Dar Fur, or north to Bilma, Seg-
gadem and Murzuk.

Robert Stephenson, the eminent English engineer, in a letter ad-
dressed to the London Times, thus expresses his views in reference to
the feasibility of the proposed ship-canal across the Isthmus of Suez :
“T should be delighted,” he says, “to see a channel like the Dar-
danelles or the Bosphorus penetrating the isthmus that divides the Red
Sea from the Mediterranean; but I know that such a channel is
impracticable, — that nothing can be effected, even by the most unlim-
ited expenditure of time, and life, and money, beyond the formation
of a stagnant ditch between two almost tideless seas, unapproachable
by large ships under any circumstances, and only capable of being
used by small vessels when the prevalent winds permit their exit and
their entrance. I believe that the project will prove abortive in itself
and ruinous to its constructors; and entertaining this view, I will
no longer permit it to be said that by abstaining from expressing my-
self fully on the subject, I am tacitly allowing capitalists to throw away
their money on what my knowledge assures me to be an unwise
and unremunerative speculation.”

At a recent show of the Royal Agricultural Society, held at Ches-
ter, England, five steam ploughs contested for the handsome prize of
£500 ($2,425). Four of the ploughs were operated by steam-engines
fixed on the field, and moving the “ shares” back and forth by ropes
and windlasses. The fifth plough (Boydells’) had a traction engine
which moved over the field. Each of these turned over four furrows
at once, and the work was well done by them,—all but one, which
broke down. The soil was a hard, dry, stiff clay. Furrows of nine
inches depth were turned over, and the competition was very spirited.
The successful plough was Fowler’s ; it executed one and three-quarters
of an acre in two hours.

At the present time, the Sorgho, or Chinese sugar cane, is ex-
tensively cultivated in the South of France, and its products have
constituted a prominent feature in recent agricultural exhibitions of

Q*

XVIII NOTES BY THE EDITOR

France. At an exhibition at Avignon, M. Prieur exhibited a group of
samples illustrative of the metamorphoses to which he has subjected it.
Nothing could be more curious than the succession of transformations
there shown. In one corner could be seen the sorgho in stalk, such as
it is when cut; a little further, were its fibres converted into thread, in
skein ; then a piece of linen woven with the thread; then a handsome
cloak, bordered with furs, which M. Prieur designs for the Prince
Imperial.

The most curious and complete array of the products of the sorgho,
however, at the same exhibition, was that of Dr. Sicard, of Marseilles.
From the pith, he has obtained sugar ; from the seeds, flour and fecula,
which have been worked up into a great variety of paiatable products.
He extracts also from the plant alcohol, and a variety of wine, and a
variety of dyes, well adapted to wool and cotton; and finally, from the
refuse stalks he has manufactured a fair article of paper.

THE

ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS.

ADDRESS OF PROF. OWEN BEFORE THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION, 1858.

THE following is an abstract of an address delivered by Professor Owen,
on assuming the chair as President of the Twenty-eighth Annual Meeting of
the British Association for the advancement of Science, September 22, 1858:

GENTLEMEN OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION: We are here met, in this our
Twenty-eighth Annual Assembly, to continue the aim of the Association, which
is the promotion of Science, or the knowledge of the Laws of Nature; where-
by we acquire a dominion over nature, and are thereby able so to apply her
powers as to advance the well-being of society and exalt the condition of
mankind. It is no light matter, therefore, the work that we are here assem-
bled to do. God has given to man a capacity to discover and comprehend the
laws by which His universe is governed; and man is impelled by a healthy
and natural impulse to exercise the faculties by which that knowledge can be
acquired. Agreeably with the relations which have been instituted between
our finite faculties and the phenomena that affect them, we arrive at demon-
strations and convictions which are the most certain that our present state of
being can have or act upon. Nor let any one, against whose prepossessions a
scientific truth may jar, confound such demonstrations with the speculative
philosophies condemned by the Apostle; or ascribe to arrogant intellect, soar-
ing to regions of forbidden mysteries, the acquisition of such truths as have
been or may be established by patient and inductive research. For the most
part, the discoverer has been so placed by circumstances, — rather than by
predetermined selection, — as to have his work of investigation allotted to
him as his daily duty; in the fulfilment of which he is brought face to face
with phenomena into which he must inquire, and the result of which inquiry
he must faithfully impart. The advance of natural as of moral truth has
been and is progressive; but it has pleased the Author of all truth to vary
the fashion of the imparting of such parcels thereof as He has allotted, from
time to time, for the behoof and guidance of mankind. Those who are

20 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

privileged with the faculties of discovery are, therefore, to be regarded as
‘preodrdained instruments in making known the power of God, without a
knowledge of which, as well as of Scripture, we are told that we shall err.
Great and marvellous have been the manifestations of this power imparted
to us of late times, not only in respect of the shape, motions, and solar rela-
tions of the earth, but also of its age and inhabitants. In regard to the
period during which the globe allotted to man has revolved in its orbit, pres-
ent evidence strains the mind to grasp such sum of past time with an effort
like that by which it tries to realize the space dividing that orbit from the
fixed stars and remoter nebulz. Yet, during all those eras that have passed
since the Cambrian rocks were deposited, which bear the impressed record
of creative power, as it was then manifested, we know, through the interpreters
of these ‘‘ writings on stone,” that the earth was vivified by the sun’s light
and heat, was fertilized by refreshing showers and washed by tidal waves.
No stagnation has been permitted to air or ocean. The vast body of waters
not only moved, as a whole, in orderly oscillations, regulated, as now, by
sun and moon, but were rippled and agitated here and there successively by
winds and storms. The atmosphere was healthily influenced by its horizon-
tal currents, and by ever-varying clouds and vapors rising, condensing, dis-
solving, and falling in endless vertical circulation. With these conditions of
life, we know that life itself has been enjoyed throughout the same countless
thousands of years; and that with life, from the beginning, there has been
death. The earliest testimony of the living thing, whether shell, crust, or
coral, in the oldest fossiliferous rock, is at the same time proof that it died.
It has further been given us to know, that not only the individual but the
species perishes; that as death is balanced by generation, so extinction has
been concomitant with creative power, which has continued to provide a
succession of species; and furthermore, that as regards the varying forms
of life which this planet has witnessed, there has been “‘an advance and prog-
ress in the main.” Geology demonstrates that the creative force has not
deserted this earth during any of her epochs of time; and that in respect to
no one class of animals has the manifestation of that force been limited to
one epoch. Nota species of fish that now lives, but has come into being
curing a comparatively recent period: the existing species were preceded by
other species, and these again by others still more different from the present.
No existing genus of fishes can be traced back beyond a moiety of known
creative time. Two entire orders (Cycloids and Ctenoids) have come into
being, and have almost superseded two other orders (Ganoids and Placoids),
since the newest or latest of the secondary formations of the earth’s crust.
Species after species of land animals, order after order of air-breathing rep-
tiles, have succeeded each other; creation ever compensating for extinction.
The successive passing away of air-breathing species may have been as little
due to exceptional violence, and as much to natural law, as in the case of
marine plants and animals. It is true, indeed, that every part of the earth’s
surface has been submerged; but successively, and for long periods. Of the
present dry land, different natural continents have different Faunze and
Flore ; and the fossil remains of the plants and animals of these continents
respectively show that they possessed the same peculiar characters, or char-
acteristic facies, during periods extending far beyond the utmost limits of
human history. Such, gentlemen, is a brief summary of facts most nearly
interesting us, which have been demonstratively made known respecting our
earth and its inhabitants. And when we reflect at how late and in how

MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 21

brief a period of historical time the acquisition of such knowledge has been
permitted, we must feel that, vast as it seems, it may be but a very small part
of the patrimony of truth destined for the possession of future generations.
In reviewing the nature and results of our proceedings during the last
twenty-seven years, and the aims and objects of our Association, it seems as
if we are realizing the grand Philosophical Dream or Prefigurative Vision of
Francis Bacon, which he has recounted in his “‘ New Atlantis.” In this noble
parable the father of Modern Science imagines an Institution which he calls
“Solomon’s House,” and informs us by the mouth of one of its members,
that “The end of its Foundation is the Knowledge of Causes and Secret
Motions of Things; and enlarging of the bounds of Human Empire to the
effecting of all things possible.” As one important means of effecting the
great aims of Bacon’s “six days’ college,” certain of its members were
deputed, as “merchants of light,” to make “circuits or visits of divers
principal cities of the kingdom.” This latter feature of the Baconian organ-
ization is the chief characteristic of the “ British Association.” But we have
striven to carry out other aims of the “‘ New Atlantis,” such as the systematic
summaries of the results of different branches of science, of which our pub-
lished volumes of “ Reports ”’ are evidence; and we have likewise realized, in
some measure, the idea of the ‘‘ Mathematical House ” in our establishment
at Kew. The national and private observatories, the Royal and other scien-
tific Societies, the British Museum, the Zodlogical, Botanical, and Horticul-
tural Gardens, combine in our day to realize that which Bacon foresaw in
distant perspective. Great, beyond all anticipation, have been the results of
this organization, and of the application of the inductive methods of interro-
gating nature. The universal law of gravitation, the circulation of the
blood, the analogous course of the magnetic influence, which may be said to
vivify the earth, permitting no atom of its most solid constituents to stag-
nate in total rest; the development and progress of Chemistry, Geology,
Palzontology ; the inventions and practical applications of Gas, the Steam-
engine, Photography, Telegraphy,— such, in the few centuries since Bacon
wrote, have been the rewards of the followers of his rules of research.
Prof. O. then dwelt on the importance of direct observation, as illustrated in
the history of Astronomy —referred to the discovery of Galileo, the appli-
cation of his discovery by Kepler and Horrocks, and continued: Without
stopping to trace the concurrent progress of the science of motion, of which
the true foundations were laid, in Bacon’s time, by Galileo, it will serve here
to state that the foundations were laid and the materials gathered for the
establishment by a master-mind, supreme in vigor of thought and mathe-
matical resource, of the grandest generalization ever promulgated by science
—that of the universal gravitation of matter according to the law of the
inverse square of the distance. The same century in which the “Thema
Celi” of Lord Verulam and the “Nuncius Sidereus” of Galileo saw the
light, was glorified by the publication of the “Philosophie Naturalis Prin-
cipia Mathematica” of Newton. Has time, it may be asked, in any way
affected the great result of that masterpiece of human intellect? There are
signs that even Newton’s axiom is not exempt from the restless law of
progress. The mode of expressing the law of gravitation as being “in the
inverse proportion of the square of the distances ” involves the idea that the
force emanating from or exercised bythe sun must become more feeble in
proportion to the increased spherical surface over which it is diffused. So
indeed it was expressly understood by Halley. Professor Whewell, the ablest

44 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

historian of Natural Science, has remarked, that “‘ future discoveries may
make gravitation a case of some wider law, and may disclose something of
the mode in which it operates.” The difficulty, indeed, of conceiving a
force acting through nothing from body to body, has of late made itself felt;
and more especially since Meyer of Heilbronn first clearly expressed the
principle of the “conservation of force.” Newton, though apprehending
the necessity of a medium by which the force of gravitation should be con-
veyed from one body to another, yet appears not to have possessed such an
idea of the uncreateability and indestructibility of force as that which, now
possessed by minds of the highest order, seems to some of them to be in-
compatible with the terms in which Newton enunciated his great law, viz.,
of matter attracting: matter with a force which varies inversely as the
square of the distance. The progress of knowledge of another form of all-
pervading force, which we call, from its most notable effect on one of the
senses, ‘‘ Light,’ has not been less remarkable than that of gravitation.
Galileo’s discovery of Jupiter’s satellites supplied Romer with the phenomena
whence he was able to measure, in 1676, the velocity of light. Descartes, in
his theory of the rainbow, referred the different colors to the different amount
of refraction, and made a near approximation to Newton’s capital discovery
of the different colors entering into the composition of the luminous ray,
and of their different refrangibility. Hook and Huyghens, about the same
period, had entered upon explanations of the phenomena of light conceived
as due to the undulations of an ether, propagated from the luminous point
spherically, like those of sound. Newton, whilst admitting that such undula-
tions or vibrations of an ether would explain certain phenomena, adopted
the hypothesis of emission as most convenient for the mathematical propo-
sitions relative to light. The discoveries of achromatism, of the laws of
double refraction, of polarization circular and elliptical, and of dipolariza-
tion, rapidly followed: the latter advances of optics, realizing more than
Bacon conceived might flow from the labors of the “ Perspective House,”
are associated with and have shed lustre on the names of Dollond, Young,
Malus, Fresnel, Biot, Arago, Brewster, Stokes, Jamin, and others. Some
of the natural sciences, as we now comprehend them, had not germinated
in Bacon’s time. Chemistry was then alchemy: Geology and Paleontology
were undreamt of: but Magnetism and Electricity had begun to be observed,
and their phenomena compared and defined, by a contemporary of Bacon,
in away that claims to be regarded as the first step towards a scientific
knowledge of those powers. It is true that, before Gilbert (‘‘ De Magnete,”
1600), the magnet was known to attract iron, and the great practical appli-
cation of magnetized iron— the mariner’s compass — had been invented, and
for many years before Bacon’s time had guided the barks of navigators
through trackless seas. Gilbert, to whom the name “electricity” is due,
observed that that force attracted light bodies, whereas the magnetic force
attracted iron only. About a century later the phenomena of repulsion as
well as of attraction of light bodies by electric substances were noticed; and
Dufay, in 1733, enunciated the principle, that ‘electric bodies attract all
those that are not so, and repel them as soon as they are become electric by
the vicinity of the electric body.”’ The conduction of electric force, and the
different behavior of bodies in contact with the electric, leading to their
division, by Desaguliers, into conductors and non-conductors, next followed.
The two kinds of electricity, at first by Dufay, their definer, called “ vitre-
ous ”’ and “ resinous,’’— afterwards, by Franklin, ‘ positive ” and “ negative,”

MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 23

— formed an important step, which led to a brilliant series of experiments
and discoveries, with inventions, such as the Leyden jar, for intensifying
the electric shock. The discovery of the instantaneous transmission of
electricity through an extent of not less than 12,000 feet, by Bishop Watson,
together with that of the electric state of the clouds, and of the power of
drawing off such electricity by pointed bodies, as shown by Franklin,
were a brilliant beginning of the application of the science to the well-
being and needs of mankind. Magnetism has been studied with two
aims: the one, to note the numerical relations of its activity to time and
space, both in respect of its direction and intensity; the other, to penetrate
the mystery of the nature of the magnetic force. In reference to the first
aim, my predecessor adverted, last year, to the fact, that it was in the com-
mittee-rooms of the British Association that the first step was taken towards
that great magnetic organization which has since borne so much fruit.
Thereby it has been determined that there are periodical changes of the
magnetic elements depending on the hour of the day, the season of the
year, and on what seemed strange intervals of about eleven years. Also,
that, besides these regular changes, there were others of a more abrupt and
seemingly irregular character—Humboldt’s “‘magnetic storms” — which
occur simultaneously at distant parts of the earth’s surface. Major-General
Sabine, than whom no individual has done more in.this field of research
since Halley first attempted “‘to explain the change in the variation of the
magnetic needle,” has proved that the magnetic storms observed diurnal,
annual, and undecennial periods. But with what phase or phenomenon of
earthly or heavenly bodies, it may be asked, has the magnetic period of
eleven years todo? The coincidence which points to, if it does not give,
the answer, is one of the most remarkable, unexpected, and encouraging, to
patient observers. For thirty years a German astronomer, Schwabe, had set
himself the task of daily observing and recording the appearance of the
sun’s disc, in which time he found the spots passed through periodic phases
of increase and decrease, the length of the period being about eleven years.
A comparison of the independent evidence of the astronomer and magnetic
observer has shown that the undecennial magnetic period coincides, both in
its duration and in its epochs of maximum and minimum, with the same
period observed in the solar spots.

A few weeks ago, during a visit of inspection to our establishment at Kew,
I observed the successful operation of the photo-heliographic apparatus in
depicting the solar spots as they then appeared. The continued regular
record of the macular state of the sun’s surface, with the concurrent mag-
netic observations now established over many distant points of the earth’s
surface, will, ere long, establish the full significance and value of the re-
markable, and, in reference to the observers, undesigned coincidence above
mentioned. Not to trespass on your patience by tracing the progress of
Magnetism from Gilbert to Oersted, I cannot but advert to the time, 1807,
when the latter tried to discover whether electricity in its most latent state
had any effect on the magnet, and to his great result, in 1820, that the con-
ducting wire of a voltaic circuit acts upon a magnetic needle, so that the
latter tends to place itself at right angles to the wire. Ampere, moreover,
succeeded, by means of a delicate apparatus, in demonstrating that the vol-
taic wire was affected by the action of the earth itself asa magnet. In short,
the generalization was established, and with a rapidity unexampled, regard
being had to its greatness, that magnetism and electricity are but different

4 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

cfecis of one common cause. This has proved the first step to still grander
abstractions,—to that which conceives the reduction of all the species of
imponderable fluids of the chemistry of our student days, together with
gravitation, chemicity, and neuricity, to interchangeable modes of action of
one and the same all-peryading life-essence. Galvani arranged the parts of
a recently-mutilated frog, so as to bring a nerve in contact with the external
surface of a muscle, when a contraction of the muscle ensued. In this sug-
gestive experiment, the Italian philosopher, who thereby initiated the induct-
ive inquiry into the relation of nerve force to electric force, concluded that
the contraction was a necessary consequence of the passage of electricity
from one surface to the other by means of the nerve. He supposed that the
electricity was secreted by the brain, and transmitted by the nerves to differ-
ent parts of the body, the muscles serving as reservoirs of the electricity.
Volta made a further step by showing that, under the conditions or arrange-
ments of Galvani’s experiments, the muscle would contract, whether the
electric current had its origin in the animal body, or from a source external
to that body. Galvani erred in too exclusive a reference of the electric force
producing the contraction to the brain of the animal; Volta, in excluding
the origin of the electric force from the animal body altogether. The deter-
mination of “the true” and “the constant” in these recondite phenomena,
has been mainly helped on by the persevering and ingenious experimental
researches of Mateucci and Du Bois Reymond. The latter has shown that
any point of the surface of a muscle is positive in relation to any point of
the divided or transverse section of the same muscle; and that any point of
the surface of a nerve is positive in relation to any point of the divided or
transverse section of the same nerve. Mr. Baxter, in still more recent re-
searches, has deduced important conclusions on the origin of the muscular
and nerve currents, as being due to the polarized condition of the nerve or
muscular fibre, and the relation of that condition to changes which occur
during nutrition. From the present state of neuro-electricity, it may be
concluded that nerve force is not identical with electric force, but that it
may be another mode of motion of the same common force. It is certainly
a polar force, and perhaps the highest form of polar force:

“A motion which may change, but cannot die;
An image of some bright eternity.”

The present tendency of the higher generalizations of Chemistry seems to
be towards a reduction of the number of those bodies which are called
“elementary ;” it begins to be suspected that certain groups of so-called
chemical elements are but modified forms of one another; that such groups
as chlorine, iodine, bromine, fluorine, and as sulphur, selenium, phosphorus,
boron, may be but allotropic forms of some one element. Organic Chemis-
try becomes simplified as it expands; and its growth has of late proceeded,
through the labors of Hoffmann, Berthelot, and others, with unexampled
rapidity. An important series of alcohols and their derivatives, from amylic
alcohol downwards; as extensive a series of ethers, including those which
give their peculiar flavor to our choicest fruits; the formic, butyric, succinic,
lactic, and other acids, together with other important organic bodies, are
now capable of artificial formation from their elements, and the old barrier
dividing organic from inorganic bodies is broken down. To the power
which mankind may ultimately exercise through the light of synthesis, who

MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 25

may presume to set limits? Already natural processes can be more econom-
ically replaced by artificial ones in the formation of a few organic com-
pounds,— the “ valerianic acid,” for example. It is impossible to foresee the
extent to which Chemistry may not ultimately, in the production of things
needful, supersede the present vital agencies of nature, “‘by laying under
contribution the accumulated forces of past ages, which would thus enable
us to obtain in a small manufactory, and in a few days, effects which can be
realized from present natural agencies only when they are exerted upon vast
areas of land, and through considerable periods of time.” Since Niepce,
Herschel, Fox Talbot, and Daguerre, laid the foundations of Photography,
year by year some improvement is made,—some advance achieved, in this
most subtle application of combined discoveries in Photicity, Electricity,
Chemistry, and Magnetism. Last year M. Poitevin’s production of plates
in relief, for the purpose of engraving by the action of light alone, was
cited as the latest marvel of Photography. This year has witnessed photo-
graphic printing in carbon hy M. Pretsch. Prof. Owen continued by allud-
ing to the application of Photography for obtaining views of the moon, of
the planets, of scientific and other phenomena. After referring to the dis-
coveries in Electro-magnetism, the lecturer continued: Remote as such pro-
found conceptions and subtle trains of thought seem to be from the needs
of everyday life, the most astounding of the practical augmentation of man’s
power has sprung out of them. Nothing might seem less promising of
profit than Oersted’s painfully-pursued experiments, with his little magnets,
voltaic pile, and bits of copper wire. Yet out of these has sprung the elec-
tric telegraph! Ocrsted himself saw such an application of his convertibility
of electricity into magnetism, and made arrangements for testing that appli-
cation to the instantaneous communication of signs through distances of a
few miles. The resources of inventive genius have made it practicable for
all distances ; as we have lately seen in the submergence and working of the
electro-magnetic cord connecting the Old and the New World. More re-
mains to be done before the far-stretching engine can be got into working
order; but the capital fact, viz., the practicability of bringing America into
electrical communication with Europe has been demonstrated; consequently,
a like power of instantaneous interchange of thought between the civilized
inhabitants of every part of the globe becomes only a question of time.
The powers and benefits thence to ensue for the human race can be but
dimly and inadequately foreseen. After referring to the labors of Ray, Lin-
nus, Jussieu, Buffon, and Cuvier, he said: To perfect the natural system
of plants has been the great aim of botanists since Jussieu. To obtain the
same true insight into the relations of animals has stimulated the labors of
zoologists since the writings of Cuvier. To that great man appertains the
merit of having systematically pursued and applied anatomical researches
to the discovery of the true system of distribution of the animal kingdom;
nor, until the Cuvierian amount of zoO0tomical science had been gained,
could the value and importance of Aristotle’s ‘‘ History of Animals” be ap-
preciated. There is no similar instance, in the history of Science, of the
well-lit torch gradually growing dimmer and smouldering through so many
generations and centuries before it was again fanned into brightness, and a
clear view regained, both of the extent of ancient discovery, and of the
true course to be pursued by modern research. Rapid and right has been
the progress of Zoology since that resumption. Not only has the structure
of the anima] been investigated, even to the minute characteristics of each

9)
o

26 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

tissue, but the mode of formation of such constituents of organs, and of
the organs themselves, has been pursued from the germ, bud, or egg, on-
ward to maturity and decay. To the observation of outward characters is
now added that of inward organization and developmental change, and
Zootomy, Histology, and Embryology, combine their results in forming an
adequate and lasting basis for the higher axioms and generalizations of
Zoology, properly so called. Three principles, of the common ground of
which we may ultimately obtain a clearer insight, are now recognized to
have governed the construction of animals,— unity of plan, vegetative repe-
tition, and fitness for purpose. The independent series of researches by
which students of the articulate animals have seen, in the organs performing
the functions of jaws and limbs of varied powers, the same or homotypal
elements of a series of like segments constituting the entire body, and by
which students of the vertebrate animals have been led to the conclusion,
that the maxillary, mandibular, hyoid, scapular, costal, and pelvic arches,
and their appendages sometimes forming limbs of varied powers, are also
modified elements of a series of essentially similar vertebral segments, —
mutually corroborate their respective conclusions. It is not probable that a
principle which is true for Articulata should be false for Vertebrata: the less
probable since the determination of homologous parts becomes the more
possible and sure in the ratio of the perfection of the organization.

After pointing out the distinction between Affinity, which indicates an
intimate resemblance, and Analogy, which indicates a remote one, he con-
tinued: The study of homologous parts in a single system of organs — the
bones — has mainly led to the recognition of the plan or archetype of the
highest primary group of animals, the Vertebrata. The next step of impor-
tance will be to determine the homologous parts of the nervous system, of
the muscular system, of the respiratory and vascular system, and of the
digestive, secretory, and generative organs, in the same primary group or
province. I think it of more importance to settle the homologies of the
parts of a group or animals constructed on the same general plan, than to
speculate on such relations of parts of animals constructed on demonstra-
tively distinct plans of organization. What has been effected and recom-
mended, in regard to homologous parts in the Vertebrata, should be followed
out in the Articulata and Mollusca. In regard to the constituents of the
crust or outer skeleton and its appendages in the Articulata, homological
relations have been studied and determined to a praiseworthy extent,
throughout that province. The same study is making progress in the Mol-
lusca; but the grounds for determining special homologies are less sure in
this sub-kingdom. The present state of homology in regard to the Articu-
lata has sufficed to demonstrate that the segment of the crust is not a hollow
expanded homologue of the segment of the endo-skeleton of a vertebrate.
There is as little homology between the parts and appendages of the seg-
ments of the Vertebrate and Articulate skeletons respectively. The parts
called mandibles, maxillz, arms, legs, wings, fins, in Insects and Crusta-
ceans, are only “analogous ”’ to the parts so called in Vertebrates. A most
extensive field of reform is becoming open to the homologist in that which
is essential to the exactitude of his science, —a nomenclature equivalent to
express his conviction of the different relations of similitude. Most difficult
and recondite are the questions in face of which the march of Homology is
now irresistibly conducting the philosophic observer;— such, for instance, as
the following: Are the nervous, muscular, digestive, circulating, and gener-

Wy,
v

MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 27
ative systems of organs more than functionally similar in any two primary
provinces of the animal kingdom? Are the homologies of entire systems to
be judged of by their functional and structural connections, rather than by
the plan and course of their formation in the embryo? It may be doubted
if embryology alone is decisive of the question, whether homology can be
predicated of the alimentary canal in animals of different primary groups or
provinces. It is significant, however, of the lower value of embryological
characters, to note that the great leading divisions of the animal kingdom,
based by Cuvier on Comparative Anatomy, have nearly been confirmed by
Von Baer’s later developmental researches. And so, likewise, with regard
to some of the minor modifications of Cuvier’s provinces, the true position
of the Cirripeda was discerned by Straus Durkheim and Macleay, by the
light, anatomy, before the discovery of their metamorphoses by Thomson.
If, However, embryology has been over-valued as a test of homology, the
study of the development of animals has brought to light most singular and
interesting facts, and I now allude more especially to those that have been
summed up under the term “ Alternate-generation,”’ ‘ Parthenogenesis,”
“Metagenesis,”’ ete. John Hunter first enunciated the general proposition,
that “‘the propagation of plants depended on two principles, the one that
every part of a vegetable is ‘a whole,’ so that it is capable of being multi-
plied as far as it can be divided into distinct parts; the other, that certain of
those parts become reproductive organs, and produce fertile seeds.””. Hunter
also remarked, that “the first principle operated in many animals which
propagate their species by buds or cuttings; ” but that, whilst in animals, it
prevailed only in “the more imperfect orders,” it operated in vegetables
“of every degree of perfection.” The experiments of Trembly on the
freshwater polype, those of Spalanzani on the Naiads, and those of Bonnet
on the Aphides, had brought to light the phenomena of propagation by fis-
sion, and by gemmation or buds, external and internal, in animals to which
Hunter refers. Subsequent research has shown the unexpected extent to
which Hunter’s first principle of propagation in organic being prevails in
the animal division. But the earliest formal supercession of Harvey’s
axiom, ‘‘ omne vivum ab ovo,” appears to be Hunter’s proposition of the dual
principle above quoted. The experiments of Redi, Malpighi, and others, had
progressively contracted the field to which the “ generatio wguivoca,’ could
with any plausibility be applied. The stronghold of the remaining advo-
cates of that old Egyptian doctrine was the fact of the development of para-
sitic animals in the flesh, brain, and glands of higher animals. But the
hypothesis never obtained currency in this country; it was publicly opposed
in my ‘‘ Hunterian Lectures,” by the fact of the prodigious preparation of
fertile eggs in many of the supposed spontaneously developed species; and
in then suggesting that the Trichina spiralis of the human muscular tissue
might be the embryo of a larger worm in course of migration, I urged that
a particular investigation was needed for each particular species.

Among the most brilliant of recent acquisitions to this part of Physiology,
have been the discoveries which have resulted from such special investiga-
tions. Kuchenmeister and Von Siebold have been the chief laborers in this
field. After noticing some of the results of those labors, he said: Since
the time when it was first discovered that plants and animals could propa-
gate in twa ways, and that the individual developed from the bud might
produce a seed or egg, from which also an individual might spring capable
of again budding, — since this alternating mode of generation was observed,

28 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

as by Chamisso and Sars, in cases where the budding individual differed
much in form from the egg-laying one, — the subject has been systematized,
eeneralized, with an attempt to explain its principle, and greatly advanced,
especially, and in a highly interesting manner, in Von Siebold’s late treatise,
entitled “‘ Wahre Parthenogenesis bei Schmeterlingen und Bienen,” in which
the virgin production of the male or drone-bee is demonstrated. Von Sie-
bold, having subjected to the closest microscopic scrutiny and experiment
the conclusion to which the practical Bee-master, Dzierson, had arrived, rel-
ative to the cause of queen-bees with crippled wings producing a swarm ex-
clusively of drones, has demonstrated that the male bee is produced from
an egg which has been subjected to no influence save that of the maternal
parent; whilst such egg, if impregnated, would have produced a female or
worker bee. The now well-investigated phenomena of parthenogenesis in
Hydrozoa, have resulted in showing, as in the analogous case of Entozoa,
that animals differing so much in form as to have constituted two distinct
orders or classes, are really but two terms of a cycle of metagenetic trans-
formations, — the acalephan Medusa being the sexual locomotive form of
the agamic rooted budding polype, just as the cestoid tenia is of the cystic
hydatid. In Hydrozoa (hydroid polypes, or sertularians) the young are pro-
pagated, as in plants, by “‘ buds,” and also, as in most plants, by “ germs”
or “‘seeds:”’ these latter are contained in ‘‘ germ-sacs” projecting from the
outer surface, which is another analogy to the flowering parts of plants.
The first acquaintance with these marvels excited the hope that we were
about to penetrate the mystery of the origin of different species of animals;
but as far as observation has yet extended, the cycle of changes is definitely
closed. And, since one essential step in the series is the fertilized seeds or
egg, the Harveian axiom, “omne vivwm ab ovo,’ if metagenetic phases be
ascribed to one individual, may be still predicated of all organisms which
bear unmistakable characters of plants or of animals. The closest obser-
vations of the subjects of these two kingdoms most favorable to clear in-
sight into the nature of their beginning, accumulate evidence in proof of
the essential first step being due to the protoplasmic matter of a germ-cell
and sperm-cell; the former preexisting in the form of a nucleus or protoplast,
the latter as a granulous fluid. In flowering plants it is conveyed by the
pollen-tube, in animals and many flowerless plants, by locomotive spermato-.
zoids. The changes of form which the representative of a species undergoes
in successive agamically propagating individuals are termed the ‘‘ metagen-
esis ” of such species. The changes of form which the representative of a
species undergoes in a single individual, is called the “‘ metamorphosis.”
But this term has practically been restricted to the instances in which the
individual, during certain phases of the change, is free and active, as in the
erub of the chaffer, or the tadpole of the frog, for example. In reference
to some supposed essential differences in the metamorphoses of insects, it
had been suggested that stages answering to those represented by the apodal
and acephalous maggot of the Diptera, by the hexapod larva of the Carabi,
and by the hexapod antenniferous larva of the Meloe, were really passed
through by the orthopterous insect, before it quitted the egg. Mr. Andrew
Murray has recently made known some facts in confirmation of this view.
He had received a wooden idol from Africa, behind the ears of which a
Blatta had fixed its egg-cases, after which the whole figure had been rudely
painted by the natives, and these egg-cases were covered by the paint. No
insect could have emerged without breaking through the case and the paint;

MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 29

but both were uninjured. In the egg-cases were discovered, —1st, a grub-
like larva in the egg; 2d, a cocoon in the egg containing the unwinged,
imperfectly-developed insect; 3d, the unwinged, imperfectly-developed in-
sect in the egg, free from the cocoon, and ready to emerge.

The microscope is an indispensable instrament in embryological and
histological researches, as aiso in reference to that vast swarm of animal-
cules which are too minute for ordinary vision. I can here do little more
than allude to the systematic direction now given to the application of the
microscope to particular tissues and particular classes, chiefly duc, in this
country, to the counsels and example of the Microscopical Society of Lon-
don. <A very interesting application of the microscope has been made to
the particles of matter suspended in the atmosphere; and a systematic
continuation of such observations by means of glass slides prepared to catch
and retain atmospheric atoms, promises to be productive of important
results. We now know that the so-called red-snow of Arctic and Alpine
regions is a microscopic single-celled organism which vegetates on the
surface of snow. Cloudy or misty extents of dust-like matter pervading
the atmosphere, such as have attracted the attention of travellers in the vast
coniferous forests of North America, and have been borne out to sca, have
been found to consist of the “pollen” or fertilizing particles of piants, and
have been called “ pollen showers.”” M. Daneste, submitting to microscopic
examination similar dust which fell from a cloud at Shanghai, found that it
consisted of spores of a confervoid plant, probably Trichodesmium erythreum,
which vegetates in, and imparts its peculiar color to, the Chinese Sea.
Decks of ships, near the Cape de Verde Islands, have been covered by such
so-called “showers” of impalpable dust, which, by the microscope of Ehren-
berg, has been shown to consist of minute organisms, chiefly “‘ Diatomacex.’’
One sample collected on a ship’s deck 500 miles off the coast of Africa,
exhibited numerous species of fresh water and marine diatoms, bearing a
close resemblance to South American forms of these organisms. Ehrenberg
has recorded numerous other instances in his paper printed in the “ Berlin
Transactions”’; but here, as in other exemplary series of observations of
the indefatigable microscopist, the conclusions are perhaps not so satisfac-
tory as the well-observed data. He speculates upon the self-developing
power of organisms in the atmosphere, affirms that dust-showers are not to
be traced to mineral material from the earth’s surface, nor to revolving
masses of dust material in space, nor to atmospheric currents simply ; but to
some general law connected with the atmosphere of our planet, according
to which there is a “self-development” within it of living organisms,
which organisms he suspects may have some relation to the periodical
meteorolites or aérolites. The advocates of progressive development may
see and hail in this the first step in the series of ascending transmutations.
The unbiased observer will be stimulated by the startling hypothesis of the
celebrated Berlin professor to more frequent and regular examinations of
atmospheric organisms. Some late examinations of dust-showers clearly
show them to have a source which Ehrenberg has denied. Some of my
hearers may remember the graphic description by Her Majesty’s Envoy to
Persia, the Hon. C. A. Murray, of the cloud of impalpable red dust which
darkened the air of Bagdad, and filled the city with a panic. The specimen
he collected was examined by my successor, at the Royal College of
Surgeons,gProfessor Quekett, and that experienced microscopist could
detect only inorganic particles, such as fine quartz sand, without any trace

2%
5)

30 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

of Diatomaceze or other organic matter. Dr. Lawson has obtained a similar
result from the examination of the material of a shower of moist dust or
mud which fell at Corfu, in March, 1857; it consisted for the most part of
minute angular particles of a quartzose sand. Here, therefore, is a field of
observation for the microscopist, which has doubtless most interesting
results as the reward of persevering research.

Observations of the characters of plants have led to the recognition of the
natural groups or families of the vegetable kingdom, and to a clear scientific
comprehension of that great kingdom of nature. This phase of botanical
science gives the power of further and more profitable generalizations, such
as those teaching the relations between the pa:ticular plants and particular
localities. The sum of these relations, forming the geographical distributions
of plants, rests, perhaps at present necessarily, on an assumption, viz., that
each species has been created, or come into being, but once in time and space;
and that its present diffusion is the result of its own law of reproduction,
under the diffusive or restrictive influence of external circumstances. These
circumstances are chiefly temperature and moisture, dependent on the dis-
tance from the source of heat and the obliquity of the sun’s rays, modified
Ly altitude above the sea-level, or the degree of rarefaction of the atmosphere
aud of the power of the surface to wastefully radiate heat. Both latitude
and altitude are further modified by currents of air and ocean, which influ-
ence the distribution of the heat they have absorbed. Thus large tracts of
dry land produce dry and extreme climates, while large expanses of sea pro-
duce humid and equable climates. Agriculture affects the geographical dis-
tribution of plants, both directly and indirectly. It diffuses plants over a
wider area of equal climate, augments their productiveness, and enlarges the
limits of their capacity to support different climatal conditions. Agriculture
also effects local modifications of climate. Certain species of plants require
more special physical conditions for health; others more general conditions ;
and their extent of diffusion varies accordingly. Thus the plants of temperate
climates are more widely diffused over the surface of the globe, because they
are suited to elevated tracts in tropical latitudes. There is, however, another
law which relates to the original appearance, or creation, of plants, and which
has produced different species flourishing under similar physical conditions,
in different regions of the globe. Thus the plants of the mountains of South
America are of distinct species, and for the most part of distinct genera, from
those of Asia. The plants of the temperate latitudes of North America are
of distinct species, and some of distinct genera, from those of Europe. The
Cactez of the hot regions of Mexico are represented by the Euphorbiacez in
parts of Africa having a similar climate. The surface of the earth has been
divided into twenty-five regions, of which I may cite as examples that of New
Zealand, in which Ferns predominate, together with generic forms, half of
which are European, and the rest approximating to Australian, South African,
and Antarctic forms; and that of Australia, characterized by its Eucalypti
and Epacrides, chiefly known to us by the researches of the great botanist,

tobert Brown, the founder of the Geography of Plants.

Organic Life, in its animal form, is much more developed, and more
variously, in the sea, than in its vegetable form. Observations of marine
animals and their localities have led to attempts at generalizing the results;
and the modes of enunciating these generalizations or laws of geographical
distribution are very analogous to those which have been applied to the veg-
etable kingdom, which is as diversely developed on land as in the animal

MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. a

kingdom in the sea. The most interesting form of expression of the distri-
bution of marine lifeis that which parallels the perpendicular distribution of
plants. Edward Forbes has expressed this by defining five bathymetrical
zones, or belts of depth, which he calls, —1, Littoral; 2, Cireumlittoral; 3,
Median; 4, Infra-median; 5, Abyssal. The life-forms of these zones vary,
of course, according to the nature of the sea-bottom; and are modified by
those primitive or creative laws that have caused representative species in
distant localities under like physical conditions, — species related by analogy,
Very much remains to be observed and studied by naturalists in different
parts of the globe, under the guidance of the generalizations thus sketched
out, to the completion of a perfect theory. But in the progress to this, the
results cannot fail to be practically most valuable. A shell or a sea-weed,
whose relations to depth are thus understood, may afford important informa-
tion or warning to the navigator. To the geologist the distribution of marine
life according to the zones of depth, has given the clue to the determination
of the depth of the seas in which certain formations have been deposited.
Had all the terrestrial animals that now exist diverged from one common
centre within the limited period of a few thousand years, it might have been
expected that the remoteness of their actual localities from such ideal centre
would bear a certain ratio with their respective powers of locomotion. With
regard to the class of Birds, one might have expected to find that those which
were deprived of the power of flight, and were adapted to subsist on the
vegetation of a warm or temperate latitude, would still be met with more or
less associated together, and least distant from the original centre of disper-
sion, situated in sucha latitude. This, however, is not only not the case with
birds, but is not so with any other classes of animals. The Quadrumana, or
order of apes, monkeys, and lemur, consists of three chief divisions — Catar-
hines, Platyrhines, and Strepsirhines. The first family is peculiar to the
“Old World ’”’; the second to South America; the third has the majority of
its species and its chief genus (Lemur), exclusively in Madagascar. Out of
twenty-six known species of Lemuridz, only six are Asiatic, and three are
African. Whilst adverting to the geographical distribution of Quadrumana,
I would contrast the peculiarly limited range of the orangs and chimpanzees
with the cosmopolitan powers of mankind. The two species of orang (Pith-
ecus) are confined to Borneo and Sumatra; the two species of chimpanzee
(Troglodytes) are limited to an intertropical tract of the western part of Africa.
They appear to be inexorably bound by climatal influences regulating the
assemblage of certain trees and the production of certain fruits. Climate
rigidly limits the range of the Quadrumana latitudinally; creational and
geographical causes limit their range in longitude. Distinct genera represent
each other in the same latitudes of the New and Old Worlds; and also, ina
great degree, in Africa and Asia. But the development of an orang out of a
chimpanzee, or reciprocally, is physiologically inconceivable. The order of
Ruminantia is principally represented by Old World species, of which
one hundred and sixty-two have been defined; whilst only twenty-four
species have been discovered in the New World, and none in Australia, New
Guinea, New Zealand, or the Polynesian Isles. The camelopard is now
peculiar to Africa; the musk-deer to Africa and Asia; out of about fifty
defined species of antelope, only one is known in America, and none in the
central and southern divisions of the New World. Palzontology has

xpanded our knowledge of the range of the giraffe; during Miocene or old
Pliocene periods, species of Camelopardalis roamed in Asia and Europe.

oD ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

Geology gives a wider range to the horse and elephant kinds than was cog-
nizant to the student of living species only. The existing Equide and Ele-
phantids properly belong, or are limited to, the Old World; and the
elephants to Asia and Africa,— the species of the two continents being quite
distinct. The horse, as Buffon remarked, carried terror to the eye of the
indigenous Americans, viewing the animal for the first time, as it proudly
bore their Spanish conqueror. But a species of Equus, coexisted with the
Megatherium and Megalonyx, in both South and North America, and per-
ished apparently with them, before the human period. Elephants are
dependent chiefly upon trees for food. One species now finds conditions of
existence in the rich forests of tropical Asia; and a second species in those
of tropical Africa. Why, we may ask, should not a third be living at the
expense of the still more luxuriant vegetation watered by the Oronooko, the
Essequibo, the Amazon, and the La Plata, in tropical America? Geology tells
us that at least two kinds of elephant ( Mastodon Andium and M. Humboldtii )
formerly did derive their subsistence, along with the great Megathcrioid
beasts, from that abundant source. We may infer that the general growth
of large forests, and the absence of deadly enemies, were the main conditions
of the former existence of elephantine animals over every part of the globe.
We have the most pregnant proof of the importance of Palzontology in
rectifying and expanding ideas deduced from recent Zoology of the geograph-
ical limits of particular forms of animals, by the results of its application to
the proboscidian or elephantine family. But such retrospective views of life
in remote periods, in many important instances, confirm the Zoologist’s
deductions of the originally restricted range of particular forms of mamma-
lian life. The sum of all the evidence from the fossil world in Australie
proves its mammalian population to have been essentially the same in pleis-
tocene, if not pliocene times, as now; only represented, as the Edentate
mammals in South America were then represented, by more numerous gen-
era, and much more gigantic species, than now exist. But Geology has
revealed more important and unexpected facts relative to the marsupial type
of quadrupeds. In the miocene and eocene tertiary deposits, marsupial fos-
sils of the American genus Didelphys have been found, both in France and
England; and they are associated with Tapirs like that of America. Ina
more ancient geological period remains of marsupials, some insectivorous, as
Spalacotherium and Triconodon, others with teeth like the peculiar premo-
lars in the Australian genus Hypsipromnus, have been found in the upper
oolite of the Isleof Purbeck. In the lower oolite at Stonesfield, Oxfordshire,
marsupial remains have been found having their nearest living representa-
tives in the Australian genera Myrmecobius and Dasyurus. Thus it would
seem, that the deeper we penetrate the earth, or, in other words, the further
we recede in time, the more completely are we absolved from the present
laws of geographical distribution. In comparing the mammalian fossils
found in British pleistocene and pliocene beds, we have often to travel to Asia
or Africa for their homologues. In the miocene and eocene strata some
fossils occur which compel us to go to America for the nearest representa-
tives. Tomatch the mammalian remains from the English oolitic formations,
we must bring species from the Antipodes. These are truly most suggestive
facts. If the present laws of geographical distribution depend, in an impor-
tant degree, upon the present configuration and position of continents and
islands, what a total change in the geographical character of the earth’s sur-
face must have taken place since the “Stonesfield slate’’ was deposited in

MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 33
what now forms the county of Oxfordshire! These and the like considera-
tions from the modifications of geographical distribution of particular forms
or groups of animals, warn us how inadequate must be the phenomena con-
nected with the present distribution of land and sea to guide to the deter-
mination of the primary ontological divisions of the earth’s surface. Some
of the latest contributions to this most interesting branch of natural history
have been the result of endeavors to determine whether, and how many, dis-
tinct creations of plants and animals have taken place. But I would submit,
that the discovery of two portions of the globe, of which the respective
Faun and Flore are different, by no means affords the requisite basis for
concluding as to distinct acts of creation. Such conclusion is associated,
perhaps, unconsciously, with the idea of the historical date of creative acts:
it presupposes that the portion of the globe so investigated by the botanist
and zoologist has been a separate and primitive creation, — that its geograph-
ical limits and features are still in the main what they were when the creative
fiat went forth. But Geology has demonstrated that such is by no means the
case with respect to the portionsof dry land now termed continents and
islands. The incalculable vistas of time past into which the same science
has thrown light, are also shown to have periods during which the relative
position of land and sea have been ever changing.

Already the directions, and to a certain extent the forms, of the submerged
tracts that once joined what now are islands to continents, and which once
united now separate or nearly disjoined continents by broad tracts of
continuity, begin to be laid down in geological maps, addressing to the eye
such successive and gradually progressive alterations of the earth’s surface.
These phenomena shake our confidence in the conclusion that the Apteryx
of New Zealand and the Red-grouse of England were distinct creations in
and for those islands respectively. Always, also, it may be well to bear in
mind that by the word “ creation ”’ the zoologist means “ a process, he knows
not what.” Science has not yet ascertained the secondary causes that
operated when “‘ the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after
his kind,” and when “the waters brought forth abundantly the moving
creature that hath life.”” And supposing both the fact and the whole process
of the so-called “‘spontaneous generation” of a fruit-bearing tree, or of a
fish, were scientifically demonstrated, we should still retain as strongly the
idea which is the chief of the “mode” or “ group of ideas” we call
* ereation,” viz., that the process was ordained by and had originated from
an all-wise and powerful First Cause of all things. When, therefore, the
present peculiar relation of the Red-grouse (7Z¢trao scoticus) to Britain and
Ireland— and I cite it as one of a large class of instances in Geographical
Zoology —is enumerated by the zodlogist as evidence of a distinct creation
of the bird in and for such islands, he chiefly expresses that he knows not
how the Red-grouse came to be there and there exclusively; signifying also
by this mode of expressing such ignorance, his belief that both the bird and
the islands owed their origin to a great first Creative Cause. And this
analysis of the real meaning of the phrase “ distinct creation,” has led me to
suggest whether, in aiming to define the primary zoological provinces of the
globe, we may not be trenching upon a province of knowledge beyond our
present capacities; at least, in the judgment of Lord Bacon, commenting
upon man’s efforts to pierce into the “ dead beginnings of things.”

On the few occasions in which I have been led to offer observations on
the probable cause of the extinction of species, the chief weight has been

ot ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

given to those gradual changes in the conditions of a country affecting the
due supply of sustenance to animals in a state of nature. I have also
pointed out the characters in the animals themselves calculated to render
them most obnoxious to such extirpating influences: and on one occasion I
have applied the remarks to the explanation of so many of the larger species
of particular groups of animals having become extinct, whilst smaller
species of equal antiquity have remained. In proportion to its bulk is the
difficulty of the contest, which, as a living organized whole, the individual
of such species has to maintain against the surrounding agencies that are
ever tending to dissolve the vital bond and subjugate the living matter to
the ordinary chemical and physical forces. Any changes, therefore, in such
external agencies as a species may have been originally adapted to exist in,
will militate against that existence in a degree proportionate, perhaps in a
geometrical ratio, to the bulk of the species. If a dry season be gradually
prolonged, the large mammal will suffer from the drought sooner than the
small one; if such alteration of climate affect the quantity of vegetable
food, the bulky herbivore will first feel the effects of stinted nourishment;
if new enemies are introduced, the large and conspicuous quadruped or bird
will fall a prey, while the smaller species conceal themselves and escape.
Smaller animals are usually also more prolific than larger ones. ‘The
actual presence, therefore, of small species of animals in countries where
larger species of the same natural families formerly existed, is not the con-
sequence of any gradual diminution of the size of such species, but is the
result of circumstances which may be illustrated by the fable of the ‘Oak
and the Reed;’ the smaller and feebler animals have bent and accommo-
dated themselves to changes which have destroyed the larger species.”
No doubt the type-form of any species is that which is best adapted to the
conditions under which such species at the time exists; and as long as those
conditions remain unchanged, so long will the type remain; all varieties
departing therefrom being in the same ratio less adapted to the environing
conditions of existence. But, if those conditions change, then the variety
of the species at an antecedent date and state of things will become the
type-form of the species at a later date, and in an altered state of things.
Observation of animals in a state of nature is required to show their degree
of plasticity, or the extent to which varieties do arise, whereby grounds may
be had for judging of the probability of the elastic ligaments and joint-
structures of a feline foot, for example, being superinduced upon the more
simple structure of the toe with the non-retractile claw, according to the
principle of a succession of varieties in time. Observation of fossil remains
is also still needed to make known the antetypes, in which varieties, analo-
gous to the observed ones in existing species, might have occurred, so as to
give rise ultimately to such extreme forms as the Giraffe, for example.
The aboriginal laws of the geographical distribution of plants and animals
have been modified from of old by geological and the concomitant climatal
changes; but they have been much more disturbed by man since his intro-
duction upon the globe. The serviceable plants and animals which he has
carried with him in his migrations have flourished and multiplied in lands
the most remote from the habitats of the aboriginal species. Man has, also,
been the most potent and intelligible cause of the extirpation of specics
within historic times. He alone, with one of the beasts which he has
domesticated —the dog —is cosmopolitan. The human species is repre-
sented by a few well-marked varictics; and there is a certain amount of cor-

MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 39

respondence between their localities and general zodlogical provinces. But,-
with regard to the alleged conformity between the geographical distribution
of man and animals, which has of late been systematically enunciated, and
made by Agassiz, in Gliddon & Nott’s “ Varieties of Mankind,” the basis of
deductions as to the origin and distinction of the human varieties, many
facts might be cited, affecting the conformity of the distribution of man
with that of the lower animals and plants, as absolutely enunciated in some
recent works. Nor can we be surprised to find that the migratory instincts
of the human species, with the peculiar endowment of adaptiveness to all
climates, should have produced modifications in geographical distribution
to which the lower forms of living nature have not been subject. Ethnology
is a wide and fertile subject, and I should be led far beyond the limits of an
inaugural discourse were I to indulge in an historical sketch of its progress.
‘But I may advert to the testimony of different witnesses — to the concurrence
of distinct species of evidence—as to the much higher antiquity of the
human race, than has been assigned to it in historical and genealogical
records.

Mr. Leonard Horner discerned the value of the phenomena of the annual
sedimentary deposits of the Nile in Egypt as a test of the lapse of time dur-
ing which that most recent and still operating geological dynamid had been
in progress. In two Memoirs communicated to the Royal Society in 1855
and 1858, the result of ninety-five vertical borings through the alluvium thus
formed are recorded. In the excavations near the colossus of Rameses IL.,
at Memphis, there were nine feet four inches of Nile sediment between eight
inches below the present surface of the ground and the lowest part of the
platform on which the statue had stood. Supposing the platform to have
been laid in the middle of the reign of that king, viz., 1361 B. c., such date
added to A. D. 1854, gives 3,215 years during which the above sediment was
accumulated; or a mean rate of increase of three and a half inches in a cen-
tury. Below the platform there were thirty-two feet of the total depth pene-
trated; but the lowest two feet consisted of sand, below which it is possible
there may be no true Nile sediment in this locality, thus leaving thirty feet
of the latter. If that amount has been deposited at the same rate of three
and a half inches in a century, it gives for the lowest part deposited an age
of 10,285 years before the middle of the reign of Rameses II., and 13,500
years before A. D. 1854. The Nile sediment at the lowest depth reached is
very similar in composition to that of the present day. In the lowest part
of the boring of the sediment at the colossal statue in Memphis, at a depth
of thirty-nine feet from the surface of the ground, the instrument is reported
to have brought up a piece of pottery. This, therefore, Mr. Horner infers
to be a record of the existence of man 13,371 years before A. p. 1854: — ‘‘ Of
man moreover, in a state of civilization, so far, at least, as to be able to fash-
ion clay into vessels, and to know how to harden them by the action of a
strong heat.” Professor Max Miiller has opened out a similar vista into the
remote past of the history of the human race by the perception and applica-
tion of analogies in the formation of modern and ancient, of living and dead,
languages. From the relations traceable between the six Romance dialects,—
Italian, Wallachian, Rhetian, Spanish, Portuguese, and French,— an antece-
dent common “mother-tongue”’ might be inferred, and, consequently the
existence of a race anterior to the modern Italians, Spanish, French, ete.,
with conclusions as to the lapse of time requisite for such divisions and mi-
grations of the primitive stock, and for the modifications which the mother-

[3]

36 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

language had undergone. History and preserved writings show that such
common mother-race and language have existed in the Roman people and
the Latin tongue. But Latin, like the equally ‘‘ dead” language Greek, with
Sanscrit, Lithuanian, Zend, and the Gothic, Sclavonic, and Celtic tongues,
can be similarly shown to be modifications of one antecedent common lan-
guage; whence is to be inferred an antecedent race of men, and a lapse of
time sufficient for their migration over a tract extending from Iceland in the
north-west to India in the south-east, and for all the above named modi-
fications to have been established in the common mother “ Arian” tongue.

Agriculture has of late years made unusual progress, and much of that
progress is due to the application of scientific principles; chiefly of those
supplied by Chemistry; in a less degree of Zoology and Physiology. Ge-
ology now teaches the precise nature and relations of soils: a knowledge of
great practical importance in guiding the drainer of land, in the modifica-
tions of his general rules of practice. Palzontology has brought to light un-
expected sources of valuable manures, in phosphatic relics of ancient animal
life, accumulated in astounding masses in certain localities of England. But
quantities of azotic, ammoniacal, and phosphatic matters are still suffered
to run to waste; and, as if to bring the wastefulness more home to the con-
viction, those products, so valuable when rightly administered, become a
source of annoyance, unremunerative outlay and disease, when, as at present
in most towns, imperfectly and irrationally disposed of.

In the operations of Nature, there is generally a succession of processes
coordinated for a given result; a peach is not directly developed as such
from its elements; the seed would, @ priort, give no idea of the tree, nor the
tree of the flower, nor the fertilized germ of that flower of the pulpy fruit
in which the seed was buried. It is eminently characteristic of the Creative
Wisdom, this far-seeing and prevision of an ultimate result, through the
successive operations of a coordinate series of seemingly very different con-
ditions. The further a man discerns, in a series of conditions, their co-
ordination to produce a given result, the nearer does his wisdom approach
—though the distance be still immeasurable — to the Divine wisdom. One
philanthropist builds a fever hospital, another drains a town. One crime-
preventer trains the boy, another hangs the man. One statesman would
raise money by augmenting a duty, or by a direct tax, and finds the revenue
not increased in the expected ratio. Another diminishes a tax, or abolishes
a duty, and through foreseen consequences the revenue is improved. Water
is the cheapest and most efficient transporter of excreta; but it should be
remembered that the application of the water-supply as a transporting power
is to be limited to all that comes from the interior of the abodes; this alone
can be practically and successfully applied to agriculture. Whatever flows
from the outside of houses, together with the general rainfall of the town
area, should go to the nearest river by channels wholly distinct from the
hydraulic excretory system. Agriculture, let me repeat, has made, and is
making, great and encouraging progress; but much yet remains to be done.
Were agriculture adequately advanced, the great problem of the London
sewage would be speedily solved. Can it be supposed, if the rural districts
about the metropolis were in a condition to avail themselves of a daily sup-
ply of the pipe-water not more than equivalent to that which a heavy shower
of rain throws down on 2,000 acres of land, but a supply charged with thirty
tons of nitrogenous ammoniacal principles, that such supply would not be
forthcoming, and made capable of being distributed when called for within

~

MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 37

a radius of one hundred miles? To send ships for foreign ammoniacal or
phosphatic excreta to the coast of Peru, and to pollute by the waste of sim-
ilar home products the noble river bisecting the metropolis, are flagrant
signs of the desert and uncultivated state of a field where science and prac-
tice have still to cooperate for the public benefit.

Some of our sciences are deeply concerned in one progressive step — the
uniformity of standard in measure and weight throughout the civilized
world; in urging on which step, energetic and unwearied efforts are now be-
ing made by a committee of our fellow-laborers of the Royal Society of Arts,
amongst whom the name of the prime promoter of this and kindred reforms,
Mr. James Yates, deserves special and honorable mention. Chemistry is
more concerned in the uniform expression of the results of her delicate bal-
ances amongst her cultivators of different countries; Natural History is no
less interested in the use, by all observers, of one and the same scale for
measuring, and of one set oi terms for expressing the superficial dimensions
of her subjects.

But not by words only would, or does, science make return to govern-
ments fostering and aiding her endeavors for the public weal. Every prac-
tical application of her discoveries tends to the same end as that which the
enlightened statesman has in view. The steam-engine in its manifold ap-
plications, the crime-decreasing gas-lamp, the lightning conductor, the elec-
tric telegraph, the law of storms, and rules for the mariner’s guidance in
them, the power of rendering surgical operations painless, the measures for
preserving public health, and for preventing or mitigating epidemics, — such
are among the more important practical results of pure scientific research
with which mankind have been blessed and States enriched. They are evi-
dence unmistakable of the close affinity between the aims and tendencies
of science and those of true State policy. In proportion to the activity, pro-
ductivity, and prosperity of a community is its power of responding to the
calls of the Finance Minister. By a far-seeing one, the man of science will
be regarded with a favorable eye, not less for the unlooked-for streams of
wealth that have already flowed, but for those that may in future arise, out
of the applications of the abstract truths to the discovery of which he devotes
himself. This may, indeed, demand some measure of faith on the part of
the practical statesman. For who that watched the philosophic Black ex-
perimenting on the abstract nature of Caloric could have foreseen that his
discovery of latent heat would be the stand-point of Watt’s invention of a
practically operative steam-engine! How little could the observer of Oer-
sted’s subtle arrangements for converting electric into magnetic force have
dreamt of the application of such discovery to the rapid interchange of ideas
now daily practised between individuals in distant cities, countries, and con-
tinents! Some medical contemporaries of John Hunter, when they saw
him, as they thought, wasting as much time in studying the growth of a
deer’s horn as they would have bestowed upon the symptoms of their best
patient, compassionated, it is said, the singularity of his pursuits. But, by
the insight so gained into the rapid enlargement of arteries, Hunter learned
a property of those vessels which emboldened him to experiment on a man
with aneurism, and so to introduce a new operation which has rescued from
a lingering and painful death thousands of his fellow-creatures. Our great
inductive physiologist, in his dissections and experiments on the lower ani-
mals, was “‘taking light what may be wrought upon the body of man.”
‘The production of Chioroform is amongst the more subtle experimental resulls

4

38 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

of modern Chemistry. The blessed effects of its proper exhibition in the
diminution of the sum of human agony are indescribable. But that divine-
like application was not present to the mind of the scientific chemist who
discovered the anesthetic product, any more than was the gas-lit town to
the mind of Priestley, or the condensing engine to that of Black.

ADDRESS OF LORD BROUGHAM AT THE INAUGURATION OF A
STATUE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON.

The following cloquent and suggestive address was delivered by Lord
Brougham, September 21, 1858, on the occasion of inaugurating a statue to
Sir Isaac Newton, at Grantham,—the great philosopher’s birthplace. Al-
though somewhat forcign to the general subject-matter of the Annual, we
think its publication will be most acceptable to our readers. Rising from a
venerable arm-chair, in which Newton sat when he composed the Principia,
the learned Ex-Chancellor spoke as follows:

To record the names and preserve the memory of those whose great
achievements in science, in arts, or in arms, have conferred benefits and
lustre upon our kind, has, in all ages, been regarded as a duty, and felt as a
gratification, by wise and reflecting men. The desire of inspiring an ambi-
tion to emulate such examples, generally mingles itself with these senti-
ments; but they cease not to operate, even in the rare instances of transcend-
ent merit, where matchless genius excludes all possibility of imitation, and
nothing remains but wonder in those who contemplate its triumphs at a dis-
tance that forbids all attempts to approach. We are this day assembled to
commemorate him of whom the consent of nations has declared that he is
chargeable with nothing like a follower’s exaggeration or local partiality ;
who pronounce the name of Newton as that of the greatest genius ever
bestowed by the bounty of Providence for instructing mankind on the frame
of the universe, and the laws by which it is governed:

In genius who surpassed mankind as far
As does the midday sun the midnight star.”"—DRYDEN.

But, though scaling these lofty heights be hopeless, yet is there some use
and much gratification in contemplating by what steps he ascended. Trac-
ing his course of action may help others to gain the lower eminences lying
within their reach, while admiration excited and curiosity satisfied are frames
of mind both wholesome and pleasing. Nothing new, it is true, can be given
in narrative, hardly anything in reflection, less still, perhaps, in comment or
illustration; but it is well to assemble in one view various parts of the vast
subject, with the surrounding circumstances, whether accidental or intrinsic,
and to mark in passing the misconceptions raised by individual ignorance or
national prejudice which the historian of science occasionally finds crossing
his path. The remark is common and is obvious, that the genius of Newton
did not manifest itself at a very early age. His faculties were not, like those
of some great and many ordinary individuals, precociously developed.
Among the former, Clairaut stands preéminent, who at nineteen years of
age presented to the Royal Academy a memoir of great originality upon a
difficult subject in the higher geometry, and at eighteen published his great
work on curves of double curvature, composed during the two preceding
years. Pascal, too, at sixteen, wrote an excellent treatise on conic sections.

oO

MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. oo

That Newton cannot be ranked in this respect with those extraordinary per-
sons is owing to the accidents which prevented him from entering upon
mathematical study before his eighteenth year; and then a much greater
marvel was wrought than even the Clairants and the Pascals displayed.
His earliest history is involved in some obscurity, and the most celebrated
of men has, in this particular, been compared to the most celebrated of
rivers (the Nile), as if the course of both in its feebler state had been con-
cealed from mortal eyes. We have it, however, well ascertained, that within
four years, between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two, he had begun to
study mathematical science, and had taken his place among its greatest mas-
ters; learnt for the first time the elements of geometry and analysis, and
discovered a calculus which entirely changed the face of the science, effect-
ing a complete revolution in that and in every branch of philosophy con-
nected with it. Before 1661, he had not read “ Euclid;”’ in 1665, he had
committed to writing the method of fluxions. At twenty-five years of age,
he had discovered the law of gravitation, and laid the foundation of celestial
dynamics,— the science created by him. Before ten years had elapsed, he
added to his discoveries that of the fundamental properties of light. So
brilliant a course of discovery in so short a time, changing and reconstruct-
ing analytical, astronomical, and optical science, almost defies belief. The
statement could only be deemed possible by an appeal to the incontestable
evidence that proves it strictly true. By arare felicity these doctrines gained
the universal assent of mankind as soon as they were clearly understood ;
and their originality has never been seriously called in question. Some
doubts having been raised respecting his inventing the calculus — doubts
raised in consequence of his so long withholding the publication of his
method —no sooner was the inquiry instituted than the evidence produced
proved so decisive that all men in all countries acknowledged him to have
been, by several years, the earliest inventor, and Leibnitz, at the utmost, the
first publisher; the only questions raised being, first, whether or not he had
borrowed from Newton; and next, whether, as second inventor, he could
have any merit at all,— both which questions have long since been decided
in favor of Leibnitz. But undeniable though it be that Newton made the
great steps of this progress, and made them without any anticipation or
participation by others, it is equally certain that there had been approaches
in former times by preceding philosophers to the same discoveries. Caval-
leri, by his Geometry of Indivisibles (1635), Roberval, by his method of
Tangents (1367), had both given solutions which Descartes could not
attempt; and it is remarkable that Cavalleri regarded curves as polygons,
surfaces as composed of lines, while Roberval viewed geometrical quantities
as generated by motion; so that the one approached to the differential calcu-
lus, the other to fluxions; and Fermat, in the interval between them, comes
still nearer the great discovery by his determination of maxima and minima,
and his drawing of tangents. More recently Hudden had made public simi-
lar methods invented by Schoetin; and what is material, treating the sub-
ject algebraically, while those just now mentioned had rather dealt with it
geometrically. It is thus easy to perceive how near an approach had been
made to the calculus before the great event of its final discovery. There
had in like manner been approaches made to the law of gravitation, and the
dynamical system of the universe. Galileo’s important propositions on
motion, especially on curvilinear motion, and Kepler’s laws upon the ellipti-
cal form of the planetary orbits, the proportion of the areas to the times,

40 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

and of the periodic times to the mean distances; and Huygens’s theorems
on centrifugal forces, had been followed by still nearer approaches to the
doctrine of attraction. Borelli had distinctly ascribed the motion of satel-
lites to their being drawn towards the principal planets, and thus prevented
from flying off by the centrifugal force. Even the composition of white
light, and the different action of bodies upon its component parts, had been
vaguely conjectured by Ant. de Dominis, Archbishop of Spalatro, at the
beginning, and more precisely in the middle of the seventeenth century by
Marcus (Kronland of Prague), unknown to Newton, who only refers to the
Archbishop’s work; while the treatise of Huygens on light, Grimaldi’s
observations on colors by inflexion, as well as on the elongation of the
image in the prismatic spectrum, had been brought to his attention, although
much less near to his own great discovery than Marcus’s experiment. But
all this only shows that the discoveries of Newton, great and rapid as were
_ the steps by which they advanced our knowledge, yet obeyed the law of
continuity, or rather of gradual progress, which governs all human ap-
proaches towards perfection. The limited nature of man’s faculties pre-
cludes the possibility of his ever reaching at once the utmost excellence of
which they are capable. Survey the whole circle of the sciences, and trace
the history of our progress in each, you find this to be the universal rule.
In chymical philosophy, the dreams of the Alchymists prepared the way
for the more rational, though erroneous, theory of Stahl; and it was by
repeated improvements that his errors, so long prevalent, were at length
exploded, giving place to the sound doctrine which is now established.
The great discoveries of Black and Priestly on heat and aeriform fluids, had
been preceded by the happy conjectures of Newton and the experiments of
others. Nay, Voltaire had well-nigh discovered both the absorption of heat,
the constitution of the atmosphere, and the oxydation of metals; and by a
few more trials might have ascertained it. Cuvier had been preceded by
inquirers who took sound views of fossil osteology, among whom, the truly
original genius of Hunter fills the foremost place. The inductive system of
Bacon had been, at least in its practice, known to his predecessors. Obser-
vations, and even experiments, were not unknown to the ancient philoso-
phers, though mingled with gross errors; in early times, almost in the dark
ages, experimental inquiries had been carried on with success by Friar
Bacon, and that method actually recommended in a treatise, as it was two
centuries later by Leonardo da Vinci, and at the latter end of the next century
Gilbert examined the whole subject of magnetic action entirely by experi-
ments. So that Lord Bacon’s claim to be regarded as the father of modern
philosophy rests upon the important, the invaluable step of reducing toa
system the method of investigation adopted by those eminent men, general-
izing it, and extending its application to all matters of contingent truth,
exploding the errors, the absurd dogmas, and fantastic subtleties of the
ancient schools; above all, confining the subject of our inquiry, and the
manner of conducting it, within the limits which our faculties prescribe.
Nor is this great law of gradual progress confined to the physical sciences;
in the moral it equally governs. Before the foundations of political economy
were laid by Hume and Smith, a great step had been made by the French
philosophers, disciples of Quesnai; but a nearer approach to sound princi-
ples had signalized the labors of Gournay, and those labors had been shared,
and his doctrines patronized, by Turgot, when Chief Minister. Again, in
constitutional policy, see by what slow degrees, from its first rude elements,

MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 41

the attendance of feudal tenants at their lord’s court, and the summons of
burghers to grant supplies of money, the great discovery of modern times
in the science of practical politics has been effected, the representative
scheme which enables states of any extent to enjoy popular government,
and allows mixed monarchy to be established, combining freedom with
order, a plan pronounced by the statesmen and writers of antiquity to be of
hardly possible formation, and wholly impossible continuance. The globe
itself, as well as the science of its inhabitants, has been explored according
to the law which forbids a sudden and rapid leaping forward, and decrees
that each successive step, prepared by the last, shall facilitate the next.
Even Columbus followed several successful discoverers on a smaller scale,
and is, by some, believed to have had, unknown to him, a predecessor in
the great exploit by which he pierced the night of ages, and unfolded a new
world to the eyes of the old.

The arts afford no exception to the general law. Demosthenes had emi-
nent forerunners, Pericles the last of them. Homer must have had prede-
cessors of great merit, though doubtless as far surpassed by him as Fra Bar-
tolomeo and Pietro Perugino were by Michael Angelo and Raphael. Dante
owed much to Virgil; he may be allowed to have owed, through his Latin
mentor, not a little to the old Grecian; and Milton had both the orators and
the pocts of the ancient world for his predecessors and his masters. The
art of war itself is no exception to the rule. The plan of bringing an over-
powering force to bear on a given point had been tried occasionally before
Frederick IL. reduced it to a system; and the Wellingtons and Napoleons of
our own day made it the foundation of their strategy, as it had also been
previously the mainspring of our naval tactics. It has oftentimes been held
that the invention of logarithms stands alone in the history of science, as
having been preceded by no step leading towards the discovery. There is,
however, great inaccuracy in this statement; for not only was the doctrine of
infinitesimals familiar to its illustrious author, and the relation of geometri-
cal to arithmetical series well known, but he had himself struck out several
methods of great ingenuity and utility (as that known by the name of
Napier’s Bones)— methods that are now forgotten, eclipsed as they were by
the consummation which has immortalized his name. So theinventive pow-
ers of Watt, preceded as he was by Worcester and Newcomen, but far more
materially by Causs and Papin, had been exercised on some admirable con-
trivances, now forgotten, before he made the step which created the steam-
engine anew — not only the parallel motion, possibly a corollary to the prop-
osition on circular motion inthe “ Principia,” but the separate condensation,
and above all, the governor, perhaps the most exquisite of mechanical inven-
tions; and now we have those here present who apply the like principle to
the diffusion of knowledge, aware, as they must be, that its expansion has
the same happy effect naturally of preventing mischief from its excess which
the skill of the great mechanist gave artificially to steam, thus rendering his
engine as safe as itis powerful. The grand difference, then, between one
discovery or invention and another,is in degree rather than in kind; the
degree in which a person, while he outstrips those whom he comes after, also
lives, as it were, before his age. Nor can any doubt exist that, in this re-
spect, Newton stands at the head of all who have extended the bounds of
knowledge. The sciences of dynamics and of optics are especially to be
regarded in this point of view; but the former in particular; and the com-
pleteness of the system which he unfolded —its having been at the first elab-

4*

42 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

orated and given in perfection —its having, however new, stood the test of
time, and survived, nay gained by, the most rigorous scrutiny — can be predi-
cated of this system alone, at least in the same degree. That the calculus,
and those parts of dynamics which are purely mathematical, should thus
endure forever is a matter of course. But his system of the universe rests
partly upon contingent truths, and might have yielded to new experiments
and more extended observation. Nay, at times it has been thought to fail,
and further investigation was deemed requisite to ascertain if any error had
been introduced —if any circumstance had escaped the notice of the great
founder. The most memorable instance of this kind is the discrepancy sup-
posed to have been found between the theory and the fact in the motion of
the lunar apsides, which about the middle of the last century occupied the
three first analysts of the age. The error was discovered by themselves to
have been their own in the process of their investigation; and this, like all
the other doubts that were ever momentarily entertained, only led in each
instance to new and more brilliant triumphs of the system. The prodigious
superiority in this cardinal point of the Newtonian to other discoveries
appears manifest upon examining almost any of the chapters in the history
of science. Successive improvements have, by extending our views, con-
stantly displaced the system that appeared firmly established. To take a
familiar instance — how little remains of Lavoisicr’s doctrine of combustion
and acidification, except the negative positions, the subversion of the system
of Stahl! The substance having most eminently the properties of an acid
(chlorine) is found to have no oxygen at all, while many substances abound-
ing in oxygen, including alkalis themselves, have no acid property whatever;
and without the access of oxygenous or of any other gas, heat and flame are
produced in excess. The docrines of free trade had not long been promul-
gated by Smith before Bentham demonstrated that his exception of usury
was groundless; and his theory has been repeatedly proved erroneous on
colonial establishments, as well as his exception to it on the navigation laws;
and the imperfection of his views on the nature of rent is undeniable, as well
as on the principle of population. In these and such instances as these it
would not be easy to find in the original doctrines the means of correcting
subsequent errors, or the germs of extended discovery. But even if philoso-
phers finally.adopt the undulatory theory of light instead of the atomic, it
must be borne in mind that Newton gave the first elements of it by the well-
known proposition in the eighth section of the Second Book of the “ Prin-
cipia,’ the scholium to that section also indicating his expectation that it
would be applied to optical science; while M. Biot has shown how the doc-
trine of fits of reflection and transmission tallies with polarization, if not
with undulation also. But the most marvellous attribute of Newton’s dis-
coveries is that in which they stand out prominent among all the other feats
of scientific research, stamped with the peculiarity of his intellectual charac-
ter; they were (their great author lived before his age) anticipating in part
what was long after wholly accomplished, and thus unfolding some things
which at the time could be but imperfectly, others not at all comprehended,
and not rarely pointing out the path and affording the means of treading it,
to the ascertainment of truths then veiled in darkness. He not only enlarged
the actual dominion of knowledge, penetrating to regions never before ex-
plored, and taking with a firm hand undisputed possession; but he showed
how the bounds of the visible horizon might be yet further extended, and
enabled his successors to occupy what he could only desery; as the illustrious

MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 43

discoverer of the new world made the inhabitants of the old cast tiieir eyes
over lands and seas far distant from those le had traversed; lands and seas
of which they couid form to themscives no conception, any more than they
had been able to comprehend the course by which he led them on his grand
enterprise. In this achievement, and in the qualities which alone made it
possible, inexhaustible fertility of resources, patience unsubdued, close med-
itation that would suffer no distraction, steady determination to pursue paths
that seemed all but hopeless, and unflinching courage to declare the truths
they led to, how far soever removed from ordinary apprehension, — in these
characteristics of high and original genius, we may be permitted to compare
the career of those great men. But Columbus did not invent the mariner’s
compass, as Newton did the instrument which guided his course, and enabied
him to make his discoveries, and his successors to extend them by closely
following his directions in using it. Nor did the compass suffice to the great
navigator without making any observations, though he dared to steer with-
out a chart; while it is certain that by the philosopher’s instrument, his dis-
coveries were extended over the whele system of the universe, determining
the masses, the forms, and the motions of all its parts by the mere inspection
of abstract calculations, and formulas analytically deduced. The two great
improvements in this instrument which have been made—the calculus of
variations by Euler and La Grange, the method of partial differences by D’-
Alembert -- we have every reason to believe were known, at least in part, to
Newton himself. His having solved an isoperimetrical problem (finding the
line whose revolution forms the solid of least resistance), shows clearly that
he must have made the coordinates of the generating curve vary, and his
construction agrees exactly with the equation given by that calculus. That
he must have tried the process of integrating by parts in attempting to gen-
eralize the inverse problem of central forces before he had recourse to the
geometrical approximation which he has given, and also when he sought the
means of ascertaining the comet’s path, which he has termed by far the most
difficult of problems, is eminently probable, when we consider how naturally
that method flows from the ordinary process for differentiating compound
quantities, by supposing each variable in succession constant; in short, dif-
ferentiating by parts. As to the calculus of variations having substantially
been known to him, no doubt can be entertained. Again, in estimating the
ellipticity of the earth, he proceeded upon the assumption of a proposition
of which he gave no demonstration (any more than he had done of the iso-
perimetrical problem) that the ratio of the centrifugal force to gravitation
determines the ellipticity. Half a century later, that which no one before
knew to be true, which many probably considered to be erroneous, was exam-
ined by one of his most distinguished followers, Maclaurin, and demonstrated
most satisfactorily to be true. Newton had not failed to perceive the neces-
sary effects of gravitation in producing other phenomena beside the regular
motion of the planets and their satellites in their course round their several
centres of attraction. One of these phenomena, wholly unsuspected before
the discovery of the general law, is the alternate movement to and fro of the
earth’s axis, in consequence of the solar (and also of the lunar) attraction
combined with the earth’s motion. This libration, or nutation, distinctly
announced by him as the result of the theory, was not found by actual obser-
vation to exist till sixty years and upwards had elapsed, when Bradley proved
the fact The great discoveries which have been made by La Grange and La
Piace upon the results of disturbing forces have established the law of peri-

44 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

odical variation of orbits, which secures the stability of the system by pre-
scribing a maximum and a minimum amount of deviation; and this is not a
contingent, but a necessary truth, by rigorous demonstration, the inevitable
result of undoubted data in point of fact, the eccentricities of the orbits, the
directions of the motions, and the movement in one plane of a certain posi-
tion. That wonderful proposition of Newton, which, with his corollaries,
may be said to give the whole doctrine of disturbing forces, has been little
more than applied and extended by the labors of succeeding geometricians.
Indeed, La Place, struck with wonder at one of his comprehensive general
statements on disturbing forces in another proposition, has not hesitated to
assert that it contains the germ of La Grange’s celebrated inquiry exactly a
century after the ‘‘ Principia’”’ was given to the world. The wonderful pow-
ers of generalization, combined with the boldness of never shrinking from a
conclusion that seemed the legitimate result of his investigations, — how new
and even startling soever it might appear, — was strikingly shown in that
memorable inference which he drew from optical phenomena, that the dia-
mond is ‘‘ an unctuous substance coagulated ;”’ subsequent discoveries having
proved both that such substances are carbonaceous, and that the diamond is
crystallized carbon; and the foundations of mechanical chemistry were laid
by him with the boldest induction and most felicitous anticipations of what
has since been effected. The solution of the inverse problem of disturbing
forces has led Le Verrier and Adams to the discovery of anew planet, merely
by deductions from the manner in which the notions of an old one are
affected, and its orbit has been so calculated that observers could find it—
nay, its disc, as measured by them, only varies 1-1,200 of a degree from the
amount given by the theory. Moreover, when Newton gave his estimate of
the earth’s density, he wrote a century before Maskelyne, and by measuring
the force of gravitation in the Scotch mountains, gave the proportion to water
as 4°716 to 1; and, many years after, by experiments with mechanical appa-
ratus, Cavendish (1798) corrected this to 5°48, and Baily, more recently (1842),
to 5°66, Newton having given the proportion as between five and six times.
In these instances he only showed the way, and anticipated the result of
future inquiry by his followers. But the oblate figure of the earth affords an
example of the same kind, with this difference, that here he has himself per-
fected the discovery, and nearly completed the demonstration. From the
mutual gravitation of the particles which form its mass, combined with their
motion round its axis, he deduced the proposition that it must be flattened at
the poles; and he calculated the proportion of its polar to its equatorial diam-
eter. By a most refined process he gave this proportion upon the supposition
of the mass being homogeneous. That the proportion is different in conse-
quence of the mass being heterogeneous does not in the least affect the sound-
ness of his conclusion. Accurate measurements of a degree of latitude in
the equatorial and polar regions, with experiments on the force of gravitation
in those regions, by the different lengths of a pendulum vibrating seconds,
have shown that the excess of the equatorial diameter is about eleven miles
less than he had deduced it from the theory; and thus that the globe is not
homogeneous. But on the assumption of a fluid mass, the ground of his
hydrostatical investigation, his proportion of 229 to 230 remains unshaken,
and is precisely the one adopted and reasoned from by La Place, after all the
improvements and all the discoveries of later times. Surely at this we may
well stand amazed, if not awe-struck. A century of study, of improvement,
of discovery has passed away, and we find La Place, master of all the new

MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 45

resources of the calculus, and occupying the heights to which the labors of
Euler, Clairant D’Alembert, and La Grange have enabled-us to ascend, adopt-
ing the Newtonian fraction of 1-230 as the accurate solution of this specula-
tive problem. New admeasurements have been undertaken upon a vast scale,
patronized by the munificence of rival Governments, — new experiments have
been performed with approved apparatus of exceeding delicacy, — new obser-
vations have been accumulated with glasses far exceeding any powers pos-
sessed by the resources of optics in the days of him to whom the science of
optics, as well as dynamics, owes its origin, —the theory and fact have thus
been compared and reconciled together in more perfect harmony; but that
theory has remained unimproved, and the great principle of gravitation, with
most sublime results, now stands in the attitude, and of the dimensions, and
with the symmetry, which both the law and its application receive at once
from the mighty hand of its immortal author. But the contemplation of
Newton’s discoveries raised other feelings than wonder at his matchless ge-
nius. The light with which it shines is not more dazzling than useful. The
difficulties of his course, and his expedients alike copious and refined for
surmounting them, exercise the faculties of the wise, while commanding
their admiration; but the results of investigations, often abstruse, are truths
so grand and comprehensive, yet so plain, that they both captivate and
instruct the simple. The gratitude, too, which they inspire, and the venera-
tion with which they encircle his name, far from tending to obstruct future
improvement, only proclaim his disciples the zealous because rational follow-
ers of one whose example both encouraged and enabled his successors to
make further progress. How unlike the blind devotion to a master which
for so many ages of the modern world paralyzed the energies of the human
mind!
“Had we still paid that homage to a name

Which only God and nature justly claim,

The Western seas had been our utmost bound,

And peets still might dream the sun was drowned,

And all the stars that shine in Southern skies

Had been admired by none but savage eyes.”

Nor let it be imagined that the feelings excited contemplating the achieve-
ments of this great man are in any degree whatever the result of national
partiality, and confined to the country which glories in having given him
birth. The language which expresses her veneration is equalled, perhaps
exceeded, by that in which other nations give utterance to theirs; not merely
by the general voice, but by the well-considered and well-informed judgment
of the masters of science. Leibnitz, when asked at the Royal table in Berlin
his opinion of Newton, said that, “Taking mathematicians from the begin-
ning of the world to the time when Newton lived, what he had done was
much the better half.” “The Principia will ever remain a monument of
the profound genius which revealed to us the greatest law of the universe,”
are the words of La Place. “That work stands preéminent above all other
productions of the human mind.” “The discovery of that simple and
general law, by the greatness and variety of the objects which it embraces,
confers honor upon the-intellect of man.” La Grange, we are told by
Delambre, was wont to describe Newton as the greatest genius that ever
existed, but to add how fortunate he was also, “‘ because there can only once
be found a system of the universe to establish.” ‘‘ Never,” says the father

46 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

of the Institute of France, one filling a huge place among the most eminent
of members —“ Never,” said M. Biot, ‘‘ was the supremacy of intellect so
justly established and so fully confessed; in mathematical and in experi-
mental science without an equal, and without an example, combining the
genius for both in its highest degree.” The Principia he terms ‘the great-
est work ever produced by the mind of man;” adding, in the words of
Halley, that a nearer approach to the Divine nature has not been permitted
to mortals. “In first giving to the world Newton’s ‘ Method of Fluxions,’”’
says Fontenelle, “‘ Leibnitz did like Prometheus: he stole fire from Heaven
to bestow it upon men.” ‘Does Newton,” L’Hopital asked, “sleep and
wake like other men? I figure him to myself as a celestial genius, entirely
disengaged from matter.” To so renowned a benefactor of the world, thus
exalted to the loftiest place by the common consent of all men, — one whose
life, without the intermission of an hour, was passed in the search after
truths the most important, and at whose hands the human race had only
received good, never evil,—no memorial has been raised by those nations
which erected statues to tyrants and conquerors, the scourges of mankind,
whose lives were passed, not in the pursuit of truth, but the practice of
falsehood, — across whose lips, if truth ever chanced to stray towards some
selfish end, it surely failed to obtain belief, — who, to slake their insane thirst
of power or of preéminence, trampled on all the rights, and squandered the
blood of their fellow-creatures, — whose course, like lightning, blasted while
it dazzled, — and who, reversing the Roman Emperor’s noble regret, deemed
the day lost that saw the sun go down upon their forbearance, no victim
deceived, or betrayed, or oppressed. That the worshippers of such pestilent
genius should consecrate no outward symbol of the admiration they freely
confessed to the memory of the most illustrious of men, is not matter of
wonder; but that his own countrymen, justly proud of having lived in his
time, should have left this duty to their successors, after a century and a
half of professed veneration and lip-homage, may well be deemed strange.
The inscription upon the cathedral, the masterpiece of his celebrated friend’s
architecture, may possibly be applied in defence of this neglect: “If you
seek for a monument, look around.” If you seek for a monument, lift up
your eyes to the heavens, which show forth his fame. Nor, when we recol-
lect the Greek orator’s exclamation, that the whole earth is the monument
of illustrious men, can we stop short of declaring that the Universe itself is
Newton’s. Yet, in raising the statue which preserves his likeness, near the
place of his birth, and on the spot where his prodigious faculties were un-
folded and trained, we at once gratify our honest pride as citizens of the
same state, and humbly testify our grateful sense of the Divine goodness
which deigned to bestow upon our race one so marvellously gifted to com-
prehend the works of infinite wisdom, and to make all his study of them the
source of religious contemplation, both philosophical and sublime.

CAMP’S IMPROVED LIFE-BOAT.

The boat is thirty feet long, eight feet beam, and four feet hold, and
decked over, so that it can be entirely inclosed, and the occupants protected
from the washing of the sea, when required during a storm or heavy blow,
by means of a water-tight hatch. It is propelled by means of a propeller
wheel, worked with a crank by the inmates of the hold, and can be driven
at a speed of six to eight miles per hour with less effort than would be

MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 47

required to move it at the same rate with oars. Its capacity is such that
fifty persons can be seated in the hold, while thirty more may be lashed to
and sustained upon the deck,— giving it a greater capacity for saving life in
case of shipwreck than any other improvement yet brought before the
public. It is provided with water-tanks and bread-lockers of sufficient size
to meet the wants of a full load of persons under any ordinary circum-
stances. The air-chambers in the stern and stem would keep it buoyant,
even if it were stove in, and cause it to right itself in case it should be over-
turned. Buoyancy is further promoted by a bag of cork attached to the
sides below the gunwale, which also serves as a fender to prevent injury to
the boat should it be thrown against the side of a vessel in a heavy sea.

The hold of the boat is divided into two compartments by a bulkhead,
through which an aperture is made for entrance to the rear compartment
from the front, should it be necessary to keep the main hatch closed during
a heavy sea. By this means the boat is prevented from being filled with
water while loading in a storm.

The boat may be lowered into the water from the vessel with perfect secu-
rity, even during the running of the heaviest sea, and instantly released
from the davit-hooks by means of a novel eye-bolt, invented by Mr. Camp.
The peculiarity of this eye-bolt consists in having the upper part, against
which the fall-hook bears, made movable upon a pivot and sustained by a
catch, which can be removed, even under a heavy load, so as to allow the
hook to be freed by a slight effort on the part of a person operating both
bolts at the same time, thus setting the boat adrift upon the water with per-
fect safety. The advantages of having a boat entirely inclosed, so as to
protect its occupants from the wash of the sea, and provided with means of
propulsion to enable it to be navigated to the shore from the wreck, are
apparent. In heavy weather it may be steered from below deck, there being
a small raised hatch, with a window in front, for observation; and a binna-
cle, compass, and all the requisites for navigating the craft in any direction.
In addition to the propeller, a mast and sails are lashed to the deck, ready
for use in favorable weather.

NOVEL STEAMSHIP.

A steamship of most remarkable form and construction is now in the pro-
cess of completion at Baltimore, by Messrs. Ross & Thomas Winans, the
well-known engineers. The form of this vessel is so different from any hith-
erto constructed, that it is not an easy matter to describe its peculiarities.
Premising, however, that its shape is like that of a cigar, sharp at both ends,
and one hundred and eighty feet long, and sixteen feet in diameter in the
centre, unbroken in its continuity, except by the wheel-house, which passes
around about six feet of its entire centre, above and below the water-line, and
over the top as well as under the bottom of the vessel,—the following simple
description may be understandable:

Take two elongated and sharp-pointed sugar loaves, and place them but-
ends together; put a stick through the centre of the two but-ends, which
imagine to be the shaft of the water-wheel, which passes into the two sugar
loaves, and is driven by engines at each end of the shaft. Thus it will be
seen that it is two entirely separate vessels, united only by the shaft of the
water-wheel, and by the wheel-house, which is built completely around the
vessel, extending about three feet on each side of the wheel, and raised about

48 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

three feet, with open sides below the water-line for the water to pass through,
and connected with the vessel by upright plates of boiler iron. Having got
thus far, imagine the hub of the wheel which is to be placed on the shaft
between the two sugar loaves to be exactly the size of the but-ends of the
loaves, with twelve iron flanges, or screws, fastened at equal distances on the
outer edge of it. It will thus be seen that the wheel forms the centre of the
body of the vessel, and revolves transversely; the twelve flanges on the edge
of it being the propelling power. When in the water, with her engines, coal,
and freight, one-half of the flanges on the wheel will be all the time in the
water, and with ninety revolutions per minute some idea of its propelling power
may be imagined. The vessel has no deck; but on the upper segment of the
tubular surface there are gangways, to pass downward into the two sections,
surrounded by iron railings, which extend on either side about thirty feet from
the centre. With the exception of the two smoke-pipes and ventilators,
these are all the outer works that will be visible. — Baltimore American.

STEEL SHIPS.

In 1850, Mr. Ewald Riepe obtained a patent in England for certain im-
provements in refining steel, which consisted, mainly, in subjecting bars or
lumps of raw or crude steel to the action of heat for about four hours, in a
furnace closed to the external atmosphere, the temperature being kept a little
below the melting-point of the steel. By this method of operation, car-
buretted hydrogen and oxide of carbon are developed in the furnace in
abundance, while the oxygen of the air is entirely prevented from acting
upon the steel,—the working door of the furnace, etc., being carefully luted
for this purpose.

This patent, says the London Mechanics’ Magazine, which was permitted
to remain in abeyance for some time, has lately been worked with very
beneficial results by Mr. William Clay, of the Mersey Iron Works; the steel
produced by means of it having been found to possess a very fine uniform
grain, and to be peculiarly suitable for the plating of ships. A new steamer
of 170 tons, named the Rainbow, intended for the Niger expedition, has been
recently constructed of plates of this steel, of the following dimensions:
Length, 130 feet; beam, 16 feet. Her engine is high pressure, and of 60 horse
power, working up to 200 horse power, indicated; and the boilers, which
have also been made of Mr. Clay’s steel plates, have been proved up to 200
pounds on the square inch, though they will only require to be worked at 50
pounds to 60 pounds. The advantage of employing this material over the
ordinary iron plates is, that, with about half the thickness, they are said to
give equal strength with the best iron boiler-plates, so that vessels are able
to be constructed of considerably lighter draft of water than formeriy,—a
result which is likely to be of incalculable benefit in the navigation of the
shallow rivers of Africa and India. It will be remembered that Dr. Living-
stone took out a small steam yacht, the plates for which were formed of the
patent homogeneous metal manufactured by Messrs. Shortridge and Jessop,
of Sheffield. The advantage claimed for the Riepe steel is, that, while pos-
sessing equal strength and adaptability for the purposes of ship-building, it
can be more economically produced. Indeed, it is said that the process of
manufacture is so simple, and the cost so little in excess of that of ordinary
iron, that, by the saving of weight in the material, as compared with iron of
equal strength, it will become absolutely cheaper. Apropos, of the strength of

MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 49

the steel, we may state that recent experiments, made by Mr. Clay in testing,
at the Liverpool Corporation chain-proving machine, some samples of steel
bars manufactured at the Mersey Works, showed that their average tensile
strength was 160,832 per square inch, while the strength of Russian iron is
only 62,644; of English rolled iron, 56,532; Lowmoor, 56,103; American
hammered, 53,913; of tempered cast steel, 150,000, etc.

IMPROVEMENTS IN STEAM-GAUGES.

The only steam-gauges known ten years ago, were the mercury-gauge, the
air-zauge, and the piston-gauge for locomotives. The first is costly and
cumbersome, its length for measuring 150 pounds pressure being 27 feet. The
second breaks easily, the divisions are small, and ascertaining the pressure by
looking at the instrument is a work that ordinary firemen carefully dispense
with. A piston pressed by steam against a spring is unreliable, on account
of friction. In June, 1849, Eugene Bourdon took out a patent in France for
a spring-gauge, in which the pressure of steam is indicated by a hand ona
graduated dial. Inside the case is an elastic metallic vessel, so shaped as to
change its form when steam is let in, and it is united by a proper mechanism
to the hand which points out the result. The great superiority of this gauge
over former ones is obvious. No liquids are used; there are no joints, con-
sequently no leakage. The gauge is cheap and compact, and its indications
are read at a glance from any part of the engine-room. This instrument
carried the highest award at the great London exhibition of 1851, and in the
subsequent year was patented in the United States, and the patent bought
by Ashcroft, under whose name it is generally known. The claim read thus:

“T claim the application of curved or twisted tubes, whose transverse sec-
tion differs from a circular form, for the construction of instruments for
measuring, indicating, and regulating the pressure and temperature of
fluids.”

Since 1852 about twelve patents have been granted for dial-gauges, in
which the elastic vessel was different from Bourdon’s, Corrugated Disks,
made of steel, or diaphrams made of India rubber, are the main feature in
most of them. The first substance is destroyed by rusting, especially where
sea water is used. India rubber in a still shorter time undergoes internal
chemical changes, and requires to be renewed. Ina steam-gauge patented by
Victor Beaumont in 1854, and recently perfected, the aim has been to embody
all the qualities of Bourdon’s by using an elastic vessel of brass closed on all
sides except that of the boiler, and to avoid the vibrations of the hand or
pointer resulting from the momentum of the tube, held by one end, for each
jerk of the locomotive to which the gauge is attached. To obtain this
result, the elastic vessel is formed of flattened hollow spheres, communicating
together; one side of each sphere is turned inside, so that, under the pressure
of steam, one part is extended and the other is compressed. The regularly
diminishing motion of the extended parts is thus compensated by the regu-
larly increasing motion of the compressed portions, and the graduation is
perfectly uniform for the range of the gauge. Large surfaces are thus
exposed to the action of steam, which acts in consequence with a great deal
of power; beside which the effect of momentum is so insignificant, that the
gauge may be struck with great force on the table without the pointer
vibrating in the least.

5 ie a5

50 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

IMPROVED STEAM-DBOILER.

A patent for an improved steam-boiler has recently been issued to Wm.
G. Norris, of Philadelphia, the essential feature of which is a closed chamber
between the fire-box and tube-sheet, for the purpose not only of preventing
any combustion going on in actual contact with the tubes of the boiler, but
also for the purpose of equalizing the heat before it reaches the tubes.

The advantages claimed for this form of boiler are: lightness, simplicity,
and the economical consumption of anthracite and bituminous coal, without
emitting smoke, sparks, or gas; a greater amount of heating surface than is
obtained in a boiler of the ordinary construction; the fire-box, being placed
over the axles, may be much longer than usual, to insure sufficient grate sur-
face, while the distance from the centre of the backdriver to the centre of
the front trunk-wheel remains shorter than in the ordinary locomotive —a
good arrangement, it is said, for short curves. There is no overhanging
weight, as the adhesion is all upon the drivers; and, as the centre of gravity
is no higher than common, the engine will pull more in consequence, we are
informed. In ten-wheel engines the arrangement of the machinery is the
same as in those of eight wheels, having a full stroke-pump fastened to the
main frame, between front driver and cylinder, while the main rod connects
directly to the front driver, thereby dispensing with the superfluous friction
of “spade handles ” or combination stub-ends.

FITTS’S AUTOMATIC BOILER - FEEDER.

The want of a machine which will supply water to boilers, working inde-
pendently of any other power, and regulating the supply by the amount
evaporated, has long been felt. It is, moreover, often desirable to use steam
for various purposes, without the necessity of running an engine solely as a
means of working a pump for supplying the boilers. To attain this result
much labor and skill has been expended, but, thus far, with apparently little
success, inasmuch as the pump substantially as arranged by Watt is uni-
versally in use.

An arrangement, however, recently put in operation by B. Fitts, of Wor-
cester, Mass., merits attention. The principle involved is, to draw water
from the well or reservoir, by means of a vacuum produced by the condensa-
tion of steam, which water is subsequently forced into the boilers by the
pressure of steam on its surface —thus dispensing with the pump and all the
apparatus necessary to drive it.

The machine consists simply of two chambers, each holding six or eight
gallons, two valves, an apparatus to change the valves, and the pipes neces-
sary for connecting the boiler, reservoir, ete. The arrangement is double
acting —one chamber filling with water while the other is discharging into
the boiler. The steam, also, which is used to force the water contained in one
chamber into the boiler, is afterwards discharged into the other chamber,
and there condenses and heats the water contained in the chamber; the
valve is then changed, and the heated water is forced into the boiler. The
other chamber, at the same time, being in connection with the water reser-
voir, is filled with water, by reason of the vacuum produced by the conden-
sation of the steam previously contained in it. There is also an indicator
attached, which ingeniously registers the whole amount of water supplied.

MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 5a

SILVER’S MARINE GOVERNOR.

The ordinary ball-governor was invented by James Watt as a part of the
steam-engine. In this instrument two heavy balls attached to the extremities
of two rods, articulated at their other end with a vertical shaft, are made to
rotate with it, receiving motion from the engine. Centrifugal force is thus
produced, which overcomes gravity and forces the balls to separate and go
up in a circle to a distance proportional to the velocity of the machine. The
balls and rods are properly connected with a throttle-valve in the steam-pipe,
so that this is wide open when the velocity is small, and entirely closed the
moment a velocity is reached beyond which it is not desirable to go. This
instrument, depending on gravity for its accurate action, cannot be used on
board a ship, where the rolling and pitching would throw it in an inclined
position, in which the weight of the balls would make it act at the wrong
time. Mr. Thomas Silver, of Philadelphia, obviates this fault by adding two
more balls to equilibrate the two first, and by substituting the action of a
spring to that of gravity. The four balls of equal size are attached to two
rods working on a pin through the centre and through a small shaft. A
movable sleeve on this shaft is connected with the two rods half way between
the balls and the centre pin, and an adjustable steel spring pushes or pulls
constantly on the movable sleeve, in the proper direction to bring the four
balls close to the shaft. The movable sleeve is connected with the valve.
This instrument is of great service to paddle-wheel steamers, as in a heavy
sea it frequently happens that one wheel is entirely out of water, when the en-
gine acquires an undue velocity, technically called “ racing,” which, suddenly
checked by the reimmersion of the wheel, may result in the breaking of the
shaft. But it is of a much greater import for propellers. In these ships the
screw is as often brought out of water by a heavy pitch, and as there is no
other wheel in the water to resist the power in a measure, the increase of
velocity is enormous. Two causes, then, combine for breaking the shaft—
the first is, the sudden blow of the sea against the screw when reéntering the
water; the other is, the side force exerted against the shaft when the plane
of rotation of a rapidly rotating body is suddenly changed.

IMPROVEMENT IN PROPELLER ENGINES.

The several direct-acting screw-propeller engines hitherto constructed are
objectionable in the following particulars, viz.:—The horizontal engines
occupy too much space transversely in the vessel to admit of being placed in
the run. The vertical engines pass through the decks, and project so far
above the water-line as to be useless for war purposes; and all approved
double engines operate on cranks placed at right angles to each other, which
involves as eries of bearings, much friction, and liability to derangement from
the shafts getting out of line. In addition to these imperfections, the extreme
shortness of the cranks, with the attendant great friction on the crank-pins
and journals, to say nothing of the heavy diagonal thrust of the connecting-
rods, are serious defects in the direct-acting screw-propeller engines now in
common use.

To obviate these difficulties, that well-known able, and veteran inventor,
John Ericsson, of hot air celebrity, has invented a useful improvement in
steam-engines for working propellers, which consists in the arrangement of

52 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

the two cylinders of a double engine in such a manner that their base or bot-
tom ranges with a plane passing through the axis of the propeller shaft, or
nearly so, in combination with a certain arrangement of rock-shafts, crank-
pins, and connecting-rods, for imparting motion from the pistons to the shaft,
whereby the inventor is enabled, firstly, to bring the cylinders nearer to the
propeller shaft, and hence to economize space, and construct the frame of the
engine of great strength and compactness. Secondly, to avoid the diagonal
thrust and friction of the slides, unavoidable when the connecting-rod is
attached directly to the cross-head. Thirdly, to operate the two connecting-
rods nearly at right angles to each other, which enables the inventor to pro-
duce a continuous motion with a single crank on the propeller shaft and a
single crank-pin in common. Fourthly, to employ a crank on the propeller
shaft much longer than half the length of the stroke of the piston, thereby
diminishing the heavy pressure on crank-pins and journals which has here-
tofore caused so much trouble by the overheating of the bearings, and at the
same time diminishing the strain on the engine frame. — Scientific American.

HYDROSTATIC SCREW-PROPELLER.

The Southampton (Eng.) Star, daily paper, describes the successful work-
ing of a hydrostatic screw-propeller, or steamer driven without a shaft, and
says:—“ All that would be required for the largest ship afloat (by the adop-
tion of this invention) would be one horizontal steam cylinder, placed close
to the bottom of the vessel, connected to one pump, also laid on the bottom
of the vessel, close to the kelson, working fore and aft the ship without shaft
or crank; and by forcing water through the hollow screw-propeller, produc-
ing a powerful rotary motion, where only it is required, namely, in the screw,
which can by this invention be driven continuously five hundred or more
revolutions per minute; and as the whole is immersed in a constant stream
of cold water, there is no possible chance of heated bearings. The water
surrounding it on all sides becomes a constant lubricator. The power of
manceuvring the propeller from the deck, no matter at what rate the vessel
may be sailing, is another peculiarity.

ON BOILER INCRUSTATIONS.

A series of papers on boiler incrustations have recently been published in
the London Engineer, by Mr. James Napier, a practical chemist of Glasgow.
The following is his analysis of scale taken from a boiler in which river
water had been used:

Carbonate of lime..:....... ies Sef State sar ssetebarsie Mistarsheress'sieleeesieie 79.0
Snlphate Of LMC Ae raserctoiacs!s\eyceis i) ahcja (eae « Sask ei tobeleisieioiets 6.3
CRORE) OE TRO are aisle so aieselo/pialeimiareleln.« a nie losin Sieve ios sis ois 85
POUR ae Mess sosiesncis cle sarees a iahe aia sv munis toes B daintetiseisiacisie erate 2.2
Carbonaceous matter........ RYateire ala eiate oie falevee Teiclers tale ereeteye 4.0
Water’ a: 3. COpOboO oahosas nas pialetelstelsalaislelcielelereraicralelariettorten( CO
100.

The next analysis is that of scale taken from the boiler of a steamer run-
ning between Glasgow and Liverpool, in which no attention was paid to
“plowing off.” The scale was composed of two layers; the one (that next
the metal) was hard and crystalline, the other (or outer coat) was softer and

MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. oo

granular. The thickness of the whole crust was about three-eighth of an
inch:

Mp Hate OL MINE, sa ose ee = eis cle Anaedodotastades soumiadcell elo
VERVE Seer ate fotcia, dotetsic cow cict ole sia" rials cin sie \sinicici-s's's ele's's' 4.2
POUUGAE: emaaiieerse cretion ie Soler ctalore'e! otet eters’ © AOA Ane Oomieick 2.8
ELORY OGL ALONE Biseiteesiced stale alle toidie visio cletale PITS take 2.4
Salt... 6 Eee aE OROCIE sears Sette heh aie seianieerde 0.7
Witter Oferystalleza ti OMytos) 0 nsoieldiere 1 lcler. sleisitle @lcielei chal! sl ell
Canboniciaci dean stags aie’ So's fo Se eeieiatns= fe Bila olay ot= ake 0.6
100.

The next analysis was thatof scale taken from the same boiler, which was
worked for the same length of time, as in the former experiment, but care
was taken to ‘‘ blow off” regularly. The scale in this case was only one-
sixteenth of an inch thick —only one-sixth the thickness of that formed
when “ blowing off”? was neglected:

Sulphate OP iUme| By acetals se. oe Serco Beas tale cies Oto
IMBIGRESIAY. &. Holawagaee sorte ste ALAN keri saeetee sence ots 1.5
Reroxyd of 1ronsss). cam otaes SM rclerate tals ieee citeee > 0:5
fst) ita BODIE ear OD Mamerme seta Onde Coote Jpouroor aheleyeratelers)> sie plod:
SN SANT Caran Sac onsyo| onoumsenopee oye aeetebeita eet ee eee 2.4
100.

These analyses show that the sulphate of lime is the main ingredient of
the scale deposited by sea water. They also afford very satisfactory evidence
regarding the way to prevent incrustations by care in blowing off the satu-
rated water regularly.

The following is the method proposed by Mr. Napier for the prevention of
incrustations in all boilers. He analyzes the water to be used, and if found
to contain only the bi-carbonate of lime in suspension, there is no difficulty
in preventing it from forming scale. The carbonate of lime separates from
the water at a high heat, and is kept suspended in the boiler while the water
is hot; but when the boiler is stopped, it falls to the bottom in cooling, and
and when cold it hardens, adheres to the metal, and forms a crust. <A boiler
using hard fresh water containing carbonate of lime has thus a thin layer of
scale formed every night, and at last it accumulates to a thick stony crust,
which almost prevents the passage of the heat from the fire to the water. To
prevent such scale, the plan to be adopted is simple. In about an hour after
the engine is stopped every evening, and when the fire is cooled down, the
engineer should blow off the water freely. This will discharge all the sedi-
ment which has been precipitated, and prevent it hardening and adhering to
the metal.

Although this method of working boilers will prevent seale, if the water
only contains carbonate of lime, it will not entirely suffice to prevent incrus-
tations when the sulphate of lime is the principal ingredient in the water,
because it does not precipitate like the carbonate. Having by analysis dis-
covered the quantity of the sulphate of lime in each gallon of the water to
be used as feed, a sufficient quantity of the carbonate of soda is to be em-
ployed to neutralize the sulphate and convert it into the carbonate. The car-
bonate of soda dissolved is to be fed regularly into the boiler by a pipe con-
nected with the water feed-pipe. On land boilers, the carbonate of lime thus

5*

54 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

formed should be blown off every evening when the water has cooled down;
in marine boilers, the carbonate will float near the surface when the boiler is
working, and it can be blown off by the surface water-cock. Any alkali will
neutralize the sulphate of lime in a steam boiler, but the common carbonate
of soda is the cheapest which can be used. Care, however, must be exercised
not to employ it or any other alkali in excess for such a purpose, as it has a
tendency to volatilize with the steam.

CONSUMPTION OF COALS AND RATE OF EVAPORATION FROM ENGINE
BOILERS.

At a recent meeting of the Manchester Philosophical Society, Mr. Graham
read a paper, in which he described the results of experiments which he had
made with a series of small vessels of equal size, the fire being under the
first, and the flame-bed alone passing under the others. The evaporative
power of the first was found equal to 100, the second to 27, the third to 13,
and the fourth to 8. A second set of experiments with larger vessels, in the
shape of boilers, corroborates these results. The third series of experiments
were made with the view of determining the value of a supplementary boiler
as a heating surface, placed under the most favorable circumstances; the
result showed an advantage of 15 per cent.

Mr. Graham then detailed the results of a numerous set of experiments on
evaporation, on the large scale, with reference to engine boilers. These ex-
periments have extended over a period of several years, observations being
made daily, and the results deduced from several hundred recorded observa-
tions. Before beginning to register his results, the boilers were in each case
reset, and by careful and continuous experiments were put into what was
found to be then their best condition for giving the best working result, as
regards the admission of air, the draft of the chimney, the size of the fire-
place, the distance of the bars from the boiler, the thickness of the fire-bars,
and of the fire itself, the form of the flame-bed, flues, and bridges. Mr. Gra-
ham stated that in the case of one boiler, the alterations had been repeated
at least 30 times for this purpose. The experiments with the boilers were.of
12 hours duration each, and number from 30 to 40 for each boiler. <A perfect
command was maintained of the draft, which varied from 0°5 to 0°7 in. pres-
sure of water, and the temperature of the draft at the bottom of the chim-
ney was generally sufficient to melt lead (612° F.), but never zine (773° F.)
The conclusions which Mr. Graham arrived at by means of these experiments
were the following:

1. That the boiler usually called the “‘ Butterfly, or Fishmouth boiler,’ 25
feet long and 7 feet diameter, will, under favorable, but what may be called
ordinary circumstances, give with the Worsley coal, for each pound of coal
burnt, 8°29 lbs. of steam; or, not including the heating of the feed-water, from
60° to 212° F., 9°67 lbs.

2. The boiler usually known as James Watt’s “ wagon-shaped boiler,” 25
ft. 6 ins. long, and 6 ft. 6 ins. diameter, will, under similar circumstances,
give 8°80 lbs. of steam; or, not including the heating of the feed-water, from
60° F. to 212° F., 10°26 lbs. of steam for each pound of coal burnt.

3. The plain cylindrical boiler, with fire-place underneath, 42 feet long and
6 feet diameter, will, under similar circumstances, give 6°20 Ibs. of steam; or,
not including the heating of the feed-water, from 60° F. to 212° F., 7°23 lbs.
of steam for each pound of coal burnt.

MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 55

4, The boiler with two internal fire-places joined into one internal flue,
known in the neighborhood of Manchester as the “breeches boiler,”’ 23 ft.
long and 8 ft. diameter, will, under similar circumstances, give 5°90 Ibs. of
steam; or, not including the heating of the feed-water, from 60° F. 212° F.,
6°S8 lbs. of steam for each pound of coal burnt. ;

5. That a supplementary boiler, under very favorable circumstances, gives
a saving of 15 per cent.

6. That flues round a boiler, when cleaned out, and the sides of the boiler
scraped once a week, will give a saving of about 2 per cent.

7. That a difference in the setting alone of the same boiler may produce a
difference in the result amounting to 21 per cent.

8. That the difference between a good-shaped boiler, properly set, and a
bad-shaped boiler, improperly set, but both clean and in good order, may
amount to as much as 42 per cent.

9. That a difference in firing only will produce a difference in the result
of 13 per cent.

10. That the smallest loss by smoke burning, or by the admission of cold
air, either over the furnace door or in front of the bridge, or at the back of
the bridge, has been 1°7 per cent.

11. That the loss arising from a scale of sulphate of lime, of not more
than one-sixteenth of an inch, amounted to 14°7 per cent.

12. That neither wet coal, nor coal which had been out of the pit three
years, nor wet weather, nor a variation of temperature in the atmosphere
from 40° F. to 70° F., produced any appreciable difference of result.

13. That windy weather gave a good result.

14. That a comparatively thick and hot fire, with a good draft, uniformly
gave the best results.

15. That the difference in the results obtained with different coals, all
from the immediate neighborhood, amounted to a loss of 11 per cent.

16. That the same coals, reported to be from the same pits, will vary in
their results to the extent of 6 per cent.

17. That when a boiler is worked solely for the purpose of heating by
means of its steam, dye-vessels, soap-cisterns, etc., if its available power,
with the steam at a pressure of 2 1-2 lbs., be taken as equal to 100, then at 7
lbs. pressure its available power will be 120, and at 10 lbs. pressure it will be
130; the same quantity of coal being consumed in each case. This surpris-
ing result, at present unaccounted for, may be thus stated: — That the same
weight of coal consumed in the same number of hours will work ten cisterns
at 2 1-2 lbs. pressure, twelve cisterns at 7 lbs. pressure, and thirteen cisterns
at 10 lbs. pressure.

18. That while we may reasonably look for improvements in the construc-
tion of the fire-place, in the form of boiler, in the addition of separate sup-
plementary heating surface, and in cleanliness, and may thereby effect a great
saving in the consumption of coal, we cannot, at the same time, expect much
saving from extension of flue space, when coated with soot, or for greater
length of boiler than four times the length of the fire-place.

Mr. Graham stated in addition, that in consequence of the uniform low
results obtained by evaporation from boilers and fiues open to the atmos-
phere, which, according to his experience, never rise higher than from 5°5
to 6°0 lbs. of steam for each pound of coal burnt, also from the increased
results obtained with increase of pressure, and apparently due to that con-

a6 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

dition, he is disposed to suggest that the rate of evaporation of water per
pound of coal increases with, and bears some ratio to, increase of pressure.

With regard to the deposition of sulphate and carbonate of lime and mud
in boilers, Mr. Graham stated that he had experimented, with more of less
success, with caustic soda, quick-lime, muriatic acid, soap liquor, sawdust,
spent madder, and logwood chips. Two facts in particular were noticed as
regards the tendency of hard water to “scale”: 1. That the sulphate of
lime separates from the water when in contact with the bottom of the boiler,
or with other substances, such as sawdust or other materials floating in the
water; but that no precipitation takes place until the water has been concen-
trated, by continued evaporation, down to the state of a saturated solution,
or to that point which may be termed the “‘salting point.” 2. That carbon-
ate of lime and mud are principally liberated in the body of the water, and
have but little disposition to adhere to the boiler, unless cemented by the
sulphate of lime.

Practically, therefore, it has been found that no scale of any consequence
will be produced on engine boilers, even with such hard water and hard firing
as Mr. Graham has been accustomed to, if 100 gallons of the concentrated
liquor of the boiler, equal to 4 per cent. of the amount of feed-water used
daily, and 300 gallons, or 12 per cent., be run away on Saturday through the
usual mud machine, and if the boiler be run empty every sixth Satur-
day and brushed out. The water used was so hard as to require from 35 to
40 measures of Clark’s test liquid to soften it. There is little loss incurred by
this mode of working, since the chief discharge may take place at the close
of each day’s work; and there is an incredible advantage gained by the sav-
ing of coal, the reduced wear and tear of the boiler, and the greater safety
of all persons concerned with it.

ON THE RESISTANCE OF TUBES TO COLLAPSE.

It has long been a desideratum in the strength of boilers to determine
some definite law by which the engineer could calculate the proportionate
strength of internal flues. Ever since boilers became a necessary appendage
to the steam-engine, we have acted upon the principle that the internal
cylindrical flues subjected to compression were absolutely stronger than the
outer shell opposed to tension. These opinions have, in reality, had no
foundation in practice, excepting from deductions drawn from occasional
explosions, and the failure of vessels under severe pressure. Hitherto, there
has been nothing definite, or any known principle by which we could calcu-
late the diameter, thickness of plates, or length of flues corresponding with
the strength of the boiler; and even in cases where explosions have taken
place in collapse, we have, too frequently, mistaken the original cause from
the débris surrounding the rupture, and the force which has torn to pieces
the scattered remnants of the outer shell. Numerous accidents of this kind
have occurred, accompanied by serious loss of life; these have too frequently
been caused by the collapse and the rupture of the internal flues, which,
acting upon the interior of the boiler with an irresistible force, carries havoc
and destruction before it. The relative position and comparative value of
these resisting forces have never as yet been clearly ascertained, in so far as
respects the cause of rupture, and the anomalous condition in which many
of these constructions are affected, have greatly retarded the application of

MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 57

science to improvements in the manufacture. There appears, in fact, to be
no rule in existence calculated to attain uniformity of strength in all the
parts of a steam boiler, where some of the parts are exposed to internal and
some others to external pressure.

The resistance of cylinders, spheres, etc., to internal pressure, have been
ascertained from experimental data, such as the form and dimensions of the
vessel united to the resisting powers of the material; but we have yet to
learn what proportion cylindrical and eliiptical tubes bear to each other in
their resistance to external and internal pressure. |

To supply this want, a series of experiments have recently been instituted,
at the joint request of the British Association and the Royal Society, by Mr.
Fairbairn, the eminent English engineer, and the law of resistance, under
various forms and conditions, ascertained.

The law of resistance for cylindrical tubes, as regards their length, appears
to be this: a tube having the same strength of material, and being of the
same diameter, will resist double the pressure to one of double the length;
or the collapsing pressure, other things being the same, varies inversely as
the length, and inversely as their diameters. Experiments made with
elliptical tubes showed that in every construction where tubes haye to sustain
an uniform external pressure, the cylindrical is the only form to be relied
upon, and that any departure from the true circle is attended with danger.

The experiments also tended to confirm the conclusions arrived at some
years since, that the strengths of riveted joints of malleable iron plates are
nearly as the numbers

100 for the plate,
70 for double riveted joints,
50 for single riveted joints.

In conclusion, Mr. Fairbairn remarks: It is interesting to observe how
closely nature approximates in her productions to the strongest and best
forms. If we look at the tubular forms of grasses, bamboos, and other
vegetable constructions of this kind, and taking to account the uses for
which they were intended, we shall see that the form contributes greatly to
their strength; and we shall, moreover, find that the shoots are telescopic,
forming a series of concentric rings, arising from the formation of new and
smaller tubes as they emerge in succession from those previously formed.
As these again protrude and advance in growth, they leave behind enlarged
hoops, or disks, of sufficient rigidity to support and sustain the form of the
tubular structure. The same law which pervades natural productions should
not be overlooked in art. We have ever before us the lessons of this first
great natural teacher; and did we but consult her laws, and in all our appli-
cations endeavor to conform to the rules of a philosophy which never errs, and
by which nothing is ever made in vain, we should find, to use the words of
our aspirations after truth, that Nature’s laws, and the constructions derived
therefrom, constitute the only true system of philosophy by which we can
attain the maximum of strength with the minimum of material.

The sphere is probably the only true form by which we can obtain uni-
formity of resistance to an uniform pressure, whether external or internal;
and to approximate to this, probably, was the reason why our predecessors,
from the days of the Marquis of Worcester to those of Watt, adopted the
haycock or circular boiler with a hemispherical top and hemispherical bot-
tom, as shown.

58 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

This was selected as the strongest form of boiler in the time of Newcomen
and Leighton; and it was, probably, for a similar reason that the glass-
blower forms the bottom of bottles with an elevated cone penetrating for
some distance into the interior of the cylindrical part. This gives great
strength to the bottle in resisting internal pressure, and at the same time
reduces the quantity of liquid contained in the bottle; a consideration inde-
pendent of strength, and probably a matter of no small importance to the
retail dealers in wine and ardent spirits.

The result of these experiments upon metal tubes subsequently suggested
to Mr. Fairbairn the propriety of similarly testing the resisting powers of a
perfectly homogeneous, crystalline, and rigid material; in order that our
knowledge of the laws that govern the resistance of vessels to collapse might
be confirmed and extended. Glass was selected, not only because of its ful-
filling better almost than any other material the conditions sought for, and
from the ease with which it could be manufactured into the forms required,
but also because it was hoped that the results would be of practical value in
those cases in the arts and in experimental science, in which it is so exten-
sively employed. The experiments were conducted in a similar manner to
those upon iron. Some cylinders and globes, blown out of good flint-glass,
were procured direct from the maker. The open ends were hermetically
sealed by means of the blowpipe; and the globes, etc., were placed in a strong
wrought-iron vessel capable of sustaining a pressure of 2,000 Ibs. to the square
inch. Water was pumped in by means of a force-pump; the pressure was
recorded by a Schaffer’s gauge; and the point of rupture was indicated by an
explosion within the vessel, and by a sudden decrease of pressure. The first
experiments were upon glass globes, intended to be perfectly spherical, but
in most instances somewhat flattened upon the side opposite to that from
which they were blown. Notwithstanding this ellipticity, some of the globes
bore enormously high pressures, especially when the extreme tenuity of the

glass was considered, amounting, as it did, from only i130 to 2, of an inch

in thickness. In one instance seven globes of glass were submitted to test,
three of which were intended to be 5 in. diameter, one 5 1-2 in. and three 8 in.,
but varying as before mentioned. The bursting pressure of the first four was
292 lbs., 410 Ibs., 470 lbs. and 475 lbs. to the square inch, — equivalent in the last
case to twenty tons upon a 5 1-2 in. globe, ay in. thick, before it was frac-

tured. The 8 in. globes burst respectively at 35 lbs., 42 lbs. and 60 Ibs. to an
inch; but they were unfortunately all elliptical to a serious extent, the diam-
eters of that which burst at 42 lbs. being respectively 8°20 in. and 7°30 in.

In experimenting with homogeneous glass cylinders, blown with hemis-
pherical ends, it was found that the law deduced from the experiments upon
iron tubes, applied equally well to the glass, viz., that the strength of cylin-
drical vessels, exposed to a uniform external pressure, varies inversely as to
length. Thus a glass cylinder 4°06 in. diameter, 13 3-4 in. long and ‘045 in.
thick, collapsed under a pressure of 180 lbs. to the square inch; while another,
4°05 in. diameter, 7 in. long, and ‘046 in. thick, yielded only under a pres-
sure of 380 lbs. to the inch.

EVAPORATIVE POWER OF BRASS, COPPER, AND IRON BOILER-TUBES.

A late number of the London Mechanics’ Magazine contains an article on
the above important question, by W. G. Tosh, from a paper read by him

)

Or

MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS.

before the Institution of Mechanical Engineers at Manchester, England.
“He constructed small vertical boilers of equal dimensions, and placed in the
centre of each a single tube, two inches in diameter, and of No. 14 wire
gage thickness. A gas flame was applied to each tube —iron, brass, and
copper — successively, during a certain period of time, which was equivalent
to the same quantity of fuel consumed in each case. The experiments were
first conducted during the day, then at night, at times when there was little
probability of a change of pressure in gas pipes. Eight of these were made
with the boilers, and the quantity of water evaporated was measured by the
number of inches it was lowered in a boiler by each experiment. The result
was in favor of the greater evaporating power of the brass over the iron
tubes, in the proportion of 125 to 100; that is, two pounds or two tons of
coal, or other fuel, will, with the use of brass tubes in a boiler, evaporate
twenty-five per cent. more water than iron tubes with the same quantity of
fuel, under precisely the same circumstances. In the same proportion that
brass surpassed iron in evaporative power, copper was found to surpass
brass. The evaporative powers, relatively, of the three metals in tubes for
steam boilers, he found were as follows: Iron, 100; brass, 125; copper, 156.
The experiments of Mr. Tosh were subjected to a searching criticism by
the engineers of the Institution, and strong doubts were expressed as to their
correctness.

PROSSER’S SURFACE. CONDENSER.

The principle of this condenser is to use much less condensing water than
is usual, by raising its temperature to the boiling point, and to condense the
steam arising from this water to supply the loss of water in the boiler. The
apparatus is divided into three portions. The condenser proper consists of a
number of iron pipes, inside of which runs the escape steam, and outside
of which is the condensing water. The condenser for the steam arising from
the condensing water is built on the same plan. The heater through which
the condensed water is forced to pass on its way back to the boiler, and where
it is heated by the escape steam on its way to the condenser, is also of a sim-
ilar construction. There are merits in this condenser. It is so constructed
as to be lasting, and it leaves the boiler clean, even when the most dirty
water is used.

ON A NEW SOUNDING APPARATUS.

The following device, proposed by Lieut. E. B. Hunt, U.S. A., has for its
chief object to run sounding lines in harbors and water of moderate depth.
The principle is that of measuring barometrically the pressure due to the
depth, this pressure being transmitted to the barometric basin by a column
of atmospheric air.

The method is as follows: Arrange a weighted india-rubber vessel for drag-
ging on the bottom; connect this with a boat or surveying vessel by an air-
tight tube of small bore; let this tube open into a cistern of mercury made
air-tight; from this cistern arrange a vertical glass column, open at the top,
in which the mercury can freely rise to any required height by the pressure
due to depth.

The mode of use would be thus: “ Throw the weighted air-vessel overboard
and let it sink to the bottom, it being connected with the vessel by the air-

60 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

tube, in turn duly joined to the barometric cistern. Let the boat or vessel be
propelled on a course. The air-vessel will be dragged along the bottom, and
as the water must have free access to the bag enclosing the air, its pressure
will compress the air to a density due to the depth. This pressure will be
communicated along the tube to the vessel or boat, and being received on
the mercurial surface, will raise a column to such a height that its weight will
equal the weight of an equal column of the water, whose height is the depth
to which the air-vessel is sunk, or rather that of the lowest part on which the
pressure acts. As this depth varies, the height of the column will also vary.
The relation of these heights is expressed by the specific gravity of mercury
divided by the specific gravity of the particular sea or other water of which the
soundings are being made. It would be necessary to make occasional obser-
vations with the hydrometer, and in the case of tidal streams these should be
quite frequent.’’ The detailed construction of such an apparatus is given by
Lieut. Hunt, in Silliman’s Journal, No. 76, July, 1858.

GAS-LIGHTS ON RAILROAD CARS.

The following plan for lighting cars with gas has been adopted with great
success on the New Jersey railroad. Each car is provided with a wrought-
iron cylinder, of a capacity of four and a half cubic feet. The cylinder is
of a strength capable of sustaining 500 pounds pressure. The heads, for
greater security, are made concave. The gas is compressed under a pressure
of twenty atmospheres (300 pounds to the square inch), 90 cubic feet of gas
being forced into each cylinder. Each car is provided with a cylinder, which
is placed upon a shelf under the car floor, and coupled in the usual manner
with a pipe leading to the burner within. An improved regulating contri-
vance controls the delivery of the gas to the burner under all pressures, and
is interposed between the cylinder and burners, so that the light is always
steady. The pressure of the gas ensures the continuity of light, no matter
what the concussions or roughness of the road.

The method of charging the cylinders with gas, adopted on the New Jersey
road, is simple and expeditious. Near the Company’s machine shop, at
Jersey City, a stack of the cylinders are arranged, into which the gas is forced
by the rapid movements of a steam-pump, to a pressure of about 450 pounds.
The cylinders are connected together by small pipes, and thus form a strong
and capacious reservoir. A conducting-pipe leads from the stack to the large
dépot on the Hudson river, where all the passenger cars arrive and depart, a
distance of a quarter of a mile. The conductor terminates in a horizontal
pipe running beneath the dépot platforms, with stop-cock openings at suita-
ble intervals. When the car cylinders are to be charged, an attendant
simply couples them to the conducting-pipe, and opens a stop-cock. The
gas then instantly rushes into the cylinders and fills them, under the pressure
of the reservoir, and they are ready for use. The filling of the cylinders for
a whole train occupies only a few minutes, and the work of supplying all the
trains with gas is, we are told, easily performed, from beginning to end, by
one man. — Scientific American.

TUNNEL UNDER THE ALPS.

It is generally known that the immense work of boring a tunnel under the
Alps, between Modane and Bardonéche, had commenced; but we have now

MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 61

to record some interesting facts which might, perhaps, never have been dis-
covered but for the peculiar methods employed in this colossal operation.
Modane and Bardonéche are situated on opposite sides of the Alpine chain
which divides Piedmont from France, and precisely at a point where the val-
leys of the Arc and the Dora, which lie nearly on the same level, run paral-
lel to each other, and the ‘mountain is narrowest. The thickness of the
intervening mountain is 13 kilometres in a straight line; the actual tunnel
will be 12 1-2 kilometres. It is designed in the same vertical plane, but, to
facilitate drainage, is somewhat higherin the middle than at the orifices, so as
to form gentle slopes on both sides, — one not exceeding an inclination of five
per thousand, and the other being twenty-three per thousand, in consequence
of a difference of level between the two extremities, the numbers being, —
Bardonéche (southern orifice), 1,324 meters ; culminating point, 1,335 meters;
Modane (northern orifice), 1,190 meters above the level of the sea. The crest
of the mountain being 1,600 meters higher than the culminating point, the
sinking of shafts— which is the method generally employed in order to
begin boring tunnels at several points at once—was out of the question;
hence the tunnel could only be worked at its extremities, so that the labor,
by the ordinary processes, could not be accomplished in less than thirty-six
years. Then, how was a depth of gallery of three or four kilometres, and
having but one orifice, to be aired? These were all serious obstacles. MM.
Elie de Beaumont and Angelo Sismonda having examined the mountain
geologically, found it to contain micaceous sandstone, micaceous schists,
quartzite, gypsum, and limestone, — all easy to blast, the quartzite alone ex-
cepted; but the stratum of this is not likely to be very thick. The other dif-
ficulties alone, therefore, remained; and these were at length overcome by
three Sardinian engineers, — MM. Sommeiller, Grattone, and Grandis, — who
proposed to turn the abundance of water for which the locality was remark-
able to account, by applying it toa peculiar system of perforation and venti-
lation, which we will now endeavor to explain. The first apparatus imagined
by these gentlemen consists in a hydraulic air-condenser, which is a syphon
turned with its orifices upward, and communicating by one of them with a
stream of water, by the other with a reservoir of air. The water, descend-
ing into the first branch, enters the second, and by the pressure it exercises
condenses the air, which is then forced into the reservoir. This done, a valve
is opened, by which the water contained in the syphon is let out, and the
operation recommences. The emission and introduction valves are regulated
by a small machine operating by means of a column of water; and the air
in the reservoir is maintained at a constant degree of pressure by a column
of water communicating with another reservoir above. Thus, with a water-
fall twenty meters in height, the air is condensed to six atmospheres, equiv-
alent to the pressure of sixty-two meters of water. This condensed air is
used for two purposes; first, as a motive power, and then for ventilation.
Two kinds of perforators, worked by condensed air instead of steam, are em-
ployed, — one invented by Mr. Bartlett, the other by M. Sommeiller, — and the
manner in which these machines perform their duty affords the first practical
demonstration of the possibility of employing compressed air as a motive
power with advantage. By means of these perforators holes for blasting
may be bored through the hardest sienite in one-twelfth of the time which
would be required if ordinary means were employed. In order to understand
the importance of this result, it may be stated that, in tunneling, three-fourths

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62 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

of the time is employed in boring holes, and the remainder in charging and
blasting; hence, accelerating the former operation is an immense advantage.
The perforators have another advantage: in a place where three couples of
miners would hardly find room, eighteen perforators may be set to work; so
that, by these ingenious contrivances, as well as by others for clearing away
the rubbish, the perforation of the tunnel may be effected in six years instead
of thirty-six. The air that has been employed as a motive power is used to
feed the gallery; but when the latter shall have reached a considerable depth,
it will require 85,924 cubic meters of air per twenty-four hours to replace that
‘which has been vitiated by respiration, torches, and gunpowder; and this
quantity, in the form of 14,320 cubic meters of air condensed to six atmos-
pheres, the reservoir can furnish. A new and curious fact has been observed
during these works, viz., that when the air, condensed to the degree above
mentioned, is shot into the gallery from the machine, any water happening to
be near the latter suddenly congeals, although the ambient temperature be
about eighteen degrees, centigrade (seventy-two degrees Fahrenheit). Hence,
when a large mass of compressed air is driven into a gallery situated at 1,600
meters below the outer surface of the earth, and where, consequently, the
temperature must be about 100 degrees Fahrenheit, the dilation of the com-
pressed air produces a diminution of temperature sufficient to counterbalance
the excess alluded to. The progress now making per day in boring is three
meters on each side of the mountain, or six meters per day in all.

ELASTIC BALL-VALVE PUMP.

This pump, patented in 1857, by Mr. A. Tower of New York, was devised
for the purpose of being, at the same time, a lift and force-pump, and a fire-
engine. It consists of two cylinders, standing vertically on a bed-plate,
between which is an air reservoir, and on the top of which are cast two pro-
jections, used as bearing for the working-beam or brake. There is a hollow
plunger in each cylinder, connected from its bottom with the brake, and moy-
ing through an ordinary stuffing-box, which is so placed that, by turning a
few screws, it may be made tighter without stopping the pump. There is
one valve-seat directly under each cylinder, and two in the air reservoir, all
of which are raised a few inches above the flat surface around. Over each
seat stands an India-rubber ball, about two inches in diameter, which is
prevented from falling sideways, or rising too high, by being inclosed in a
wire cage. Every solid particle which is carried through the valve falls by
its own weight by the side of the elevated seat, and cannot, henceforward,
choke the pump; and the few particles which may be arrested in their pas-
sage, when the ball comes suddenly down, get imbedded in the India-rubber
which closes around them, and do not interfere with the action of the valve.
This pump is capable of pumping a mixture of grain and water made in
the ratio of three quarts of corn to each gallon of water. The working
beam is properly moulded for the insertion of levers ateach end. When it is
advisable to work the pump by steam power, one of the levers is taken
away, and a connecting-rod, with one end turned at right angles and shaped
like that of the lever, is substituted for it. The pump, mounted on four
wheels, and provided with proper hose, is turned into a small fire-engine.

MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 63

ON THE PROTECTION OF WOOD FROM FIRE.

The attention of practical men has been for some years past directed, from .
time to time, to the importance of affording to wooden erections some degree
of protection from the effects of fire; and numerous plans have been pro-
posed, and to some extent tested, for lessening the combustibility of wood,
and for covering its surface with a protective coating more or less unalterable
by fire.

The simple application of lime or clay wash, for example, has been found
to afford some slight protection to wood, although the tendency of such
materials to peel off the surface of the wood (into which they do not in any
way penetrate), by exposure to heat, and the rapidity with which the
coating is destroyed by atmospheric influence, render them very ineffective
agents.

The successful results obtained by the application of alkaline silicates, as
protective materials, has recently induced the English War Department to
institute an examination, with a view of testing the comparative value of
the cheapest of these, the soluble silicate of soda, as an agent for decreasing
the combustibility of wood.

The property possessed by the soluble alkaline silicates, of being readily
softened by hot water, and thus converted into a state of solution, while
they are but slightly affected by cold water, renders their application to
wood, either in the form of a bath, or as a wash, very simple. Their dilute
solutions being readily absorbed by wood, the surfaces of the latter, as it
dries, assume the form of a hard coating.

From the official report, we derive the following extracts, descriptive of
the results arrived at, by employing silicate of soda.

“Various specimens of dry wood were prepared with silicate of soda, by
being soaked for a few hours in a weak solution. Upon examining the
interior of these, after removal from the bath, and subsequent desiccation,
the silica was found to have penetrated about a quarter of an inch on all
sides. On piling the above over a fire, together with specimens of unpre-
pared wood, and others that had been prepared by different processes, the
superiority of the silicate of soda, as a protective agent, was fully demon-
strated. Some specimens were then simply painted with a moderately
strong solution of silicate; and afterwards placed, together with unprepared
wood, in a pool of coal-tar naphtha, and the naphtha ignited. The result
was, that while the unprepared wood was speedily consumed, the wood
coated with silicate was only scorched, but not burned.”

Shortly after the experiments above described were made, the possibility
suggested itself of rendering the coating of silicate less destructible by
exposure to wet, of increasing its efficiency as a protective, and of rendering
its applicatton more economical by combining with its use that of ordinary
lime wash.

Some pieces of plank were prepared in the following manner: a dilute
solution of the silicate of soda was first applied with a brush; when this
had thoroughly soaked into the wood and dried, a thick lime wash (made
by slaking some lime, and reducing the hydrate to a smooth wash of the
consistence of thick cream) was applied; and, lastly, after the planks had
been exposed to the air for two or three hours, they were painted with a
second solution of silicate of soda, somewhat stronger than that first used.

64 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

The results of trials, similar to those above recorded, proved most satis-
factorily that the protective coating resisted to a remarkable degree the
action of heat, evinced no symptom of peeling off the highly heated surface
of the wood, and protected the fibre to a great degree from the influence of
flame playing upon its surface. The durability of the coating was tested by
exposing prepared surfaces of wood to a continuous stream of water and to
heavy rains for a considerable period. It was found that the rain had no
effect upon the coating; in the other more severe test, the material was only
to some extent removed, after a time, on that spot where the jet of water
first impinged upon the wood. A trial was made of the firmness of the
coating, by applying heavy blows to the surface of the wood. The covering
was only disturbed in one or two places, where the lime had been laid on
rather too thickly.

The above report was accompanied by a communication relating to the
cost of the application of the silicate coating, in which it was stated that,
provided the silicate of soda employed has been prepared with especial
reference to this application (that is, so as to be readily and completely
mixable with water), one pound of the material is sufficient to prepare a
surface of wood of ten square feet; while the wholesale price of the silicate,
in the form of a syrup, of a certain degree of concentration, is £20 per ton;
so that the cost of the silicate required to prepare the wood is at the rate of
about two pence for a surface of about ten square feet.

The following are the directions adopted for general guidance in preparing
wood with the coating of silicate of soda and lime.

The silicate of soda must be in the form of a thick syrup, and the lime
wash should be made by slacking some good fat lime, rubbing it down with
water until perfectly smooth, and then diluting it to the consistency of thick
cream.

The protective coating is produced by painting the wood firstly with a
dilute solution of silicate of soda; secondly, with the lime wash; and lastly,
with a somewhat stronger solution of the silicate. The surface of the wood
should be moderately smooth; and any covering of paper, paint, or other
material, should be first removed entirely, by planing or scraping. A solu-
tion of the silicate, in the proportion of one part by measure of the syrup to
three parts of water, is prepared in a tub, pail, or earthen vessel, by simply
stirring the measured proportion of the silicate with the water, until com-
plete mixture is effected. The wood is then washed over with this liquid, by
means of an ordinary white-wash brush, the latter being passed two or three
times over the surface, so that the wood may absorb as much of the solution
as possible. When this first coating is nearly dry, the wood is painted with
the lime wash in the usual manner. A solution of the silicate, in the pro-
portion of two parts by measure of the syrup to three parts of water, is then
made; and a sufficient time having been allowed to elapse for the wood to
become moderately dry, this liquid is applied upon the lime in the manner
directed for the first coating. The preparation of the wood is then complete.
If the lime coating has been applied rather too thickly, the surface of the
wood may be found, when quite dry, after the third coating, to give off a
little lime when rubbed with the hand. In that case it should be once more
coated over with a solution of the silicate, of the strength prescribed for the
second liquid.

~

MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 69

THE AMERICAN MANUFACTURE OF WATCH MOVEMENTS.

A correspondent of the New York Times furnishes the following interest-
ing description of the works of the American Watch Company, at Waltham,
Mass., in which, for the first time, the adaptation of machinery to the con-
struction of uniformly perfect watch movements, in their minutest and most
delicate details, has been successfully attempted.

The better to understand the magnitude of the interests affected by this
enterprise, it should be remembered that the value of watches and watch
movements imported into the United States is about $5,000,000 per annum,
exclusive of many more which evade the Custom-house. It is estimated
that an equal sum is expended in this country alone in repairing defective
watches, and in vain attempts to coax them to run regularly. European
watches are made chiefly by hand. The rough parts of the movement are
collected usually from several distinct work-shops, all meeting at last upon
the bench of the finisher, perhaps in a distant city or some foreign country,
where the mechanism is fitted by measurement, and put in motion. Neces-
sarily very much must depend upon the accuracy of eye and steadiness of
hand of the workman; for the slightest deviation in size, length, or form of
any part of the intricate mechanism, must impair its value, if not render it
utterly useless. The variation of the ten thousandth part of an inch in the
size of a socket, or the measurements to determine its proper position, may
make all the difference between a perfect time-keeper and one which shall be
little else than a source of vexation and expense.

In “ jewelling,” especially, is the highest accuracy of human workmanship
required. Jewelling, in watch-making, is the setting of precious stones —
usually rubies, sapphires or chrysolites—in positions subjected to friction,
in order to avoid the least change of form or size by long wear. Thus holes
to receive metal pinions must be made in substances inferior only to the
diamond in hardness; and in planing, turning, and drilling the jewels, micro-
scopic exactness is indispensable; for the pinions must move in their holes
with perfect ease, and yet without spare room to admit the minutest division
of a hair. The mode of piercing jewels, discovered in the year 1700 by M.
Facio, of Geneva, was for a long time a distinct art of itself. With this
understanding of the delicate mechanical conditions requisite to a true time-
keeper, the reader will no longer wonder that there are so few perfect
watches, or that none but the best works of the best European finishers
heretofore, have approached perfection, nor that there is such absence of
correspondence in the practical working of watch movements, which to the
eye appear to be precisely alike.

By the employment of ingenious machinery for the construction of each
and every part of the movement, the American Watch Company have over-
come all the difficulties inseparable from the manufacture by hand. Each
of these machines has its peculiar office to perform, doing its special work
to a gauge or pattern, with an exactness which handicraft cannot equal.
By this means each watch movement, in every part — with the exception of
the jewelled holes and the pivots that run in them —is exactly like every
other of the same size and style. The holes are drilled in the jewels with a
diamond, and then opened with diamond dust on a soft, hair-like wire. The
steel pivots designed to run in these jewels, must be exquisitely polished,—
by which operation their size is reduced almost inappreciably. After being

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66 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

thus finished, the jewels and pivots are classified by means of a gauge
graduated so as to mark the difference of a ten-thousandth part of an inch.
The size of the pivots and jewelled holes are recorded at the factory, with the
number of each watch; so that if any one of either should ever fail, in any
part of the world, its exact duplicate may be obtained at trifling cost by
sending the number of the watch to Waltham. All the other parts are made
faithfully alike,— any given piece fitting one watch exactly as it does in
every other. Nothing is left to the eye or the touch of the workman, for
the machinery impresses its own unerring precision upon the whole.

The mechanical principle of true time-keeping is the division of a constant
force in a given time, by means of perfectly adjusted mechanism, so arranged
as to change the rotary motion of the wheels into the vibratory motion of
the balance or pendulum; the only mechanical difference between a clock
and a watch being, that the one is so arranged that it will move in one posi-
tion only, while the other will move in any,— the pendulum setting the clock
in motion, and the balance performing the same service for the watch. The
escapement is that part of the time-piece which converts the rotary into
vibratory motion, as above, and is made by one tooth of the fastest running
wheel in the train escaping at each vibration, which wheel is known as the
““seape-wheel.”? The detached lever escapement, now used in the best
English watches, is the one adopted in the Waltham factory, with some
valuable modifications in the general construction of the movements. The
escapement varies indefinitely in movements of European manufacture, each
being fitted by hand to its particular watch, and useless in every other; while
in the American factory any one of a thousand escapements will accurately
fulfil its office wherever placed. All the ingenious tools by which these
remarkable results are obtained, were invented in this establishment, and
constructed within its walls.

Having now a general idea of the skill and perfection requisite to success-
ful watch-making, and of the chief points of novelty in the Waltham estab-
lishment, let us proceed to a methodical examination of its varied operations.

The factory building is of brick, two stories in height, surrounding a
quadrangle court, and covering about half an acre of ground. It accommo-
dates nearly a hundred and fifty operatives, many of them women. We
enter, first, the room devoted to the heavier and more massive machinery.
Here we find stamps and dies, over a hundred in number, with which the
various pieces of the watch are first rudely stamped out of sheets of brass,
just as they come from the Connecticut rolling mills. We follow these
rough pieces (or “blanks,” as they. are technically named) to another
room, where they are reduced to proper size and form.

Let us follow, for example, the fortunes of this barrel blank,—a simple
wheel, about three-quarters of an inch in diameter, stamped out from a sheet
of brass three-sixteenths of an inch in thickness, and then hardened by
hammering. The blank is placed upon a lathe, on which it revolves with
great velocity, and is brought in contact with a series of tools all fastened
immovably upon a frame. These speedily reduce it to the required size and
form, turn out the chamber to accommodate the main-spring, drill a hole in
the centre to receive the barrel arbor to which the main-spring is fastened
and around which it is coiled, and turn a flange on the outer edge, on the
periphery of which are to be cut the teeth to gear into the “train ”’ of wheels
and set it in motion. All this is accomplished in less time than I take to
describe it,— the machine setting itself, and invariably executing its work

MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 67

with unfailing precision. A hole is also drilled in one side of the barrel, in
which to fasten the opposite end of the spring.

The barrel is now taken from the lathe and placed upon another machine
to have its teeth cut. This operation is performed by a minute chisel revolv-
ing upon a cylinder at high speed,—the machine automatically moving the
piece in a circle so as successfully to present every part of its edge to the
cutter, until the entire number of sixty teeth are formed. The teeth of the
wheels are cut upon the same principle, although of the smaller sizes from
forty to sixty wheels are placed upon the machine at once, and operated
upon by the same motion. In another part of this room all the pivots of
steel and the shoulders of pinions are cut to their proper size by machinery.
Pinions are the axles of wheels, and pivots the bearing ends on which they
run. Some of these are very small, and parts of them so slender that they
can hardly be manipulated without injury from accidental pressure; never-
theless, machinery strong enough to gouge out metal chips without apparent
effort, grasps these diminutive pieces with equal delicacy and firmness, re-
leasing them at last in perfect form and safety. The teeth of these wheels,
located at and near the centre of the pinions, are drawn out from the wire by
one machine, and are then passed under another which opens them to the
precise angle required, and polishes away all superfluous metal, reducing
them instantaneously, almost to the exact proportion desired.

The escape-wheels are cut by a machine somewhat similar to that perform-
ing the dental operation already described. In no part of the mechanism is
the perfection of the machinery put to aseverer test than here, for the escape
must be shaped by it with absolute perfection, as no tool can be applied
thereto subsequently. Sixteen of the blanks are put upon the lathe at the
same time, and then by three distinct motions — all accomplished in less than
one minute — the eccentrically-shaped teeth are cut, and the wheels come out
the most exquisitely-delicate little affairs imaginable. Another machine
rapidly turns out pillars of brass—each with several minute flanges — used
in fastening the large plates of the watch to each other. Others make the
various screws required for putting the movement together. Some of these
are sO minute, that ninety-five thousand of them weigh only a single pound!
The steel wire of which this number is made costs originally only a do!lar,—
worth, when thus manufactured, nine hundred and fifty dollars ; the labor there-
upon multiplying the value of the raw material nine hundred and fifty times!
A piece of the wire being placed in the machine, is seized firmly and carried
forward to a position where a tool meets and points it. This done, another
tool advances, cuts it down to a required size,—at the same time forming
the shoulder,—and retires. A third tool promptly follows up the work by
cutting the thread upon the screw, and a fourth nearly severs it from the
wire. The operative now picks up from his bench a sort of rack of steel,
perforated with holes, in which the screw fits easily, and, inserting the
screw-point into one of these, breaks it off above the head, repeating the
operation until the rack is full. The rack now presents to view a long
straight row of screw-heads still needing the groove into which the screw-
driver is to be inserted when forcing them home. This is promptly supplied
by passing the rack horizontally under another instrument which cuts the
eroove, and, when ‘‘case screws” are wanted, saws off a segment of the
head at the same time.

A little further on we find machinery for turning the brass plates both
large and small. Each, piece is perfected in an instant. By similar means

68 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

the twenty or thirty holes of different sizes are drilled in the larger plates all
at once. As the tools are held in their ailotted places by iron ‘ muscles,”
they cannot fail to do this work just where it is wanted,— nor can there be
the slightest deviation from the perpendicular in the sides or walls of the
holes.

The various parts of the mechanism, leaving the rooms in which they
received their shape and size, are carried to the finishing-room. Here each
piece is carefully examined with a glass, to see if it is perfect, before it is
passed to be hardened, cleaned, and polished. The polishing is all effected
by machinery. In the finishing-room, the jewels, also, are set in the pallet
which works in the escapement. This pallet is a sort of miniature beam,
swinging on a pivot in the centre, and having an angular hook at each end,
which works upon the tooth of the escape-wheel. The points of these hooks
are opened by machinery, and jewels are inserted in the slits, and then
worked down even with the face of the metal. In polishing these pallets,
they are placed upon an index to which they are set, so that the angles may
be brought down to the microscopic exactitude of shape preéminently indis-
pensable in this part of the mechanism. All the brass pieces, when found
perfect, are gilded by electro-metallurgy.

It only remains to describe the dial-rooms, and the system of “ putting
up” the movements. The dial-rooms are devoted to the production of
enamelled dials of all colors. These are made from a species of porcelain
manufactured in London, and imported in plates resembling fine China ware.
At Waltham, the porcelain is reduced to a paste, and then fused upon thin
copper plates —the basis of all dials —at nearly white heat. When cooled,
the dial is ground off smoothly, and then subjected again to the furnace, to
perfect its surface and give it asmooth glaze. The dial being now ready
for painting, the spaces upon its edge are marked off by an index, the
figures are put on roughly with a coarse brush, and, after the ink is dried by
slow heat, the superfluous edges are removed with a little wooden point.
The minute and second points, and the diminutive letters forming the name
of the manufacturing firm, are all put on with a fine hair pencil, the artist’s
eye being assisted by the glass. The hands of the watch are stamped out
from thin sheets of steel.

The various pieces of the watch movement, when entirely finished, are
collected in sets, and carried to the “ putting-up”’ room, where from thirty-
five to forty hands are engaged in putting them together, adjusting and
preparing them for market, subjecting each to the most thorough tests, and
regulating it perfectly as is possible before its adjustment in the pocket of
the wearer. Here, as everywhere else in this establishment, the labor is
divided and sub-divided, so as to secure the greatest economy and highest
skill. The whole number of pieces in an old-fashioned English lever -is
between eight and nine hundred, including the chain. In the American
movement there are only about a hundred and twenty distinct parts, each of
which passes through the hands of from five to seventy-five operatives, in the
process of manufacture and adjustment!

No one who examines the operations of this Company can doubt that a
revolution impends in the watch-manufacturing of the world; for, by the
American machinery, watch movements without cases are already produced
at just about one-half the cost of imported movements of similar grade,
while the former necessarily have the advantage of uniform reliability. A
poor time keeper, of machine make, should and doubtless will be as rare in

MECHANICS AND USEfUS, ARTS. 69

the future as a perfect one made by hand has been in the past; and the only
difference to be made in the scale of prices must result from the style of
finishing the cases and from the number of jewels; for it is as easy to arrange
the machinery so as to secure perfect work as to turn out imperfect,— and
once set, it cannot fail to serve every movement alike.

REMINISCENCES OF THE FIRST INTRODUCTION OF STEAM NAVIGA-
TION.

The following paper, on the above subject, was recently read before the
New York Historical Society, by Professor Renwick, of New York City.

1. The earliest attempt to navigate the ocean by steam was made, and
made successfully, by Robert L. Stevens. The circumstances of the case
were as follows: He, with his father, who had the misfortune to live half a
century too soon, not only for fortune but for fame, had constructed a steam-
boat propelled by paddle-wheels, which was in motion on the Hudson only
a few days later than Fulton’s first successful voyage. Being prevented by
the exclusive grant from the State of New York to Livingston and Fulton,
from plying upon the Hudson, he conceived the bold idea of carrying the
vessel, under steam, around Cape May to the Delaware. The vessel reached
Philadelphia in safety, and was immediately employed in conveying passen-
gers between that city and Trenton. This passage was made, as I infer from
a comparison of other dates, in the spring of 1809. The steamship Savan-
nah, built in New York, made a voyage from New York to Liverpool, and
from Liverpool up the Baltic to St. Petersburg, in the year 1818. The
voyage from New York to Liverpool was performed partly by sails and
partly by steam, and occupied twenty-six days. The same vessel returned
via Arendal in Norway, and was twenty-five days in making the voyage
home from the latter port. This enterprise, however, was, so to speak, no,
more than a continuation of one of much earlier date and better promise.
A steamer of stronger scantling, larger size, and, I believe, more powerful
engine, than the Savannah, had been built by a company headed by Cad-
wallader D. Colden. It was generally understood that this enterprise was
undertaken in virtue of a contract with Russia. To this vessel, when
launched, the name of the “ Emperor Alexander” was given. When nearly
ready for sea, her departure was prevented by the declaration of war in
June, 1812. Under the name of the ‘‘ Connecticut,” this vessel was long
known upon the Sound.

England was, however, before us in forming lines of steamers to navigate
stormy seas. The earliest of these was established by the aid of the Goy-
ernment for the transportation of the Irish mail between Holyhead and
Dublin, in 1819 or 1820.

2. The first time that I ever heard of an attempt to use steam for propel-
ling vessels was from a classmate of mine, who resided during the summer
months at Belleville in New Jersey. He had, in the summer of 1803, seen
an experiment on the Passaic River, which he stated to have been directed
by John Stevens of Hoboken. According to his account, the propulsion
was attempted by forcing water by means of a pump from an aperture in
the stern of the vessel. From some vague indications, it would appear that
the elder Brunel, afterwards so distinguished in Europe, was in the employ-
ment of Mr. Stevens on this occasion. In the month of May, 1804, in com-
pany with the same gentleman, I went to walk in the Battery. As we entered

70 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

the gate from Broadway, we saw what we in those days considered a crowd,
running towards the river. On inquiring the cause, we were informed that
“Jack Stevens was going over to Hoboken in a queer sort of a boat.” On
reaching the bulkhead by which the Battery was then botinded, we saw
lying against it a vessel about the size of a Whitehall row-boat, in which
was a small engine, but there was no visible means of propulsion. The
vessel was speedily under way, my late much-valued friend, Commodore
Stevens, acting as cockswain; and I presume that the smutty-looking per-
sonage who fulfilled the duties of engineer, fireman, and crew, was his more
practical brother, Robert L. Stevens.

A few years since, at the last fair of the American Institute, held at Niblo’s,
I was asked to serve on a committee to report upon a boat and engine ex-
hibited by the Messrs. Stevens, for the purpose of sustaining the claim of
their father to the honor of being the first inventor of the propeller. The
circumstances I have just recounted had taken so strong a hold on my
memory, that I at once recognized the engine exhibited as that which I had
seen at the Battery nearly fifty years before.

In respect to the propeller I could say nothing. One of my colleagues on
the committee, however, Mr. Curtis, at that time United States Inspector of
steamboats for the port of New York, recognized, as distinctly as I had done
the engine, the propeller, which he had seen in the hands of workmen by
whom it was manufactured. The dates corresponded, the apparatus was
avowedly making for Stevens of Hoboken. Thus it happened that an acci-
dental choice had placed upon the committee two persons who were, by the
union of their testimony, capable of establishing the fact into the truth of
which they were directed to inquire.

In the spring of the year 1807, I had the pleasure to hear from David
Gordon, at that time a merchant in this city, afterwards much distinguished
in England as a civil engineer, an account of Fulton’s trial-trip, and to learn
from him that there was every reasonable hope of his success.

In the summer of the same year, while about to sit down to dinner at
Gregory’s Hotel in Albany, in company with my predecessor in Columbia
College, Dr. Kemp, Mr. Selah Strong entered the room, stating that he had
just arrived from New York in Fulton’s steamboat, after a passage of about
thirty-six hours. He went on to say, that, being anxious to reach Albany
to transact some business of importance, he had solicited permission to
make the voyage in the steamer, which was, after some hesitation, granted.
Five other persons followed him, occupying with him the six spare berths
which happened to be on board. Mr. Strong, then, was the first passenger
who ever paid his fare in a steamer, and his urgency had probably a great
influence on the fortunes of the invention; for, up to that time, Fulton’s own
views were chiefly devoted to the Mississippi and its branches. An opening
for a successful traffic seemed to exist on the Hudson; and from that date to
the close of navigation the original boat continued to run occasionally, and
to convey passengers.

You may readily believe that I did not fail to visit the vessel; and that I
could not avoid hearing the imprecations, not loud but deep, with which the
Albany skippers saluted what they thought would be the ruin of their occu-
pation. Even the more quiet burghers could not refrain from lamenting
that in Fulton’s success was involved the ruin of their trade, and the trans-
fer of their business to New York. The vessel was very unlike any of its
successors, and even very dissimilar from the shape in which it appeared a

land

MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. |

few months afterwards. With a model resembling that of a skiff, it was
decked for a short distance at stem and stern. The engine was open to
view, and from the engine aft a house like that on a canal boat was raised
to cover the boiler, and the apartments for the officers. In these, by the
addition of a few berths, the passengers were accommodated. There were
no wheel-guards. The rudder was of the shape used in sailing vessels, and
moved by a tiller. The boiler was of the form then usual in Watt’s engines,
and was set in masonry. The condenser was of the size habitually used in
land engines, and stood, as was and still is the practice in them, in a large
cold-water cistern. The weight of the masonry, and the great capacity of
the cold-water cistern, diminished most materially the buoyancy of the
vessel.

At this point Fulton’s ingenuity and fertility of invention were called into
play. The experiment was to the eye of the world successful, yet was
withal so imperfect as to be liable to continual accident and annoyance.
The rudder had so little power that the vessel could hardly be managed, and
could not be made to veer around even in the whole breadth of the Hudson
at New York. The spray from the wheels dashed over the passengers, and
the skippers of the river craft, taking advantage of the unwieldiness of the
vessel, did not fail to run foul of her as often as they thought they had the
law on their side. Thus, in several instances, the steamboat reached one or
the other of the termini of its route with but a single wheel.

Before the season closed, the wheel was surrounded by a frame of strong
beams, and the paddles were covered in; the rudder had taken the shape of
a rectangle, of large iron horizontal dimensions, such as is now seen in all
American river-boats; this rudder was worked by a wheel, the ropes from
which were attached to the end most distant from the pintles. The vessel,
by the last mentioned arrangement, became so manageable as to be capable
of veering at Albany; and by the first was more likely to inflict than to
receive injury in an encounter with a sailing vessel. I was even at that time
of opinion— and a careful attention to the working of the patent laws has
confirmed me in it— that, had Fulton been less sanguine in relation to his first
patent, and had added to it by a new instrument the improvements which
circumstances led him to make during the summer of 1807, but which he
allowed to become public property, he might have maintained his exclusive
privileges as patentee in all parts of the Union. To puta pair of paddle-
wheels on the axle of the crank of one of Boulton and Watt’s engines is a
step almost too simple to admit of specification, and had been in some de-
gree indicated by Watt himself; but the practical difficulties which lay in
the way, and could not have been foreseen, required the application of reme-
dies, all of which were original. Among them, unquestionably, was the
substitution of a condenser, enlarged fourfold in its capacity, for the old
condenser and the cold-water cistern, together with the use of standing pipes
instead of the cold-water pump. These made their appearance the ensuing
season.

During the winter of 1807-8, the ‘‘ Clermont’’—for by this name the vessel
was now known—was almost wholly rebuilt. The hull was considerably
lengthened, and covered from stem to stern with a flush deck. Beneath this,
two cabins were formed, and surrounded by double ranges of berths, fitted
up in a manner then unexampled for comfort. The vessel was then adver-
tised to run at stated periods between New York and Albany, as a packet,
the first time of departure being the first Wednesday (I think) of May. On

72 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

that day I embarked in her; the officer in command was named Jenkins;
and Fulton himself, accompanied by the lady whom he had recently mar-
ried, was on board. The first marked incident was the leaving of several
passengers who had ventured to trust to the want of punctuality then usual
in the departure of vessels. The rule of starting at an exact hour was then
enforced for the first time, and from that rule there was for the future no
deviation. One or two of the dilatory parties jumped into a boat that was
towing astern, the others were left behind.

Leaving Cortlandt-street at five o’clock, we were at the base of Butler Hill
about daybreak the next morning. A delay of a couple of hours took place
at Chancellor Livingston’s seat, Clermont, and the whole passage was made
in less than forty hours. Symptoms of difficulty were manifest, however,
even on the upward passage. Mr. Fulton appeared anxious and abstracted.
Finally, steam began to make its appearance in very minute jets through the
joints of a wooden trunk, that was first considered by the passengers as the
case of the boiler. It was at last found to be the boiler itself, and it was
whispered that Fulton had been overruled by his associates, and that a cylin-
der of wooden staves, containing fire-place and flues of copper, had been
substituted for the boiler of Watt, instead of replacing it by a new boiler of
copper. This form of boiler had been proposed, but as far as I can learn,
had never been used by Watt. On the return voyage the leaks in the boiler
continued to increase; the speed of the vessel, although aided by a flood in
the river, became less and less; and after fifty-seven hours of struggling, the
engine ceased to work. We were then at the foot of Christopher street.
The flood-tide made itself felt in opposition to our progress, and the pas-
sengers considered it better to make a landing, and find their way on foot to
the peopled parts of the city.

It took some weeks to obtain a new boiler, after the expiration of which
the Clermont resumed her proposed trips.

In the month of September, 1809, I was a partaker in the exciting scene,
then first enacted, of a steamboat race. A company at Albany had becn
formed for the purpose of competing with Fulton. The first vessel of this
rival line was advertised to leave Albany at the same time with Fulton’s.
Parties ran high in the hotels at Albany. The partisans of Fulton were
enrolled under Professor Kemp of Columbia College, those of the opposition
under Jacob Stout. The victory was long in suspense; and it was not until
after the thirtieth hour of a hard struggle that the result was proclaimed by
Dr. Kemp, standing on the taffrail of Fulton’s vessel, and holding out, in
derision, a coil of rope to Captain Stout, for the purpose, as he informed
him, of towing him into port. When the age, high standing, and sedate
character of these two gentlemen are considered, it did not surprise me, who
witnessed their excitement, when I afterwards heard of Western women
having devoted their bacon to feed the fires of a steamboat furnace.

Although I became intimately acquainted with Fulton about the year 1810,
I have nothing of interest to mention to you, except that this intimacy pro-
cured me the privilege of accompanying him on the trial-trips of two of his
vessels —I think the Paragon and the Fulton. The latter was intended for
the navigation of the Sound, but was prevented from plying on that route
by the presence of British cruisers. On one of these occasions we had the
opportunity of seeing the respect in which Fulton’s genius was held by ene-
mies of the country. On issuing from the Narrows, we saw, close in with
the Point of Sandy Hook, a large English vessel, the Razee Saturn, by

-

~ MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 13

which the port was then blockaded. Our direct course for the anchorage at
the Hook, whither we were bound, lay across the east bank, and we thus
had the appearance of bearing down on the cruiser. As soon as we were
fairly in sight, and as our smoke could well be seen by the Saturn, that ves-
sel was put about, a press of sail was spread, and every effort was evidently
made on board to obtain an offing, by standing away close hauled with a
strong wind from 8.W. After we got quietly anchored under the Hook, the
Saturn resumed her station just outside of the bar.

Although it has been said, on English authority, that Sir Thomas Hardy,
while occupying the Sound with a powerful squadron, and carrying his flag
in a seventy-four, never remained at anchor during the night, and rarely left
the deck except by day, in order to insure safety from Fulton’s torpedoes, a
more certain if not more terrific mode of attack was, at the date of which I
speak, afloat, and nearly ready for service in the waters of New York. This
was the steam Battery, miscalled Frigate, Fulton. This vessel, formidable
enough in reality, had been represented by correspondents of English news-
papers as a monster of prodigious powers. An hundred guns of enormous
calibre were said to be enclosed in fire and bomb-proof shelters; the upper
deck was reported to be defended by thousands of boarding-pikes and cut-
lasses wielded by steam, while showers of boiling water were ready to be
poured over those that might escape death from the rapidly whirling steel.
In reality, the vessel presented above the surface of the water the figure of
an oval, whose greatest length was about the same as that of an English
seventy-four. This was covered by a continuous spar-deck, at either extrem-
ity of which was mounted, on a revolving carriage, a chambered gun, capa-
ble of throwing a solid ball of 100 pounds, but intended, as is well known,
to throw shells. Beneath the spar-deck was the gun-deck, also continuous,
except in the middle, where space was left for the working of a large paddle-
wheel; and on this gun-deck was mounted a battery of thirty-two 32-pound-
ers. The sides of the vessel were thickened by cork and wood, not only
between the guns, but as low as the water’s edge, until incapable of being
penetrated by a 32-pound ball. Beneath the gun-deck the hull was formed
as if of a vessel cut in two, leaving a passage from stem to stern for water
to reach and to be thrown backwards from the wheel. Two rudders were
placed in this passage, moving on theircentres. The boilers and the greater
part of the machinery were below the reach of shot, and even the wheels
could only be reached by a stray shot, passing unimpeded and in a proper
direction through the port-holes, until the sides of the vessel had been
destroyed by a long-continued battering. The central wheel, and the pecu-
liar rudders, had already been successfully used by Fulton in a ferry-boat.
This seems to have been placed on the Brooklyn ferry about the year 1811.

My scene must.now be changed to the opposite side of the Atlantic. The
war with England being at an end, I took an early opportunity to visit
Europe, and reached England in the month of May, 1815. In July of the
same year, in company with some other Americans, I made a pedestrian
excursion to the neighborhood of Runcorn, in Cheshire. On our return
through the beautiful grounds of what once was a park belonging to Lord
Sefton, was then laid out in sites for villas, and has since been included in
the town of Liverpool, we saw beneath us in the Mersey an object which
puzzled our English friend, but which the rest of the party knew to be a
steamboat. On reaching Liverpool, we learned that Bell, who had been put
forward by a Committee of Parliament, as the rival, indeed as the instructor,

4

74 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

of Fulton, had brought his vessel, the Comet, round from Greenock. It
scems that he had been driven from the Clyde by the competition of larger
and more perfect vessels. In passing between the two towns he had made
the first English voyage on the ocean by steam. This date, you will per-
ceive, is six years later than the similar voyage of Robert L. Stevens from
New York to Philadelphia. The length of the Comet’s keel was no more
than forty feet, her engine was of but three-horse power.

On the 2ist of March, 1816, I left Southampton for Havre, in a cutter
packet of about forty tons. The following night was very stormy, and our
captain thought it prudent to return for some hours to Cowes, until the
violence of the gale had abated. On entering the basin at Havre, we were
moored alongside of a steam vessel of about the same size and similar
model, which had, during the gale we had feared to encounter, crossed the
channel from Brighton. This vessel ascended the Seine to Rouen, and, if I
am not mistaken, to Paris. I do not recollect her name, nor am I aware of
her fate; but she was unquestionably the first steam vessel specially built in
Great Britain for sea navigation.

From this date onwards, the attempts at the navigation of the narrow seas
which surround England were frequent and partially successful. Private
enterprise and patronage were, however, insufficient to insure any important
results, and these were not attained until the Government, in 1820, stepped
in and established a line of mail steamers between Holyhead and Dublin.
The sound principle of aiding individual exertion by government funds and
government patronage was first exhibited in this line, and the method has
been copied in*other English lines, and in the messageries of France.

The navigation of the narrow seas by steam, as practised by England,
afforded but little hope of success in the navigation of great distances upon
the ocean. So small was the expectation of its practicability, that a cele-
brated, if not a distinguished writer and lecturer of that country concluded,
that the result of English experience authorized him to prophesy that no
vessels could be built that could carry coal enough to make the passage
under steam from Europe to America. Yet at the time of this prophecy the
problem had been solved years before by American hands in 1820. With
funds chiefly furnished by David Dunham, under the inspection and partly
at the cost of Jaspar Lynch, with engines planned by Fulton himself and a
hull moulded by Eckford, a steamer was built in New York to run, via
Havana, from New York to New Orleans. This vessel attained what Fulton,
from an imperfect theory, had concluded to be the maximum speed of
steamboats ~ nine nautical miles per hour. And this speed was not ex-
ceeded by steamers specially built for sea service before the brilliant opening
of the Collins line. The vessel of which I speak had sufficient capacity for
the stowage of fuel for each passage; sustained, under skilful management,
hurricanes of the utmost violence, and had room for many passengers. No
experiment could possibly have been more successful. But the enterprise
was a failure, because the cost of maintaining it was not defrayed by the
number of passengers who presented themselves. _The enterprising Lynch
was ruined; the vast fortune of Dunham materially diminished; the vessel,
stripped of her machinery, was sold for a cruiser to a South American
government, in whose service her speed and sea-worthy qualities well sus-
tained the reputation of Eckford. Thus a triumph well deserved by New
York remained to be earned, after an interval of many years, by Bristol, in
the repeated voyages of the Great Western.

MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. td

NEW ALLOY FOR SHEATHING SHIPS.

A patent has recently been taken out in England by Mr. Arthur Wall, of
London, for a combination of metals possessing different electric characters
for the sheathing of ships. The alloy is made by melting two and a half
parts of copper in one crucible; in another nine parts of zinc, eighty-seven
of lead, one part of mercury, and a half a partof bismuth; then mixing the
contents of both crucibles, covering the surface with charcoal dust, and stir-
ring well until all areincorporated. It is stated that the mercury in this alloy
protects both the zinc and copper from the action of sea-water. The con-
tents of the crucible are run into ingots, and rolled into sheets.

The same inventor has also obtained a patent for protecting the bottoms
of iron ships from the action of sea-water, by the use of a composition of
litharge, made into a smooth, thin paste with turpentine, to which is added an
equal weight of resin. The whole is then put into a close iron vessel, placed
over a fire, naphtha added through an aperture in the lid from time to time,
and the boiling kept up slowly for about two days, until the whole has as-
sumed a tenacious, adhesive character, and a creamy consistency. It is then
fit to be applied to the iron of the vessel as a primary coating. A second
coating is given to the iron with a composition of resin, combined with one-
fifth of its weight of an oxyd of mercury and powdered charcoal mixed in
turpentine. This outer coating fills up all cracks or gaps left in the first
application, and the nature of the composition is stated to be such that it
prevents barnacles adhering to the iron, and resists the corroding action of
salt water.

ON THE STRENGTH OF SOME ALLOYS OF NICKEL AND IRON.

At a recent meeting of the Manchester (Eng.) Society of Engineers, Mr.
Fairbairn, presented the result of some experiments made to ascertain
whether an infusion of nickel, in a given proportion, would increase the
tenacity of cast-iron, as originally imagined from the analysis of meteoric
iron, which generally contains 2 1-2 per cent. of nickel. Contrary to ex-
pectation, however, the cast-iron, when mixed with the precise quantity of
nickel indicated by the analysis of meteoric iron, lost considerably in point
of strength, instead of gaining by it. Mr. Fairbairn also stated in the course
of his paper, that during the last ten years, innumerable tests and experi-
ments had been made for the purpose of obtaining a metal of extraordinary
tenacity for the casting of mortars and heavy ordnance; but the ultimate
result appeared to be, in the opinion of the author and others, that for the
casting, or rather the construction, of heavy artillery, there is no metal so
well calculated to resist the action of gunpowder as a perfectly homogeneous
mass of the best and purest cast-iron when freed from sulphur and phosphorus.

In the discussion which followed the reading of the paper, Mr. Calvert said
that it was highly probable that nickel caused the increased brittleness of
cast-iron, just as carbon, phosphorus, and sulphur, but that the result with
malleable iron might probably be very different; and, as meteoric iron is
malleable, the trial could only be complete when soft iron and nickel were
united; nevertheless, these experiments, as far as cast-iron is concerned, were
decidedly new and of great value.

76 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

RUSSIA SHEET-IRON.

It is a popular notion that the process of manufacturing the tenacious and
glossy ‘‘Russia sheet-iron”’ is a profound secret, and that the vigilance exer-
cised by the Russian Government, and the Russian manufacturers, have
hitherto successfully prevented all foreigners from obtaining-the slightest in-
formation on the subject. The present Commissioner of Patents, in his last
report, also alludes to the manufacture of this article, as one of the great,
unsolved problems in science, which the industrial interests of the country
require should be explained.

Mr. Wells, in his recent work, “‘ Principles and Applications of Chemistry,”
states that this current belief has no foundation in fact, and that the method
of preparing the iron in question is perfectly well known. According to the
authority quoted, “‘ Russia sheet-iron is, in the first instance, a very pure arti-
cle, rendered exceedingly tough and flexible by refining and annealing. Its
bright, glossy surface is partially a silicate, and partially an oxyde of iron,
and is produced by passing the hot sheet, moistened with a solution of wood-
ashes, through polished steel rollers.”

Another mythical bubble is thus punctured, and the wonderful story of
guarded founderies and ever-watchful officials, as connected with Russia
sheet-iron, will take rank with the account of “‘Symmes’s Hole,” and the
barnacles which turn to Solan geese. — Scientific American.

COMPOSITE IRON RAILING.

The process by which this light, elegant, and cheap fabric is manufactured
is as follows : — Rods and bars of wrought-iron are cut to the lengths required
for the pattern, and subjected to a process called crimping, by which they
are bent to the desired shape. These rods are then laid in the form of the
design, and cast-iron moulds are affixed at those points where a connection
is desired; the moulds are then filled with melted metal and immediately you
have a complete railing of beautifuldesign. The entire process is so system-
atized, that what was once the work of days is effected in an hour. Casting
in iron moulds has this great advantage over the old sand moulding, it does
not require any time for cooling, as the metal is no sooner run than the moulds
may be removed, and used again immediately upon another section of the
work; and besides, it is so much more readily effected. By the combination
of wrought and cast-iron in this process, the most curious and complex
designs may be produced almost at will. This simplicity of production is
attended with a corresponding diminution of cost.

METALLIC ALLOY FOR THE FORMATION OF MEDALS, SMALL FIG-
URES, ETC. BY M. VON BIBRA.

Six parts of bismuth, three parts of tin, and thirteen parts of lead, are fused
together first of all, in a crucible or iron ladle: the mixture is poured out and
fused again, if it is to be employed in casting. It is almost as readily fusible
as the well-known Rose’s metal; but, besides possessing considerable hardness,
it has the particular advantage of not being brittle, because it possesses no crys-
talline structure upon the fracture. If the cast objects be bitten with dilute
nitric acid, washed with water, and rubbed with a woollen rag, the elevated

MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. Vs

spots become bright, whilst the sunken portions are dull, and the casting
acquires a dark, gray appearance, with an antique lustre. Without biting, the
color is light-gray. Some casts of medals taken with this alloy in plaster of
Paris were so successful, that the finest contours and the legend, which in the
original was only legible with the lens, were completely reproduced. Calcu-
lated for 109 parts, this alioy consists of 27°27 bismuth, 59°09 lead, and 13°64
tin. As bismuth is expensive in comparison both with lead and fin, the
quantity of lead might be increased, and that of the bismuth diminished,
without injury to the valuable properties of the alloy. It is probable this
mixture may be adapted for typographical purposes.—Polytechn. Centralvl.,
1857, p. S88.

NEW MATERIAL FOR MOULDS, ETC.

It is proposed to introduce a vast improvement in the casting of metals, by
substituting compressed carbon for the sand or clay usually employed. The
advantage to be derived is, that the same mould may be used over and over
again without injuring the smooth surface of the cast material. The carbon
to be employed, which is manufactured under a patent recently granted to
Mr. Buhring, of England, is comparatively pure, and can be moulded into
any shape and form required. The same material has been sucessfully ap-
plied to the manufacture of crucibles, and these crucibles are by many con-
sidered superior to any others. Another purpose to which the compressed
carbon is applicable is the manufacture of battery plates; and it is antici-
pated that electric telegraph companies would effect a vast saving in the cost
of their batteries, by employing carbon in connection with iron, instead of
the zinc and copper plates now used.

ON THE SHAPE OF BRICKS.

Mr. George Gilbert Scott, an eminent English architect, in a recently pub-
lished work, makes the following observations on the form or shape of
bricks. He says: — “ The shape of a brick has a great influence on the effect
in work. Our bricks are too short for their thickness—they should either
be thinner or longer. I should say thinner for small buildings, and longer
for large ones. If, for instance, we had for large buildings facing-bricks of
the usual thickness, but nearly a foot long, they would look well, and would
work in with a backing of common bricks, if necessary; but for small build-
ings, bricks of the usual length and breadth, but only two and a half inches
in thickness, would look best. In the north of Germany, bricks were used in
the middle ages, for large buildings, of much greater size than we now use
them; this would have been good had the thickness been kept moderate;
but that being increased in proportion, the bricks were often insufficiently
burnt; and, except in buildings of gigantic size, they looked clumsy. The
Roman brick, which was twice the length of ours, and little more than half
its thickness, was in the other extreme — but it is the better side to err on.
Their length ensures good bonding, while their thinness causes them to be
thoroughly burnt.”

DUTY OF STEAM ENGINES.

The following interesting practical examples of the difference between the
actual and theoretic duty in different descriptions of steam-engine , is ex-

7T*

78 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY

tracted from the published researches of Prof. aiaihic of England, on the
dynamic theory of steam:

“1. The engine of the Fowey Consols mine was reported, in 1845, to have
given 125,089,000 foot-pounds of effect for the consumption of one bushel, or
ninety-four pounds, of coal. Now, the average amount evaporated from Cor-
nish boilers, by one pound of coal, is eight and a half pounds of steam; and
hence, for each pound of steam evaporated, 156,556 foot-pounds of pressure
are produced.

“The pressure of the saturated steam in the boiler may be taken as three
and a half atmospheres, and consequently the temperature of water will be
150°. Now, by Regnault (end of Memoire x), the latent heat of a pound of
saturated steam, at 140° Cent., is 508, and since, to compensate for each
pound of steam removed from the boiler in the working of an engine, a
pound of water at the temperature of the condenser (which may be estimated
at 30°) is introduced from the hot well, it follows that 618 units of heat
Cent. are introduced to the boiler for each pound of water evaporated. But
the work produced for each pound of water evaporated was found above to be
156,556 foot-pounds; hence, 15$2%55, or 25:3 foot-pounds, is the amount of
work produced for each unit of heat transmitted through the Fowey Consols
engine.

“2. The best duty on record, as performed by an engine at work (not for
merely experimental purposes), is that of Taylor’s engine, at the United
Mines, which, in 1840, worked regularly for several months a the rate of
98,000,000 foot-pounds for each bushel of coal burned; this is 78 = or “784 of
the experimental duty reported in the Fowey Consols engine.

“Hence, the best useful work on record is at the rate of 198°3 foot-pounds
for each unit of heat transmitted, and is 19-8-3, or forty-five per cent. of the
theoretical duty, on the supposition that the boiler is at 140° and the con-
denser at 30°.

“3. French engineers contract (in Lille, in 1847, for example,) to make
engines for mill power which will produce 30,000 metre-pounds, or 98,427
foot-pounds, of work for each pound of steam used. If we divide this by 618,
we find 159 foot-pounds for the work produced by each unit of heat. This is
36'1 per cent. of 440, the theoretical duty.

“4, English engineers have contracted to make engines and boilers which
will require only three and a half pounds of the best coal per horse power per
hour. Hence, in such engines, each pound of coal ought to produce 565,700
foot-pounds of work; and if seven pounds of water be evaporated by
each pound of coal, there would result 80,814 foot-pounds of work for each
pound of water evaporated. Ifthe pressure in the boiler be three and a half
atmospheres (temperature 140°), the amount of work for each unit of heat
will be found, by dividing this by 618, to be 130°7 foot-pounds, which is
1254, or 29°7 per cent. of the theoretical duty.

“5. The actual average of work performed by good Cornish engines and
boilers is 55,000,000 foot-pounds for each bushel of coal, or less than half the
experimental performance of the Fowey Consols engine, and scarcely more
than half the actual duty performed by the United Mines engine in 1840; in
fact, about twenty-five per cent. of the theoretical duty.

“6, The average performance of a number of Lancashire engines and
boilers have been recently found to be such as to require twelve pounds of
Lancashire coal per horse power per hour (?. e., for performing 60 33,000
foot-pounds), and a number of Glasgow engines such as to require fifteen

MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 79

pounds (of a somewhat inferior coal) for the same effect. There are, how-
ever, more than twenty large engines in Glasgow at present, which work
with a consumption of six and a half pounds of dross, equivalent to five
pounds of the best Scotch, or four pounds of the best Welsh coal, per horse
power per hour. The economy must be estimated from these data, as in the
other cases, on the assumption, which, with reference to these, is the most
probable we can make, that the evaporation produced by a pound of best
coal is seven pounds of steam.

A cubic foot of water weighs 62°32 pounds; allowing five pounds of coal to
evaporate this quantity (—12°464 pounds per pound of coal—and 12°9 has
been done), we get, as the theoretical duty of one pound of coal:

Ibs. of coal} Per
Ibs. per H. P. |centage
per hour. jofduty.

In the engine with initial pressure of : San .
ei Ibs., and eutting off at rivih | 1,394,065 raised one foot = -62 100-00
n engine with initial pressure o - < 4

ihe and guiting off at Leib, ; } 2,797,511 = 10 | 87-58
Utmost duty known to have been). 7 i r
performed by a oe Alay (1,829,787 -: 148 | 41-63
Common amount of duty for a supe-) | t 1
rior Cornish engine, ( 1,000,000 = 1:98 | 31:30
Average duty of Cornish engines, 750,000 be 2°64 | 23-48
ek best marine “ 450,000 eS 44 | 1409

It has been already said that the best expansive engines have never real-
ized in practice more than sixty per cent. of their theoretical duty. As re-
gards the composition of such loss of forty per cent., Mr. Pole found, that if
an engine of that kind, expanding three and a half times, were absolutely
perfect, each unit of heat given out by the combustion of the fuel ought to
develop about 134 units of work; but the amount actually produced in the
shape of water raised was only about eighty units, or sixty per cent. less than
the theoretical result. He has endeavored to discover at what parts of the
engine this loss occurred, and has found it might be distributed about as fol-
lows:

Imperfect combustion, and other causes of waste of heat in the boiler, 124
Heat expended in raising the temperature of the feed-water to a

boiling-point, ° . Ara iC >a - : : : rae
Friction, imperfect vacuum, air, pump, etc., or power wasted in

working the engine, ages Spiers wee set ene = 35

40

Useful effect realized, . : - 5 : = 5 : : SOE,

Total calorific power of theengine, . . . . 100

The friction of the machinery of a locomotive engine has been experimen-
tally determined by De Pambour at at of the tractive force it exerts, and
this exactly coincides with the results of Mr. Pole’s analytical investigation
of the friction of the direct-acting marine engine with slides. This is, of
course, exclusive of the resistance of the air-pump, and of the friction caused
by the pressure (when unbalanced) of the steam on the back of the slide-
Valve.— Engineer and Arch. Journal.

80 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

EXPERIMENTS ON THE STRENGTH OF SEVERAL KINDS OF
BUILDING STONES.

The following paper, showing the results of experiments on the strength
of various kinds of building stones in common use, was recently read before
the American Institute of Architects, N. Y., by Mr. R. G. Hatfield. The pres-
sure applied was by means of a hydraulic press. The press was constructed
for me by Messrs. R. Hoe & Co., in their best style of workmanship; oil, in-
stead of water, is used to avoid corrosion, and consequent friction. The pres-
sure is indicated at all stages of the experiment by an index moving over a
scale on a circular arc—the index being operated by levers on knife-edge
bearings; one of these levers is pressed by a piston playing in a small cylin-
der, the piston being operated by the oil under pressure. The press has a
capacity of 60,000 pounds.

The Resistance to Crushing. — The specimens submitted to this test were
two-inch cubes of freestone. They were dressed to the shape about as accu-
rately as cut-stone used in the erection of buildings. To prevent any unequal
pressure on the parts, they were bedded above and below in a thin layer of
fine white sand. The results given below are the pounds per square inch of
the surface pressed, required to produce the first fracture.

= Number of | Average resistance . .
Kand. Specimens. | per square inch. Specific Gravity.
Belleville, N. J., 4 B22 2°328
Connecticut, 3 3319 2°452
Dorchester, 2 3059 2°381
Little Falls, 5 2991 2°326
Caen, 4 1088 2218

Resistance to Cross Strain.—The specimens submitted to this test were
about 4 x 5 inches, and sixtéen inches long; laid on chairs, with a clear bear-
ing of one foot in length. The figures given below are the reduced results,
and exhibit for each kind the constant, s, in the formula a s, or the
weight required to break a piece of the material one inch square, and one
foot long, clear bearing, the weight concentrated at the middle of the length.

Average valve

Kind. Number of lw Specific Gravity.
Specimens. of 8
Blue stone flagging, 3 125 Ibs. 2°707
Quincy granite, 2 104 2°658
Little Falls freestone, 3 96 2°326
Belleville, 3 82 2°328
Granite (blue), 1 he 2°604
(Another quarry)
Belleville freestone, 3 7a 2°273
Connecticut “ 33 §2 2°462
Dorchester ‘“ 3 43 2°289
Aubigné Y 2 37 2°472
Caen > 3 25 2°218

MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 81

The one specimen of granite giving a result so much below that of the
other two specimens, was of a coarse texture, showing in the fracture the
crystals of its ingredients, large and distinct in form and color.

THE WELLINGTON SARCOPHAGUS.

In one of the chambers into which the crypt of St. Paul’s Cathedral is
divided by the massive pillars which help to support that vast structure, and
under the very centre of the dome, is a sarcophagus, of black marble, in
which are inclosed the remains of England’s greatest naval hero. No more
worthy resting-place could have been found for the glorious dead; and no-
more fitting spot could possibly have been chosen than the adjacent chamber
for the tomb of the hero who, next to Nelson, holds the highest place in the
estimation of his countrymen. They rest there side by side—the great ad-
miral and the great general—examples alike of England’s glory and of
England’s gratitude.

When the country had provided so munificently for the burial of her favor-
ite commander, it was felt that the tomb no less than the monument should
testify to the national feeling. ‘The chamber immediately to the east of that
in which Nelson lies was appropriated to Wellington, and it was decided
to place the coffin in a sarcophagus bearing a general correspondence to
Nelson’s.

Some difficulty was found in obtaining a suitable block of stone for the
sarcophagus, either on the continent or in Great Britain. At length one was
discovered in a huge boulder of porphyry — one of several —lying in the
parish of Luxulion, on the southern coast of Cornwall. Soexcessively hard
was this stone, that tools had to be constructed specially for the purpose of
working it; and as only one man could work there at the same time, the
carving of the inside took nearly two years to complete. The sarcophagus
was hewn into form, as a geologist would say, tn situ: it being found far
easier to carry workmen and tools to the field, than to carry the stone to the
workshop. The cutting was done by hand; the polishing, for the sake of
expedition, by steam-power. The boulder was sawn in two to form the sar-
cophagus, the larger portion being hollowed out to provide a receptacle for
the coffin, the smaller forming the lid. Its massiveness will be understood
when we state that the sarcophagus as completed weighs upwards of twelve
tons: the rude block was some five times that weight. Whilst the sarcopha-
gus was in progress, the chamber was being adapted to receive it; and the
whole has, nearly five years after the death of the Great Duke, been at length
finished.

The chamber has a very impressive effect. In the centre, the massive sar-
cophagus, reared on a more massive base, reaches nearly to the low vaulted
roof; and no object interferes to lessen its majestic proportions. The porphyry,
of which it is composed, is of a deep chocolate color — nearly black, in fact
— feldspar crystals varying its surface with splashes of a light but dusky red.
In form, it is, of course, oblong, the angles not being rounded; but the mas-
siveness is not destroyed, as in the Nelson sarcophagus, by the lower part
being cut away: the full width of the base is preserved, very much to the
advantage of the general effect. On one side of the sarcophagus is inscribed,
in gold letters, “ARTHUR, DUKE OF WELLINGTON; ”’ on the other, the dates
of his birth and death. At each end, on a plain circular boss, is a Greek
cross, its shape being indicated by a gilt outline. No other inscription or

82 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

ornament is perceptible. The pedestal on which the sarcophagus rests is of
white granite, from the Cheesewring quarry, Cornwall; extremely solid in
form, about the height of the sarcophagus, and having at each of its angles
the head of a sleeping lion. The lower part of the walls of the chamber are
also lined with rough white granite; and a moulding of polished red granite,
which is carried along the sides of the chamber, serves to diffuse the color of
the sarcophagus, and of the four large polished granite candelabra which
stand at the four corners of the apartment. From asphere which surmounts
each of these candelabra, rise four small jets of gas, which shed a dim, relig-
ious light, —subdued, but sufficient to allow the tomb to be distinctly seen.
The floor is paved with encaustic tiles.

The sarcophagus, to our thinking, is finer in form than the finest of the
Egyptian sarcophagi in the British Museum (of course it admits of no com-
parison in its workmanship with the elaborate hieroglyphic sculpture on
some of them), finer, in fact, than any we know. — Lon. Lit. Gazette.

CHURCH OF ST. ISAAC, AT ST. PETERSBURG

This church, which has been thirty-nine years building, was consecrated,
with great pomp and military parade, on the 10th of June, 1858. “ Visitors to
this gorgeous temple,”’ says a correspondent of the London Athenzum, “are
dazzled with the profusion of barbaric pearl and gold they meet at every
glance. We see no wood, except in the doors; all the rest is granite, Carrara
marble, iron, porphyry, malachite, alabaster, lapis lazuli, bronze, silver, and
gold. Even the lightning-conductors are of platinum. The five crosses, as
well as the cupola of the building, are gilt with a mass of 274 pounds of
gold, and are seen glittering at a distance of forty wersts from St. Petersburg.
One of the bells weighs 75,000 pounds. Eleven hundred and twelve granite
columns, with Corinthian capitals, surround the building. They are each
fifty-six feet high, and seven feet in diameter at the base. Each is considered
to be of a value of £1800 English money. The cost of the whole magnifi-
cent building is reckoned — though this is probably a gross exaggeration —
at £13,500,000. The interior, — comprising a space of 60,000 square feet, and
taken up neither by seats nor by organs (in the place of the organ there is a
choir of 1000 men’s voices),— is very imposing.”

STEAM HAMMERS.

These tools have gone on increasing in quick gradations, until the climax
of asix and a half tons, dead hammering weight, with a fall of seven feet
six inches, has been reached. A hammer of this weight has been lately
erected, and is now in operation at Glasgow. — London Builder.

METHOD OF DETECTING DECAY IN TIMBER.

The French Journal “ Cosmos” states that a simple method has been
adopted in the shipyards of Venice, from time immemorial, for testing the
soundness of the timber. A person applies his ear to the middle of one of
the ends of the timber, while another strikes upon the opposite end. If the
wood is sound and of good quality, the blow is very distinctly heard, how-
ever long the beam may be. If the wood is disaggregated by decay or
otherwise, the sound will be for the most part destroyed.

MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 83

ON THE ESTIMATION OF WEIGHTS OF VERY SMALL PORTIONS OF
MATTER: BY PROF. McMAYER.

The chemist, in the course of his analytical investigations, often meets
with what are called traces of substances; by which is generally understood,
quantities of matter too minute to have any appreciable weight in the analyt-
ical balance. Now it sometimes happens that these traces are of as much
importance, considered scientifically and commercially, as the ingredients
present in appreciable quantities; and in order to estimate these small por-
tions of matter, he is often obliged to go over his work, using very consider-
able weights of substances, whereby his time and care are nearly doubled.
It was this inconvenience that first induced me to try to determine in one
operation the components present in large and in very minute quantities ;
and although I have succeeded beyond my expectations, I am confident that
the process is susceptible of improvement, both as regards sensibility and
accuracy.

After making many investigations on the sensibility of the most delicate
levers as to small weights, this method was found far too rough. It then
occurred to me that if instead of using the opposing force of gravity through
the intervention of a lever, we could oppose to the gravitating effect of the
matter the force of perfect elasticity as manifested in filaments of glass, we
might succeed in obtaining the weights of extremely small parts of matter.
For that purpose I tried the elasticities both of torsion and flexure, and
found the latter only to answer the purpose.

The following is a description of the construction of my apparatus, with
which I have succeeded in estimating portions of matter equal in weight to
the thousandth part of a milligram. Heating a rod of soft glass in one
spot to bright redness, I drew it out quickly, and thereby obtained a filament
uniformly cylindrical, of about the diameter of fine human hair. Taking
from the middle of this fine glass thread a piece of such a length (about
three inches) that its weight would barely reduce it from the horizontal, one
end of it was fastened, by means of good sealing-wax, to the edge of a ma-
hogany block, and the other end slightly hooked by approaching quickly a
small spirit flame. In order to obtain a pan in which to place the substance
whose weight I would estimate, I cut with the common microscopic section-
cutter some discs of elder pith from ‘001 to ‘002 inch in thickness; and
drawing out a still finer filament, the end was likewise hooked, and the other
extremity being passed through a pith disc, a small knob of glass was made
on this end by the spirit flame, just of sufficient size to prevent this dise
slipping off the suspending-rod. The filament with attached disc was now
hooked on the end of the rod fixed to the block, and was then ready for
graduation.

Not being able at the time to procure silver wire of sufficient fineness, I
substituted some very fine and long hair, taken from the head of a child;
and having brought the centre of gravity and centre of motion of a very
sensitive analytical balance almost to coincide, I obtained a piece of the
middle of a hair weighing exactly one-half milligram. This being divided
into five equal parts (each about one inch long) gave us tenths of a milli-
gram. One of these tenths being placed on the pith-pan, the glass filament
was deflected a certain quantity, which was marked on an are formed of
bristol board, and so as to be almost touched by the deflected rod in its

84 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

revolution about the edge of the block. Another tenth was added, and
another division obtained: and so on, until all five divisions were marked.
The length of the divisions being about one-fourth of an inch, they were
very readily subdivided into ten equal parts, which gave me immediately
zhpths of a milligram. The weight of any quantity of matter less than
one-half milligram may be now estimated to qdoth of a milligram by
placing it on the pan and observing the deflection.

For the thousandths, still more care and patience is required, the filament
being much finer and somewhat shorter, and the pith disc smaller and as
thin as possible. In order to obtain the primary graduations of hundredths,

one of the above pieces of hair, equal to ;),th milligram, is divided into ten
equal parts, which gives us weights of +4 9th milligram. The deflections

caused by these weights, divided into ten equal parts, give zoooth of a
milligram.

As the least breath of air interferes with the graduations and weighing,
the whole instrument is protected by a glass case, the end of the case next
the graduated are being on a hinge.

In elastic rods of square section, the deflection is proportional to the
weight; in those of circular section this law is slightly departed from; but
by the above method of ascertaining directly the value of each division, the
error is avoided. — Stlliman’s Journal.

IMPROVEMENTS IN MILITARY IMPLEMENTS.

Novel Field Artillery. — General Sir Charles Shaw, of England, has recently
perfected a novel piece of field artillery, from which he anticipates extra-
ordinary results in the percentage of destructiveness and economy of
expenditure. Napoleon’s axiom was that to bring a continuous concen-
trated fire upon a given point of the enemy’s position was the secret of
victory. Animated by this idea, the general has turned his attention to the
construction of a machine which shall accomplish this object with the least
amount of risk to the party using it. The invention may be briefly described
as an ambulatory infernal machine, based upon the Fieschi model. It con-
sists of arow of twenty-four rifle barrels, bound together, fitted to an axle, and
mounted upon a pair of strong, light wheels. The axle is capable of depres-
sion or elevation to any angle within a radius of fifty-five degrees, so that
the necessary elevation according to the distance of the enemy may be
insured. The barrels may be either breach-loading, upon the revolver prin-
ciple, or they may, as in the model exhibited, be charged in the ordinary
way, at the mouth, and rammed down, and all may be discharged at a single
fire, or in four divisions of six each. The whole machine is but 200 pounds
weight, and is sufficiently portable to be moved about, turned to the right or
to the left, and its fire directed with certainty by a single soldier while with
its ammunition-cart, containing a relay of barrels and an ample supply of
cartridges, it may be moved from one part of the field to another by a
single horse ata handgallop. The general affirms that one of these field-
pieces, which may be served effectually by eight men, allowing for casual-
ties, will throw in a more deadly fire than a body of 200 infantry armed with
the best description of rifles in existence, and that the ratio of its destruc-
tiveness, as compared with ordinary infantry firing in line, is as seventy-five

MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 89

per cent. against four. In addition to their use in ordinary field service,
these machines, mounted upon a pivot instead of the wheels, may be em-
ployed with great effect in boat service, as an armament for ships’ tops,
martello towers, or other works of defence.

IMPROVEMENTS IN RIFLES.

Mr. Whitworth, of England, in pursuing a course of experiments with a
view of improving the rifle, has adopted a polygonal spiral bore of a uniform
pitch, but more rapid than could be attained by grooves. This bore has
enabled him to surpass the range and penetration of the Enfield rifle; and
the strain of the projectile being distributed evenly over every side of the
polygon, iron can be substituted for lead in the projectile. Moreover, Mr.
Whitworth has discovered, in the course of his experiments, that according
to the quickness of the turn in the polygon is the length of the projectile
that may be fired, so that twenty-four pound and forty-eight pound shot
have been sent to extraordinary ranges with half the usual charge of powder
from an ordinary twelve-pounder howitzer.

MALLET’S THIRTY-SIX INCH MORTARS, AND SHELLS.

At a meeting of the British Association for 1857, Mr. Robert Mallet pre-
sented an abstract of a plan he had proposed to the British Government for
the employment of shells of a magnitude never before imagined by any
one, viz., of a yard in diameter, and weighing, when in flight, about a ton
and a quarter, and for the construction of mortars capable of projecting
these enormous globes. (See Annual of Scientific Discovery, 1858, page 87.)
Since the above-mentioned date, a colossal mortar, constructed on Mr. Mal-
let’s plan, has been practically tested by the English Board of Ordnance, on
Woolwich Marshes, with charges (of projection) gradually increasing up to
seventy pounds. With this amount of powder, a shell weighing 2550 pounds
was thrown a horizontal range of upwards of a mile and a half to the height
of probably three-quarters of a mile, and, falling, penetrated the compact
and then hard, dry earth of the Woolwich range to a depth of more than
eighteen feet, throwing about cartloads of earth and stones by the mere
splash of the fall of the empty shell.

The explosive power, it is obvious, is approximately proportionate to the
weight of powder; but, by calculations, of which the result only can here
be given, Mr. Mallet has shown that the total power of demolition, that is to
say, the absolute amount of damage done in throwing down buildings,
walls, etc., by one 36-inch shell, is sixteen hundred times that possible to be
done by one 13-inch shell; and that an object which a 13-inch shell could
just overturn at one yard from its centre, will be overthrown by the 36-inch
shell at forty yards’ distance.

No bomb-proof arch (so-called) now exists in Europe capable of resisting
the fall of one of those huge shells upon it, whose energy of descent may
be represented as equal to about eight hundred tons. No means or precau-
tions are possible in a fortress against the tremendous fall of such masses,
still more against the terrible powers of their explosion, when 480 pounds of
powder, fired to the very best advantage, puts in motion the fragments of
more than a ton of iron,— no splinter proof, no ordinary vaulting, perhaps no
casemate exists capable of resisting their fall and explosion, either of which

8

86 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

would sink the largest ship (even the Leviathan) or floating battery. Ans
as no precaution could save either garrison or town from such shells, so their
moral effect would be paralyzing.

A single 36-inch shell in flight costs £25, and a single 13-inch £2 2s.,
yet the former is immeasurably the cheaper projectile; for to transfer to the
point of effect the same weight of bursting powder we must give —

55 shells of 13 inches, at £22s, - - - - - £=£11510 0
Against 1 shell of 86inches, - - - - - -- 25 0 0

Showing a saving in favor of the large shell of £90 10 0

and this assumes that fifty-five small shells, or any number of them, could
do the work of the single great one.

The mortars are, with the exception of one part (the base), and the elm
timber ends, formed wholly of wrought iron, in concentric rings, and each
entire mortar is separable at pleasure into thirteen separate pieces, the
heaviest of which weighs about eleven tons; so that the immense weight,
when all put together (about fifty-two tons), is susceptible of easy transport,
on ordinary artillery carriages, over rough country, or can be conveniently
shipped, stowed, or landed.

NEW METHOD OF PRINTING.

A description of a new method of printing, invented by a journeyman
printer, and called by him Veography, has recently been published in Paris.
The object sought to be attained is to obtain printing surfaces of a better
quality than stone, zinc, or any other substance hitherto used; and, more-
over, to get impressions of different colors by a single operation, instead of
bringing the sheet under the press several times. The modus operandi is as
follows: The figures or characters to be produced are drawn upon a woven
stuff, or any other which may be penetrated by a liquid; the ink used for the
purpose is composed of lampblack, Indian ink, gum, sugar, and common
salt. This done, the side on which the figures have been drawn receives a
slight coating of gutta-percha, and when this is dry the surface is washed.
Now, since the ink is composed of soluble matter, this will wash off, and the
gutta-percha which covered the characters, and which therefore does not ad-
here to the stuff, washes off too, by which means the stuff becomes a surface
which is only penetrable by liquids in those places where the characters were
drawn, and is perfectly impenetrable everywhere else. This done, the wrong
side of the stuff receives the inks and colors which are to serve for printing,
while the sheet is laid on the right side. Under the action of the press, the
ink and colors penetrate through the unprotected places, and a clear impres-
sion is obtained. Instead of applying the ink and colors as stated, a perma-
nent kind of cushion, made much like the balls formerly used for inking
type, and properly charged with ink or colors, may be placed under the
stuff, and thus many sheets may be worked off before it is necessary to
renew the ink.

BULLOCK’S MECHANICAL FEEDER FOR PRINTING PRESSES.

This machine, now in successful use in New York, operates as follows: A
pile of sheets is placed upon the feeding-board in the manner usual for hand-

MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 87

feeding. Above it and a few inches back of the front edge of the top sheet,
a number of small vertical cylinders stand in a row parallel to the printing
cylinder. Each of these cylinders is a small engine, closed at top and open
at the bottom, inside of which is a piston, provided with a piston-rod suffi-
ciently long to reach the paper when the piston is down. All the rods are
articulated, an elongated hole is cut in each for a crank-pin to pass through,
and by means of a cranked shaft they are made to move constantly back-
ward and forward. The ends of the piston-rods are so arranged as to slide
on the paper when moving backward, and as to carry it forward during the
forward stroke. Each piston is pressed down by a coiled spring placed in
the cylinder between the piston and the top cover. From each cylinder a
pipe extends to the edge of the feeding-board nearest the roller, where it-is
flattened, and its lower portion resting on the feeding-board, is pierced with
asmall hole. All the cylinders are also connected with an exhaust air-pump,
constantly at work. The machinery operates as follows: The piston-rods
working backward and forward in contact with the top sheet, brings it for-
ward to the edge of the feeding-board. The moment it arrives there, the
suction of the exhaust pump makes the sheet close hermetically the small
holes in the pipes. A vacuum in the cylinders, and the rising of the piston
against the coil springs, are the immediate results of this closing. The
piston-rods recede from the paper, which is left at rest, till the iron fingers
of the roller seize it and carry it to the form. The moment the sheet is car-
ried off, the holes in the pipes are left open, air rushes through them into the
cylinders, fiils the vacuum, the pistons are pushed down by the coil springs,
and the ends of the piston-rods carry the next sheet forward. Several of the
cylinders work at right angles with the first, to insure a proper register side-
wise. There are also a few incidental arrangements, such as the raising of
all the pipes from the paper at the moment the last is clenched. There are
several good patented plans for making a mechanical feeder for separate
sheets, but none better than the one described. The nature of the work re-
quires an attendant, and as feeding does not require a long apprenticeship,
there is little difference between the wages of a feeder and those of a boy.
The advantage of the apparatus seems then to consist in the possibility of
running presses faster. Book printers cannot avail themselves of it, as, for
the purpose of making neater copies, the presses are actually run slower than
they could be fed by hand. The apparatus would be advantageous for news-
paper rotary presses, in which rapidity is everything; but in this case feed-
ing with endless paper is still a better plan, which, sooner or later, will
supersede all others. — New York Tribune.

CLAY RETORTS FOR GAS-MAKING.

A paper has been read to the Institution of Civil Engineers, London, ‘On
the Resuits of the Use of Clay Retorts for Gas-making,’ by Mr. Jabez
Church. The substitution of fire-clay for metal, in the construction of
retorts, was attributed to Mr. Grafton, and dated back as far as the year 1820.
Originally they were square in transverse section; but that form was soon
changed for the Q, or oven-shape, which had been since adhered to, both in
this country and abroad; this latter form of retort admitting of a stratum of
coal being distributed of an equal thickness throughont.

The comparative quantities of gas made by iron and clay retorts, of the Q

88 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

form, of 15 inches by 13 inches in section, and 7 feet 6 inches in length, had
been found by the author to be as follows:

The iron retorts lasting 365 days, and working off 14 ewt. of coal for each
charge, effected the carbonization of 2190 ewt. of coal, which, at 9000 cubic —
feet of gas per ton, gave a total quantity of 985,500 cubic feet of gas per
retort; whilst the clay retorts lasted 912 days, carbonized 5472 ewt. of coal,
which, at 9000 cubic feet of gas per ton, gave 2,462,000 cubic feet of gas per
retort. It would thus be seen that the clay retorts yielded a greater quantity
of gas, from the same weight of coal, than the iron retorts; but the specific
gravity of the gas so made was less, and its illuminating power was dimin-
ished, in consequence of the increased temperature of the clay retorts, which
caused the last portion of the gas to be decomposed.

The most practical method of working clay retorts in large works was
with the addition of an exhauster. This reduced the pressure on the retort,
and prevented the escape of gas through the pores and fissures; and by that
system the quantity made was increased about 200 cubic feet per ton of coal.
In small works, the expense of an exhausting apparatus, and steam ma-
chinery to work it, would not be compensated by the gas saved.

HEATING BY GAS AND SAND.

Some interesting experiments have recently been made in Albany, by Mr.
Calvin Pepper and others, to test the value of sand as a heating medium,
especially for railroad cars. The heat is obtained in the first instance by dif-
fusing the gas through sand. If the gas be directed into the body of the
sand, it will instantly diffuse itself through the entire mass, and rising to the
surface, may, with perfect safety, be instantly set on fire with a match, the
flame covering the whole surface of the sand with a pure flame without
smoke, no matter how large the extent of the flame, and with perfect and
complete combustion. The heat is almost instantaneously diffused through ~
the entire mass of sand, heating it equally throughout, and requiring but one
minute of time to heat the sand to such intense temperature that it will
retain its heat for hours after the gas is shut off and the light extinguished.

INFLUENCE OF WALL-PAPERS ON THE TEMPERATURE OF
APARTMENTS.

Paper-hangings in themselves (says the Builder), as materials, maintain a
higher temperature than the walls or partitions on which they may be
placed; then less condensation of vapor takes place, and the dampness is
removed from the room as the progress of ventilation goes on. Toa great
extent paper is an absorbent; but then the moisture is given off in the same
form, or may escape by other means. The reason why dark papers are dryer
than light ones, is still due to the same action. All dark materials imbibe
more light and heat, and will thus maintain a higher temperature; besides
which, many of the very light-colored papers (particularly the better ones)
have a glazed or satin face, which is produced by the use of a large quantity
of China clay, a material that, from its coldness, at once causes condensation
of moisture, and thus facilitates its own decay.

SUBSTITUTE FOR LEATHER.

Samuel Whitmarsh, of Northampton, Mass., has invented a new fabric
which is intended to supply the place of leather in many of its applications.

MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 89

The fabric is composed of cotton or other fibrous substances, either woven
into cloth or in an unwoven state, and saturated or coated with a compound
of linseed oil and burnt umber, prepared by boiling in every gallon of oil
about three pounds of umber in a powdered state, for such a length of time
that the composition, when cool, will roll in the hands without sticking.
The fabric may be made in forms suitable for the soles of boots and shoes,
coverings for trunks, travelling bags, cap-fronts, or as a substitute for car-
riage or harness leather, or for machine-belting or hose-pipe. The mode of
producing the fabric differs, to some extent, according to the use for which
it is designed; but the general principles are in all cases the same. The um-
ber is stirred into the boiled oil until it reaches the point desired, when itis.
ready to be applied, in the manner best calculated to produce special articles.

A NEW CEMENT.

Mr. Edmund Davy prepares a new cement, which is well spoken of, by
melting in an iron vessel equal parts of common pitch and gutta-percha. It
is kept either liquid under water, or solid, to be melted when wanted. It is
not attacked by water, and adheres firmly to wood, stone, glass, porcelain,
ivory, leather, parchment paper, feathers, wool, cotton, hemp, and linen fab-
rics, and even to varnish.— Cosmos, vol. xii., p. 41.

LIQUID GLUE.

Take glue of good quality and dissolve it in as small a quantity of hot wa- .
ter as possible; then, while yet hot, remove it from the fire and dilute it to
the proper degree of thinness by adding alcohol, after which it should be
bottled, and the mouth of the bottle kept covered with a piece of India-rub-
ber, or anything else that will exclude the air. Alcohol will preserve glue
made in this way for many years, keeping it from putrefaction in summer
and from freezing in winter. In cold weather it requires only a little warm-
ing to make it ready for use. This convenient article has been in use in Eng-
land for many years, but has never been extensively known in this country.

ARTIFICIAL IVORY.

A patent has recently been granted, in England, to Charles Westendarp,
jr., for manufacturing a material intended to imitate ivory, bone, horn, coral,
or other similar substances, natural or artificial, and which may be used in
preference to ivory, on account of cheapness and adaptability, as the same
materials may be moulded or turned to the various forms or patterns they
may be desired to take, and may be applied to all the purposes in which
natural ivory becomes useful, such, for instance, as billiard-balls, door and
other knobs, piano-forte keys, rulers, paper-knives, whip, stick, and other
mounts, and in imitation, or as a substitute for carved wood, enamelled
china, precious stone works, and a variety of fancy, ornamental, and dgcor-
ative figures.

The process being as follows: Five ounces (or more or less according to
the size of the article to be made,) of ivory dust is soaked with a white color,
say white lead or zinc white, three ounces, in a solution of white shellac or
copal, in sixteen ounces of spirit of wine. After the whole is well mixed,
which is best done at a temperature of 212° Fahrenheit, the alcohol is par-

g*

90 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

tially evaporated, and the stiff paste or dry powder pressed into a solid
mass in the dies or mould, which have been previously heated to about 230°
or 280° Fahrenheit; after being so solidified they are polished in the ordi-
nary manner of polishing ivory. Instead of using ivory dust, steamed and
finely powdered bones, porcelain, cotton, and various finely powdered mate-
rials may be employed, and the colors may be varied according to the tint or
shade required; the ivory or other dust may be dyed similar to cotton cloth.
Gum dammar, copal, mastic (and if great elasticity is required, bleached In-
dia-rubber or gutta-percha), answer the purpose very well, either with or
without shellac; bees-wax, camphor, and turpentine, are good for some of the
purposes, and, according to the ingredients used, it will be perceived that the
preparation must undergo various modifications during the process of man-
ufacture.

MACHINE FOR BURRING WOOL.

Thomas Musgrave, of Northampton, Mass., has invented a machine for
removing burrs and dirt from wool, which promises to accomplish the same
results with that staple that the gin has with cotton. The machine is very
simple, and is in the form of an attachment to the ordinary carding machine.
It adds only fifteen or seventeen dollars extra expense to the carder. The
value of it will be obvious to all who know how foul the South Ameri-
ican wools are with burrs, and how great is the expense of cleaning it by
any process hitherto known. After being washed, the wool is placed
upon the apron of Mr. Musgrave’s machine, and carried by it to two roll-
ers, covered with coarse cards, lying parallel and revolving inwards. As
the wool passes these it meets the ‘‘ burrer,’”’ a cylinder of about six inches
in diameter, composed of steel rings slid upon a shaft. The circumfer-
ence of each ring is cut into teeth something like those of a cross-cut saw;
between each of the rings is a circular wire to separate them. The whole are
then driven together, forming a cylinder, of which the surface is composed
of these steel teeth, of which there are eleven to the inch. As the wool
passes the feeding rollers it is caught by the teeth; the wool itself is drawn
into the space between the teeth, leaving the burr on the surface. Above
this cylinder is another of wood, into which are fixed longitudinally spiral
blades. This revolves so as nearly to touch the under cylinder, but in a con-
trary direction. Thus it is obvious that the burrs on the under cylinder
coming in contact with the blades of the upper one, are cut off. They are
received upon an apron, which removes them. In the ordinary manner the
wool freed from the burrs is then delivered to the carding machine. Were
the burrs large and hard, like cotton seed, no more would be required; but
the small, brittle burrs of the South American wool are apt to be broken, and
the fragments get ultimately into the yarn and injure the cloth. To obviate
this, Mr. Musgrave has introduced a carding cylinder to take the wool from
the first “ burrer ”’ and deliver it, better distributed, to a finer one, where the
teeth are fourteen to the inch instead of eleven. By this means the wool
passes to the carder entirely free from burrs. The thorough mode of its ac-
tion may be illustrated by the fact that Mestiza wool was passed through,
and in a few moments freed from forty per cent. weight of burrs without any
apparent injury to the fibre, adding at least fifteen cents per pound to the
value of the wool.

MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 91

IMPROVED KNITTING-MACHINE.

A very ingenions knitting-machine, or loom, has recently been tnvented
by J. B. & W. Aiken, of Franklin, N.H. It resembles a large ring, having a
revolving top plate, and a number of under hooks, moving back and forth
towards and from the central opening, to receive the thread or yarn from a
rotary ring-traveller, to form the loops, interlace them, and then throw them
off in the form of a long knit tube hanging down in the centre. To produce
a ribbed knit fabric, two sets of needles are required, the one set working
vertically through, and transverse to the loops formed by the other set; one
set of needles only are required for plain work. A large machine for knitting
shirts has five feed bobbins, and a stop motion for each, so that the break
of a thread at once stops 1t. It is a most ingenious loom, and will knit fifty
yards in one day.

A stocking-loom occupies no more space than a common sewing-machine ;
but one is required for knitting the legs, and another the feet. The work of
the former is taken off in the form of a long tube; this is cut in proper
lengths, put on the footing-machine, which weaves a single square piece to
the leg, and this is closed by crotchet work, by hand, to form the foot. One
girl can attend eight looms, and produce 100 dozen pairs of stockings in a
factory every day. They are the most perfect machines for this purpose we
have yet examined, and no less than five patents are embraced in their opera-
tion and construction. The cost of a machine to knit ribbed stocking-legs,
is $200; one for feet, $100; a family machine, for plain work, $50.

BOOTHE’S IMPROVED GRAIN-CLEANER.

Ordinary smut-machines are built of wood, and are open; the necessary
consequence is that they have to be confined in a close room on account of
the dust thrown out, and that they catch fire very easily from over-heated
journals. Several large mills have been lost from this cause, and the rate of
insurance is, on this account, often extremely high. This new grain-cleaner
has been devised to avoid dust and danger of fire; it is entirely metallic, and
is all encased. On a vertical shaft, a cylinder, or drum, about two feet in
diameter and four feet long, is keyed, and made to revolve at a velocity of
550 revolutions per minute. On the periphery of the drum projecting flat
arms, denominated “beaters,” are screwed in parallel circular rows. They
extend a few inches outside, forming an angle of forty degrees with a tan-
gent to the drum, and their external surface, measuring three inches by four
inches, is deeply corrugated by vertical grooves a quarter of an inch deep
and wide. Around this drum is a stationary cylindrical envelop of such a
diameter as to leave scarcely an inch of free space between itself and the
ends of the beaters. This envelop is corrugated circularly; the hollow of
each corrugation is opposite one row of beaters. This circular envelop is
closed below by a curved bottom terminating in a pipe at the centre, and is
closed at the top by the case of a horizontal fan blower, which is placed
above it; the fans of the blower revolve with the shaft of the machine.
There is also a suction-pipe leading from the pipe at the bottom of the ma-
chine to the fan blower. To operate, the grain is introduced at the top,
between the drum and the cylindrical casing. Before it has had time to fall
an inch, it is caught on the inclined face of a beater, and thrown out by cen-

92 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

trifugal force; but the beater is inclined, so as to follow the grain and exert
upon it a hard friction. The grain is thus thrown into a corrugation of the
outside envelop, and in falling down along the lower portion of this corru-
gation, which acts as an inclined plane, it is brought back toward the centre
of the machine, and is caught by the second row of beaters, and by all in
succession. The dust which is detached from the grain is carried up by a
strong current of air blowing upward between the drum and its envelop.
After reaching the bottom of the machine, the grain enters the central pipe,
and falls on an inverted cone placed in it, and the last particles of dust
remaining are carried away through the outside pipe already mentioned.
Machines of this kind are built of different sizes. A two-horse power ma-
chine can clean fifty bushels of wheat per hour, and is sold for $150. Those
of a larger size cost proportionately less, and do more work for the same ©
power. After a time, the surface of the beaters wears out, and they become
perfectly flat; but they are easily replaced by others, at a cost of $3 for the
whole set. This machine does its work cheaply and effectually, and, slightly
modified, may eventually serve for cleaning cocoa and coffee in Equatorial
America and elsewhere. The cleaning of cocoa is at present actually done
by hand, in the most primitive manner, at a cost equal to forty per cent.
of the price of the grain ready for shipping.— NV. Y. Tribnne.

SELF-INDICATOR BEE-HIVES.

The careful bee-fancier has long desired to possess some method of meas-
uring the daily increase or decrease in the weight of his hive. A recent
German authority states that a bee-grower there took the trouble to weigh
one of his hives twice a day — before the bees left in the morning and after
their return at night—and thus he determined the nightly loss by consump-
tion and evaporation. These observations were continued from May 5 to
August 2, a period of ninety-one days, and the results are very interesting.
On the 5th of May the hive weighed sixty-four pounds; it lost two swarms
weighing twelve pounds; yet on August 2, it weighed 1203 pounds. There
was no increase in weight from June 28 to July 21, except of one-quarter
pound on one day, and three-quarters on another; and from July 17 to
August 2, the whole increase was only three pounds. The work of each
day is minutely recorded, and the results go to prove that the bee-keeper
should have some means of ascertaining the weight of his hives daily through-
out the season. A method of doing this has been invented by Mr. Shirley
Hibbard, of Tottenham, England. It consists of a turned pillar, made after
the fashion of a telescope, working like a piston in a brass or iron cylinder.
Beneath the pillar is a spiral spring, on which the pillar rests. Two slots
run down the side or front of the cylinder, and between them an index is
marked. A finger is attached to the base of the pillar, and the hive adjusted
on top of the latter, so that as it presses down on the spring the finger marks
the gross weight of the whole. A thumb-screw passes through the cylinder,
and, by pressing against the pillar, holds it in a fixed position whenever it
may be desirable. The whole affair is exceedingly simple, and must be
readily understood. To the intelligent bee-keeper it will be a very acceptable
acquisition.

MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 93

RECENT IMPROVEMENTS IN AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS.

Stenton’s Improved Land-side Cutter, patented 1858, consists of a horizontal
knife or cutter, which is attached near the end of the land-side to an ordinary
plough. The width of the cutter is one-third that of the plough, and it cuts its
own breadth under the land, so that the plough on its succeeding rounds will
turn the breadth of the cutter in addition to its usual work. It is affirmed
that the saving of power usually lost in friction on the land-side is trans-
ferred to the edge of the cutter, and that thus one-third more work is per-
formed by the same team when the cutter is used. Another important
advantage is, that the plough thus provided is much more steady, and much
more easily kept in the ground. When it is desired to pulverize the ground,
two cutters are used, at different heights, the second in advance of the first.

A new form of steam-plough recently patented in England operates as fol-
lows: A series of spades is made to enter the land in succession, and cut it
into the arc of a circle, when the cut slices are suddenly thrown up against
a shield plate, at once reversing and breaking them almost into powder. |

A new form of cart-body has also been patented for the purpose of deliver-
ing manure over a field without requiring it to be thrown out by hand. ‘The
bottom of the cart-body is supplied with longitudinal openings, in which
revolve drags or blades attached to an axis under the body. As the cart
moves, these drags pull down the manure in a condition of complete pul-
verization.

PROTECTIVE MATTING FOR HORTICULTURAL AND AGRICULTURAL
PRODUCE.

Doctor Guyot, of Paris, the proprietor of extensive vineyards, in Sillery,
Champagne, has introduced in France, and is now introducing in England, a
simple, but improved, description of straw matting for the protection of hor-
ticultural and agricultural produce, together with a loom or apparatus for
manufacturing the same.

The fabric is composed of a weft of straw, cane, bass, rush, reed, or other
similar material, woven into or combined with a warp, consisting of two sets
of warp threads, each set composed of two wires, or stout cords, twisted to-
gether; and it is manufactured as follows: The straw, bass, or other mate-
rial, is cut into even lengths, and spread on a table with a central slot or
channel from end to end, where, by means of a comb or reed with conical
teeth, the mass is divided into clusters (the thickness of each cluster being
according to the space between every two adjoining teeth). The comb is
driven into the straw just over the channel. The table is then brought to
the weaver, who takes a cluster at a time, and feeds it in a loom or frame, in
which the warp, cords or wires, are delivered off in twos from four reels set
in the same spindle mounted in the standards of the frame, and are passed
through eyes and grooves in plates which act as heddles, being connected by
a double escapement or otherwise to treadles, by which they are depressed and
brought up again by springs at the top, whereby the warp threads are crossed,
two by two, alternately, each set being opened to form ashed, through which
the weft is introduced. The fabric, as it is woven, is wound off on a beam
made to revolve by a weighted lever; the weight also effects the draft
and tension of the warp threads, being brought back from the end of its

94 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

stroke by hand or otherwise; or the beam may be turned, and the warp
threads delivered off and opened to form the shed by steam or other power
which may be employed to work the frame. Pins may be let in the fabric to
fix it in place, or it may be mounted on stakes with cross-pieces, or on swiv-
eled rods, or on adjustable frames, so that the position of the matting may
be varied when used for sheltering a plant; or it may be mounted in rollers
like a blind, to cover conservatories, etc.

The breadth of the fabric varies from one foot three inches to two feet.
The lesser breadth is the better for protecting plants placed in rows or beds,
or in hot-houses and other like places, and the greater breadth for protecting
wall fruits, such as peaches, apricots, etc. The matting is made of any de-
sired length, being rolled up into rolls, like carpeting, as it leaves the loom
or apparatus in which it is woven, and which has been designed especially
for its manufacture. It weighs but little, and may consequently be trans-
ported with ease, and at asmall expense. It may be handled roughly with-
out risk of injury, arranged in any desired form or manner, cut into any
required lengths, and, if desired, be reiinited again without difficulty. It is
s0 easily applied in the garden or orchard, that ten men will, in a single day,
fix it over thirty thousand feet of plants, and that so firmly and surely that
it will resist the most violent storms to which it may be exposed.

IMPROVEMENT IN PAPER-MAKING MACHINERY.

An improvement, invented by Stephen Rossman, of Stuyvesant, New York,
has for its object the prevention of the breaking or tearing of the paper, as it
passes from the upper one of the second press-rolls to the dryer. This is
attained by the use of a small roll arranged parallel with the press-rolls,
between the highest part of the upper press-roll and doctor, about opposite
the line where the paper should leave the upper press-roll, on its way to the
dryer, so that the web of paper will pass between it and the upper press-roll.
The slight cohesion of the web to this small roli eases it off the upper press-roll,
and prevents its breaking; and if a slight break should occur in the web, it
prevents the edge of the break being carried under the doctor, and thereby
increased.

MARSTON’S IMPROVED DOOR LOCK.

A few years ago a talented burglar discovered that, by taking with a pin-
cer a firm hold of the end of a key, it could be made to turn, and that thus
the door of the sleeping apartments could be opened from the outside. This
knowledge having spread rapidly, and led to numerous practical applications,
some inventors set to work and devised a number of instruments, called burg-
lar alarms. In some of these a bell is made to ring; in others, powder to
explode, or a gas-burner is lighted, with a cracking noise, either by means
of electricity, or of a wound-up spring, acting by friction on a match. Mr.
Marston accomplishes the same result, by placing the inside key-hole of
locks out of line with the outside one. This arrangement renders it impos-
sible to turn tho key from the outside; but it leaves the outside key-hole
empty, and the lock might be picked through it. To obviate this, the lock
is provided with a sliding piece, which receives its motion from the key in
exactly the same manner as the bolt, and which moves over the outside key-
hole, and closes it hermetically, each time the door is locked from the inside.
The key is shaped so as to have no action on this slide when used from the
outside.

MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 95

NEW MUSICAL INSTRUMENT.

The successful efforts of art-mechanics in music have for a long time been
exclusively shown in improving the old instruments of past centuries, but
not in adding new instruments of high value and rank to the list. We have
at last recently examined an instrument, made by Messrs. Hill, of New York,
which is essentially novel, and, making every allowance for the inevitable
deficiencies of a first out-worked attempt of the principle involved, the result
is promising and brilliant. The inventors call it a keyed harp; whereas,
its qualities are precisely those which the harp has not, namely: a sus-
tained sound. It is played upon like the piano-forte, and, while the tone-
stroke has not the readiness, or crispness, or vitality of that instrument, the
sustained vibration is much greater, when not arrested by mechanical means.
The note cannot be shaded after once sounded; but the continuation of the
vibration, we are assured by the inventors, can, under the extended applica-
tion of a second and improved manufacture, be secured for a whole min-
ute. The instrument, we heard, wants power, which the inventors say
can be more than doubled by doubling the size of the constituents of its
sonority; but it has great sweetness — in fact, too saccharine, if Oe baggy
and not characterized by vigor.

The principle is that of a vibrator, or fork, with the prongs applied to an
aperture in a box or cell. The vibrators have prongs, from one inch to ten
inches long, the handles of which are gently, but firmly, held to their places
over the hammers and to the cells, which cells are of as many sizes as are
the forks. To the prongs of the longer vibrators are wires to receive the
hammers, and wings to enable the prongs of the vibrators to take efficient
hold on, and thoroughly cause to sound, the air in the cells. The damper-
frames and damper-levers are at the back ends of the keys; and the sound is
stopped by the fall of the damper against, or near, the ends of the prongs. The
damping is perfect, as is also the pedal movement. The covering of the
hammers differs much from, and is simpler than that of the piano. The
strength of the ordinary piano action is all that can be desired in this; and
the inventors would have had much more tone and better adjustment of
parts had they used vibrators of double the size of the present ones. A very
great difficulty has been so to arrange the parts as to bring them into a con-
venient compass, as regards the size of the case, and to get sufficient sound-
distance, and the best forms and sizes of cells to fit the case and keys, and to
produce the right quality and quantity of tone — all of which the inventors
aver they can now master to perfection. — WN. Y. Tribune.

ORGAN BLOWN BY WATER POWER.

The following is a description of the means employed in the Cathedral of
Carlisle (England) for blowing the organ by the application of water power:

The water is collected in two cisterns or tanks, placed in the roof over the
south aisle, and is drawn from the reservoir supplying the town. From
these cisterns the water passes down a pipe, into two cylinders, like those of
a steam-engine, standing in a hole, apparently dug to obtain a greater fall
of the water. Exactly over these cylinders are two feeders, made like the
reservoirs of the organ bellows, each having a diaphragm, or middle leaf,
which is moved up and down by means of the pistons. Attached to these
leaves are two rods, which pass down to two beautifully-made and very

96 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

large cocks. The reciprocating motion is attained by one cylinder operating
upon the cock of the other; and the blast of air obtained by these feeders is
continuous, but varied by a steam equilibrium throttle-valve, which the res-
ervoir of the bellows closes as it becomes thoroughly inflated. The engine
is under the immediate control of the organist by suitable gearing leading to
valves in the cistern.

RESTORATION OF TARNISHED SILVER.

Sometimes silver instruments become so completely tarnished and discol-
ored, that by no ordinary means can they be cleansed. Professor Bottger
states that by electrolysis their color can be restored in an incredibly short
period. To effect this a saturated solution of borax in water, or a moderately
strong solution of caustic potassa, is brought into a state of active ebullition;
and with this the discolored object, laid in a zinc sieve-like vessel, is moist-
ened. If a zinc sieve be not at hand, we may attain the same end by touch-
ing the object, when it has been dipped in the boiling fluid, with a zine rod.

ON THE DURABILITY OF ZINC WHITE.

A curious lawsuit has been tried in Paris during the past year. M. Gudin,
the well-known French marine painter, demanded 800/. damages from a
tradesman, for having sold his canvasses prepared with white of zinc, which
is a substance so injurious to oil colors, that several of his paintings became,
in a comparatively short time, cracked and spoiled. In support of his de-
mand, he stated that one of his paintings, a View on the Coast of Asia, had been
returned to him, and he had had to restore 320/., the amount received for it;
and that after painting three others, for which he was to have received 700/.,
he had not been able to deliver them. The court awarded M. Gudin an in-
demnity of 4802.

RAZOR PAPER.

This article supersedes the use of the ordinary strop; by merely wiping the
razor on the paper, to remove the lather after shaving, a keen edge is always
maintained without further trouble; only one caution is necessary, that is,
to begin with a sharp razor, and then the paper will keep it in that state for
years. It may be prepared thus:

First procure oxyd of iron (by the addition of carbonate of soda to a solu-
tion of persulphate of iron), well wash the precipitate, and finally leave it of
the consistency of cream. Secondly, procure some good paper, soft, and a
little thinner than ordinary printing paper; then, with a soft brush, spread
over the paper (on one side only), very thinly, the moist oxyd of iron; dry it,
and cut into pieces two inches square. It is then fit for use.

ASSYRIAN CIVILIZATION.

Sir Henry Rawlinson, the eminent oriental scholar, in a recently published
communication, thus concludes a sketch of the range of Assyrian civilization :
“Among them (the ornaments) are some which anticipate inventions be-
lieved till lately to have been modern. Transparent glass (which, however,
was known also in ancient Egypt) is one of these; but the most remarkable
of all is the lens discovered at Nimrud, of the use of which as a magnifying

MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 97

agent there is abundant proof. If it be added to this, that the buildings of
the Assyrians show them to have been well acquainted with the principle of
the arch, that they constructed aqueducts and drains, that they knew the use
of the lever and roller, that they understood the arts of inlaying, enamelling,
and overlaying with metals, and that they cut gems with the greatest skill
and finish, —it will be apparent that their civilization equalled that of almost
any ancient country, and that it did not fall immeasurably behind the
boasted achievements of the moderns. With much that was barbaric still
attaching to them, with a rude and inartificial government, savage passions,
a debasing religion, and a general tendency to materialism, they were, to-
wards the close of their empire, in all the arts and appliances of life, very
nearly on a par with ourselves; and thus their history furnishes a warning
— which the records of nations constantly repeat—that the greatest mate-
rial prosperity may coéxist with the decline, and herald the downfall, of a
kingdom.”

ON SCIENCE AS A BRANCH OF EDUCATION.

The following is an abstract of a lecture on the above subject, recently
delivered before the Royal Institution, London, by Professor Faraday. The
high position of this gentleman always secures attention for his opinions;
but upon this topic especially, his views will be examined with great interest.

The development of the applications of physical science in modern times
has become so large, and so essential to the well-being of man, that it may
justly be used, as illustrating the true character of pure science, as a depart-
ment of knowledge, and the claims it may have for consideration by govern-
ments, universities, and all bodies to whom is confided the fostering care and
direction of learning. Asa branch of learning, men are beginning to recog-
nize the claim of science to its own particular place; for, though flowing
in channels utterly different in their course and end to those of literature, it
conduces not less, as a means of instruction, to the discipline of the mind;
whilst it ministers, more or less, to the wants, comforts, and proper pleasure,
both mental and bodily, of every individual of every class in life. Until of
late years the education for, and recognition of it, by the bodies which may
be considered as giving the general course of all education, have been chiefly
directed to it only as it could serve professional services,—namely, those
which are remunerated by society; but now the fitness of university degrees
in science is under consideration, and many are taking a high view of it, as
distinguished from literature, and think that it may well be studied for its own
sake,—?. e., aS a proper exercise of the human intelligence, able to bring
into action and development all the powers of the mind. As a branch of
learning, it has, without reference to its applications, become as extensive
and varied as literature; and it has this privilege, that it must ever go on
increasing. Thus it becomes a duty to foster, direct, and honor it, as litera-
ture is so guided and recognized; and the duty is the more imperative, as we
find by the unguided progress of science and the experience it supplies, that
of those men who devote themselves to studious education, there are as
many whose minds are constitutionally disposed to the studies supplied by
it, as there are of others more fitted by inclination and power to pursue
literature. The value of the public recognition of science as a leading branch
of education may be estimated in a very considerable degree by observation
of the results of the education which it has obtained incidentally from those

9

98 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

who, pursuing it, have educated themselves. Though men may be specially
fitted by the nature of their minds for the attainment and advance of litera-
ture, science, or the fine arts, all these men, and all others, require first to be
educated in that which is known in these respective mental paths; and when
they go beyond this preliminary teaching, they require a self-education
directed (at least in science) to the highest reasoning power of the mind.
Any part of pure science may be selected to show how much this private
self-teaching has done, and by that to aid the present movement in favor of
the recognition generally of scientific education in an equal degree with that
which is literary; but perhaps electricity, as being the portion which has
been left most to its own development, and has produced as its results the
most enduring marks on the face of the globe, may be referred to. In 1800
Volta discovered the voltaic pile—giving a source and form of electricity
before unknown. It was not an accident, but resulted from his own mental
self-education. It was, at first, a feeble instrument, giving feeble results ; but,
by the united mental exertions of other men, who educated themselves
through the force of thought and experiment, it has been raised up to such
a degree of power as to give us light, and heat, and magnetic and chemical
action, in states more exalted than those supplied by any other means. In
1819 Oersted discovered the magnetism of the electric current, and its rela-
tion to the magnetie needle; and as an immediate consequence, other men,
as Arago and Davy, instructing themselves by the partial laws and action
of the bodies concerned, magnetized iron by the current. The results were
so feeble at first as to be scarcely visible; but, by the exertion of self-taught
men since then, they have been exalted so highly as to give us magnets of a
force unimaginable in former times. In 1831 the induction of electrical cur-
rents one by another, and the evolution of electricity from magnets, was
observed, — at first in results so small and feeble that it required one much
instructed in the pursuit to perceive and lay hold of them; but these feeble
results, taken into the minds of men already partially educated and ever pro-
ceeding onwards in their self-education, have been so developed as to supply
sources of electricity independent of the voltaic battery or the electric ma-
chine, yet having the power of both combined in a manner and degree which
they, neither separate nor together, could ever have given it, and applicable
to all the practical electrical purposes of life.. To consider all the depart-
ments of electricity fully, would be to lose the argument for its fitness in sub-
serving education in the vastness of its extent; and it will be better to con-
fine the attention to one application, as the electric telegraph, and even to
one small part of that application, in the present case. Thoughts of an
electric telegraph came over the minds of those who had been instructed in
the nature of electricity as soon as the conduction of that power with extreme
swiftness through metals was known, and grew as the knowledge of that
branch of science increased. The thought, as realized at the present day,
includes a wonderful amount of study and development. As the end in view
presented itself more and more distinctly, points, at first apparently of no
consequence to the knowledge of the science, generally rose into an impor-
tance which obtained for them the most careful culture and examination, and
the almost exclusive exercise of minds whose powers of judgment and rea-
soning had been raised first by general education, and who, in addition, had
acquired the special kind of education which the science in its previous state
could give. Numerous and important as the points are, which have been

already recognized, others are continually coming into sight as the great

MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 99

development proceeds, and with a rapidity such as to make us believe that,
much as there is known to us, the unknown far exceeds it; and that, exten-
sive as is the teaching of method, facts, and law, which can _ be established
at present, an education looking for far greater results should be favored and,
preserved. The results already obtained are so large as even in money value
to be of very great importance; — as regards their higher influence upon the
human mind, especially when that is considered in respect of cultivation,
I trust they are, and ever will be, far greater.

No intention exists here of comparing one telegraph with another, or of
assigning their respective dates, merits, or special uses. Those of Mr.
Wheatstone are selected for the visible illustration of a brief argument in
favor of a large public recognition of scientific education, because he is a
man both of science and practice, and was one of the very earliest in the
field, and because certain large steps in the course of his telegraphic life will
tell upon the general argument. Without referring to what he had done
previously, it may be observed that, in 1810, he took out patents for electric
telegraphs, which included, amongst other things, the use of electricity from
magnets at the communicator,— the dial face,—the step-by-step motion,—
and the electro-magnet at the indicator. At the present time, 1858, he has
taken out patents for instruments containing all these points; but these
instruments are so altered and varied in character above the former that
an untaught person could not recognize them. The changes may be consid-
ered as the result of education upon the one mind which has been con-
cerned with them, and are to me strong illustrations of the effects which
general scientific education may be expected to produce. In the first instru-
ments powerful magnets were used, and keepers, with heavy coils, asso-
ciated with them. When magnetic electricity was first discovered, the signs
were feeble, and the mind of the student was led to increase the results by
increasing the force and size of the instruments. When the object was to
obtain a current sufficient to give signals through long circuits, large appa-
ratus were employed, but these involved the inconveniences of inertia and
momentum; the keeper was not set in motion at once, nor instantly stopped;
and, if connected directly with the reading indexes, these circumstances
caused an occasional uncertainty of action. Prepared by its previous edu-
cation, the mind could perceive the disadvantages of these influences, and
could proceed to their removal; and now a small magnet is used to send suf-
ficient currents through 12, 20, 50, 100, or several hundred miles; a keeper
and helix is associated with it, which the hand can easily put in motion;
and the currents are not sent out of the indicating instrument to tell their
story, until a key is depressed, and thus irregularity contingent upon first
action is removed. A small magnet, ever ready for action and never wast-
ing, can replace the voltaic battery; if powerful agencies be required, the
electro-magnet can be employed without any change in principle or tele-
graphic practice; and as magneto-electric currents have special advantages
over voltaic currents, these are in every case retained. These advantages I
consider as the result of scientific education, much of it not tutorial, but of
self: but there is a special privilege about the science branch of education,
namely, that what is personal in the first instance immediately becomes an
addition to the stock of scientific learning, and passes into the hands of the
tutor, to be used by him in the education of others, and enable them, in
turn, to educate themselves. How well may the young man, entering upon
his duties in electricity, be taught, by what is past, to watch for the smallest

100 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

signs of action, new or old; to nurse them up by any means until they have
gained strength; then to study their laws, to eliminate the essential condi-
tions from the non-essential, and, at last, to refine again, until the encum-
bering matter is as much as possible dismissed, and the power left in its
highly developed and most exalted state. The alterations or successions of
currents, produced by the movement of the keeper at the communicator,
pass along the wire to the indicator at a distance; there each one for itself
confers a magnetic condition on a piece of soft iron, and renders it attractive
or repulsive of small, permanent magnets; and these, acting in turn on a
propelment, cause the index to pass at will frcm one letter to another on the
dial face. The first electro-magnets, t. e., those made by the circulation of
an electric current round a piece of soft iron, were weak; they were quickly
strengthened, and it was only when they were strong that their laws and
actions could be successively investigated. But now they were required
small, yet potential. Then came the teaching of Ohm’s law; and it was
only by patient study, under such teaching, that Wheatstone was able so to
refine the little electro-magnets at the indicator as that they should be small
enough to consist with the fine work there employed, able to do their
appointed work when excited in contrary directions by the brief currents
flowing from the original common magnet, and unobjectionable in respect
of any resistance they might offer in the transit of these tell-tale currents.
These small transitory electro-magnets attract and repel certain permanent
magnetic needles, and the to-and-fro motion of the latter is communicated
by a propelment to the index, being there converted into a step-by-step mo-
tion. Here everything is of the finest workmanship; the propelment itself
requires to be watched by a lens, if its action is to be observed; the parts
never leave hold of each other; the vibratory or rotary ratchet-wheel and
the fixed pallets are always touching, and thus allow of no detachment, or
loose shake; the holes of the axes are jewelled; the moving parts are most
carefully balanced, — a consequence of which is, that agitation of the whole
does not disturb the parts, and the telegraph works just as well when it is
twisted about in the hands, or placed on board a ship, or in a railway car-
riage, as when fixed immovably.

Now there was no accident in the course of these developments ; —if there
were experiments, they were directed by the previously acquired knowledge;
—every part of the investigations was made and guided by the instructed
mind. The results being such (and like illustrations might be drawn from
other men’s telegraphs, or from other departments of electrical science),
then, if the term education may be understood in so large a sense as to
include all that belongs to the improvement of the mind, either by the acqui-
sition of the knowledge of others, or by increase of it through its own exer-
tions, we learn by them what is the kind of education science offers to man.
It teaches us to be neglectful of nothing;— not to despise the small begin-
- nings, for they precede, of necessity, all great things in the knowledge of
science, either pure or applied. It teaches a continual comparison of the
small and great, and that under differences almost approaching the infinite:
for the small as often contains the great in principle as the great does the
small; and thus the mind becomes comprehensive. It teaches’ to deduce
principles carefully, to hold them firmly, or to suspend the judgment — to
discover and obey law, and by it to be bold in applying to the greatest what
we know of the smallest. It teaches us first by tutors and books to learn
what is known to others, and then, by the lights and methods which belong

MECHANICS AND USEFUL ARTS. 101

to science, to learn for ourselves and for others;—so making a fruitful
return to man in the future for that which we have obtained from the men
of the past. Bacon, in his instruction, tells us that the scientific student
ought not to be as the ant, who gathers, merely; nor as the spider, who spins
from her own bowels; but rather as the bee, who both gathers and produces.
All this is true of the teaching afforded by any part of the physical science.
Electricity is often called wonderful — beautiful; — but it is so only in com-
mon with the other forces of nature. The beauty of electricity, or of any
other force, is not that the power is mysterious and unexpected, touching
every sense at unawares in turn, but that it is under Jaw, and that the taught
intellect can even now govern it largely. The human mind is placed above,
not beneath it; and it is in such a point of view that the mental education
afforded by science is rendered supereminent in dignity, in practical appli-
cation, and utility: for, by enabling the mind to apply the natural power
through law, it conveys the gifts of God to man,

g*

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY.

ROTATION PRODUCED BY ELECTRICITY.

AT a recent meeting of the Royal Society, England, an ingenious and curi-
ous apparatus was exhibited, displaying the rotation of a metallic sphere by
electricity. The apparatus was contrived by Mr. Gore, of Birmingham, who
states that his experiments had their origin in a phenomenon observed by
Mr. Fearn, of Birmingham, in his electro-gilding establishment. — When a
tube of brass, half an inch in diameter and four feet long, was placed upon
two horizontal and parallel brass tubes, one inch in diameter and nine feet
long, and at right angles to them, and the latter connected with a long voltaic
battery consisting of from two to twelve pairs of large zinc and carbon ele-
ments, this transverse tube immediately began to vibrate, and finally to roll
upon the others. Acting upon this, Mr. Gore constructed a disk of wood,
provided with two brass rails, level, uniform, and equi-distant; on these rails
a hollow and very thin copper ball was placed, and the brass rails being con-
nected with a zine and carbon battery, the ball began to vibrate, and pres-
ently to revolve. In all cases yet observed, Mr. Gore states, that the motion
of the ball is attended by a peculiar crackling sound at the points of contact,
and by heating of the rolling metal. When the apparatus was exhibited be-
fore the Royal Society, electric sparks were seen as the ball rolled from the
spectator.

ELECTRICITY OF NERVES AND MUSCLES.

M. de la Rive, in the third volume of his Treatise on Electricity, just pub-
lished, reviews the whole science of electro-physiology; and reminds practi-
tioners that, as the difference between the electricity of the muscles and of
the nerves is now clearly established, so must they be careful in applying
their remedies, not to waste on the muscles, which are the best conductors,
the electric currents intended solely for the nerves.

ACCIDENTS BY LIGHTNING.

From a recent foreign work, ‘ Boudin on Medical Geography,” we derive
the following memoranda respecting accidents from lightning. As compared
with the country, towns, and especially the larger and more populous ones,
appear to possess an immunity from accident to life by lightning. Thus,
between 1800 and 1851, not a single death by lightning was recorded in Paris;
and in 1786 it was calculated that out of 750,000 deaths in London, during

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 103

thirty years, two only had been produced by this agency. During a century,
only three persons were killed by lightning in Gottingen, and two in Halle.
Comparing these numbers with the total deaths from this cause, and with the
fact that twenty-five per cent. of all happen under trees, he holds it reason-
able to conclude “‘ that lightning finds more victims in open country than in
cities.”” Another ‘‘most curious phenomenon, beyond contradiction, is the
tendency it has to strike the same places and the same edifices at different
epochs.” Of this, Dr. Boudin produces several illustrations, and quotes M.
Poullet in support and explanation.

With regard to the frequency of accidents by lightning, fatal to human life
in France, he tells us that from 1835 to 1852, inclusive, 1308 persons were
killed.

M. Boudin thinks that the persons injured are at least twice as numerous
as those killed. Some United States statistics show the injured to be to the
killed as five to one. Many more men than women are killed, and not in
France only, but also, though not in so marked a proportion, in Sweden
(1815 to 1840), and in England (1838 and 1839). Heseems to think that this is
not explained by the greater exposure of men in the fields; but still he does
not think we are warranted in concluding “that, all things being equal,
woman runs less danger than man;” but he considers the question as
“worthy of being submitted to the test of observation.”” And he quotes the
following peculiar passage from Arago, declining, however, to “‘ maintain its
rigorous exactitude”:

“Tn two conditions altogether alike,” says Arago, “‘one man, by the nature
of his constitution, runs more danger than another. There exist persons
who arrest abruptly the communication of electricity, and do not feel the
shock, even when they occupy the second place in the file. These persons,
by exception, are not conductors of the electric fluid. Exceptionally, then,
we must rank them amongst non-conducting bodies, which lightning respects,
or which, at least, it strikes rarely. Differences so marked cannot exist, with-
out there being also shades of difference; but every degree of conductibility
corresponds, during the storm, to a certain measure of danger. The man
who is as conducting as metal will be as often struck as metal; the man who
interrupts the communication to the chain will scarce have more to fear than
if he were glass orresin. Between these limits there will be found individuals
whom the lightning will strike as readily as wood or stone. Thus, in the
phenomena of thunder, all does not depend on the place which a man occu-
pies; the physical constitution of the man plays also a certain part.”

As one would expect, “‘ the configuration of the soil, and its mountainous
character,” exercise an influence on the frequency of accidents, which, for
instance, in proportion to the population, are much rarer in the departments
of the Eure and Seine than in those of the Dordogne, Lozere, High Loire,
and Low and High Alps. Less danger is run in the house than in the fields,
and in towns than in the country.

The effects of lightning on man he makes either curative of preéxisting
affections, productive of wounds or injuries, or productive of death. The
injuries it may produce seem to be very varied.

To the peculiar images, said to have been observed on the bodies of some
persons killed by lightning, he gives the name of Keraunographic images,
and he relates some of the most singular instances of it on record, giving the
sources, which are not always the most reliable.

104 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

PHOTOGRAPHIC EFFECTS OF LIGHTNING.

Statements of impressions of trees, etc., made on the human person by
lightning, are not uncommon, and Mr. Poey, of Havana, has published a
paper of some length on the subject. (See Annual of Scientific Discovery,
1858, page 226.) Ina case of a person struck by lightning, at Salem, Mass.,
during the past summer, it was currently reported, ‘that upon his back there
was left an impression of a larch tree, situated just outside the window at
which he was sitting.”” The attendant physician has, however, published the
following observations on the phenomenon in question:

““There was no laceration, or abrasion of the skin. The appearance was
something like what is often seen, of a frosty morning, on the window glass,
resembling branches of trees, and was produced by the peculiar action of the
lightning on the capillary vessels of the skin, causing them to become en-
larged and reddened, in consequence of admitting more blood than usual,
and to assume an arborescent character. This appearance was not the fac
simile of any tree or bush. The whole surface affected was about ten inches
square.”

This explanation appears to satisfactorily meet the facts of this particular
case; but, as instances are cited by Mr. Poey in which objects other than
trees have been delineated on the skin through the agency of lightning, the
photographic effects of this agent cannot, therefore, be entirely disputed.

LIGHTING GAS BY ELECTRICITY.

Samuel Gardner, jr., of New York, patented in 1857 an electric apparatus,
by means of which a person acting on two keys could light or shut off at
will, and at the same moment, all the gas-burners of a building, or any
designated number of them. It was applied to the lights of the Broadway
Theatre, and was made to work several times every evening, to the great
amusement of the audience. The stop-cock of every chandelier, and of every
isolated burner, is provided with a rachet-wheel, which is acted upon by a
catch connected with an ordinary electro-magnet, and each magnet is con-
nected by a wire with a battery, and with a circuit-breaking key, placed in
the operator’s room. Over every burner is a coil of fine platina wire; and-all
these coils, connected together by copper wires, are in the circuit of another
electric current, which may be closed or opened by means of another circuit-
breaking key. To light the gas, the operator closes the circuit of the coils
of platina; these become red hot. He then closes and opens the stop-cocks’
circuit as many times as is necessary to make the rachet-wheels describe a
quarter of a circle. The stop-cocks are then opened, and the gas, rushing
on the burning coils, is lighted. The burners are turned off by playing
again on the key till the rachet-wheels have moved another quarter of a cir-
cle; then the stop-cocks are closed. By having as many keys as there are
burners, or groups of burners, each burner or each group may be operated
separately from the others. By throwing all in one circuit, they may be
operated with a single key. The use of this invention does away with the
causes of fire consequent upon the use of matches; it saves the labor of
lighting, and an unnecessary expense of gas in large establishments, where
the lighting has to be begun one hour before light is wanted. In the streets

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 105

it is peculiarly advantageous, as a burner accidentally put out by a puff of
wind, is instantly lighted again. An improvement on this invention has
been patented, March, 1858, by the original inventor. It consists in placing
the platina coil by the side of the burner, instead of above it, and in the
flame. The use of platina, though very costly, is necessary, as it is the
cheapest metal which does neither melt nor burn under the circumstances
described. The apparatus, thus improved, has been lately applied to the
1,500 burners of the Senate Chamber in Washington, and is said to give
complete satisfaction.

GATCHELL’S LIGHTNING RODS AND POINTS.

A committee of the Franklin Institute recommend the following improve-
ments in the construction of lightning rods, introduced by Mr. J. L. Gatchell,
of Maryland. These improvements consist, first, in the use of a rope of
twisted copper wire (containing eighteen strands of wire, about ts inch in
diameter), by which are gained greater conducting power, freedom from
breaks or joints in the conductor, and a flexibility which allows it to be
adapted to any irregularities of form over which it may be carried. :

The second modification is the substitution of a copper for a platina
point, and the increasing the angle of the point, so as to approach that
recommended by the Committee of the French Academy of Sciences. The
advantages here gained are, greater conducting power by the substitution of
copper for platina, and secondly, a counteraction of the liability to fusion by
rendering the point much less acute. The preservation from oxidation is
entrusted to a zinc ball attached below the point.

ON THE ELECTRICAL LIGHT. BY H. W. DOVE.

The experiments, in connection with the results of the prismatic investi-
gation of the spark, appear to me to lead to the following conclusion:

A wire, becoming red-hot by heat, is first red, then orange, and lastly
white; so that it behaves like the combination of light which is obtained
when a screen is drawn away from the spectrum concealed by it, in such a
way that the red end first becomes visible, and to this the violet is finally
added. The increase of brilliancy, from the slightly luminous brush to the
bright spark, behaves quite otherwise. In this case, it is as if the screen re-
moved first set free the violet end, and then the other colors. This distinc-
tion of itself renders it improbable that the phenomena of electrical light, in
the state of less brilliancy, can be ascribed to a gradually increasing ignition
of solid particles. They rather resemble the weakly luminous flame of hy-
drogen, which becomes white by solid ignited carbon in the so-called gas-
flames, or by other solid matters, as in the Drummond light. The true
electrical light is produced at great distances in the surrounding, isolating,
acriform medium, when the latter is attenuated. With this colored light be-
longing to the strongly refrangible part of the spectrum, phenomena of
ignition may be combined, by particles torn away from the positive and neg-
ative bodies. If these particles be only at a red heat, the impression of a
violet light is produced by their mixture with the electric light. To this class
belong the column of light in the electrical egg, and the basal point of the
brush, and, lastly, the indented reddish sparks of an electrical machine, at
distances to which a white spark does not pass. If particles at a white heat
come together, the whole is white, as in the sparks of Leyden jars; in oppo-

106 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

sition to the bright light of incandescence, the less strongly luminous electric
light disappears in the same way as the weak, bluish, lower part in a gas-
flame appears black in opposition to the bright mass of light, whilst with the
small brilliancy of a wax-light, the latter betrays its color even without optical
aids of absorption. Only prismatic analysis, and the action upon uranium
glass, indicate the presence of the electric light also. If the particles at a
white heat do not reach each other, the spark acquires a spot of interruption,
which, however, still shows red light besides the true electric light, when the
particles previously at a white heat have become cooled to redness. The
basal point of the brush, which retrogrades in proportion to the larger field
in which the electric light becomes visible, is to be compared with the spot
of interruption of the spark; the particles of the solid body which are here
still red-hot may, on reaching a greater distance, be completely extinguished,
so that then the electric light alone prevails. The brush could not be colored
by a spirit-flame colored yellow with chloride of sodium held under it, as it
then becomes converted into a spark. The phenomena of the exhausted
tube with mercury, indicate the modification which the electric light under-
goes in media other than atmospheric air.—Phil. Mag.

ELECTRO-MOTIVE FORCE OF VARIOUS BATTERIES.

M. Petruscheski, a Russian experimenter, gives the following as the
results of his investigations on the power of different voltaic combinations:

Grove, with amalgamated zine, .. . See Mine ele xs eels
Battery of cast iron and amalgamated ning, slits) eit wh ou bie & il ued toied loan.
Bunsen, .. 6 oo Hay
Eisenlohr (Daniellis, with ieirtrate of pee in place of Solpheie acid), 1.05
Daniell, with chloride of sodium, . . Tae oml, Se mind's
ef chloride of sodium and Serdaiaied Za8 AIRC Tce metcne ies Ai Olu
° wath uilTte sl pRUTIGACIG. sou Yel lsd) suey Mon ke | sua ae ook O0
Ejisenlohr, with zinc not amalgamated, .. . 5) SiS) eA ee OLS
Daniell, dilute sulphuric acid and amalgamated sara), Bin oan iceticseal Be ich (DES:
Wollaston, with amalgamated zinc, ..... . 1. ae Os

Cipittes: vol. xli., p. 4.

COST OF ELECTRIC LIGHT.

M. Edmond Becquerel has been recently engaged in some experiments
with a view to determine the comparative cost of electricity as an illuminat-
ing agent. He used a battery of zinc and platinum, made with strict atten-
tion to economy, and the results were as follows:

The standard is the light of 350 candles of the best quality, and the com-
parative cost of

Coal gas ‘at $160 per 1000 c. feet; was 2.8 ee $0 35
Oil (Rape Seed), at 17 cents per pound, . 060
Stearine candles, at 32 cents per pound, 2 52
Wax candles, at 52 cents per pound, 3 12
Electric light, 0 58

Thus showing that, although the electric light is cheaper than candles, it
will not at present compete with coal gas, at least until some cheaper battery
power be found.

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 107

EXPERIMENTS OF ANDREW CROSSE.

The very curious experiments of Andrew Crosse (made famous by repub-
lication in the “‘ Vestiges of Creation’), by which animal life seemed to be
produced by the action of any continued electrical currents, have recently
been repeated by Professor Schulze of Germany. No insects or animal
germs, however, made their appearance,—a result which strengthens the
probability of the supposition which Mr. Crosse himself never disputed,
that the ova of the insects — however the electric current may have operated
to stimulate their development — were derived from the atmosphere, or had
been conveyed into the apparatus by some natural means which had escaped
the attention of the experimenters.

Mr. Crosse, after a life spent in electrical experiments, died July 6, 1855, at
the age of 71, and his ‘‘ Memorials, Scientific and Literary,” lately published
in London, contain some curious details as to his investigations above referred
to, and the way in which they were received by the public.

Being engaged at the time in experiments for the production of mineral
crystals by the agency of the voltaic current, in which he had remarkable
success, he contrived a little apparatus for the deposition of crystals of silica
on a lump of stone, through the agency of a voltaic trough. After this
experiment had been going on for a fortnight, he observed a few small
whitish specks on the surface of the electrified stone. By the eighteenth
day, these specks had expanded, and seven or eight filaments were thrown
out from the surface of each; but as embryo minerals exhibited similar
phenomena in the process of crystallization, there was nothing so far to
excite any surprise. Before long, however, these growing specks assumed
the appearance of insects standing erect on the bristles which formed their
tails, and by the twenty-eighth day they were distinctly seen to moVe their
legs. By this time the experimenter was greatly astonished. Instead of a
mineral for which he had looked as the result of his experiment, he had
found an animal, alive and kicking. It was plain they were no mere appear-
ances, for in a few days they detached themselves from the stone and began
to move about. They were, to be sure, not creatures of a very inviting and
attractive character, for they belonged apparently to the genus acarus, which
includes some of the most disgusting parasites with which the animal body
is annoyed. But they continued to increase, and in the course of a few
weeks, at least a hundred made their appearance. Whence did they come?
and what was their origin? To these questions, Mr. Crosse, with all his faith
in the power of electricity, did not then venture and has not since ventured
a decided answer. Many years after, for the experiment was first tried in
1807, he professed himself still unable to form an opinion. He expresses
himself thus: ‘‘ The simplest solution of the problem which occurred to
me was that they rose from ova deposited by insects floating in the atmos-
phere and hatched by electric action. Still I could not imagine that an
ovum could shoot out filaments, or that those filaments could become
bristles; and moreover, I could not detect, on the closest examination, the
remains of ashell. Again, we have no right to assume that electric action
is necessary to vitality until such fact shall have been most distinctly proved.
I next imagined, as others have done, that they might have originated from
the water, and consequently made a close examination of numbers of vessels
filled with the same fluid. In none of these could I perceive a trace of an
insect, nor could I see any in any other part of the room.”

108 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

The experiments were repeated in various ways, and with every precaution
that could be thought of, yet the insects still appeared, and that, too, under
circumstances apparently highly adverse to the development of animal life.
They made their appearance under the surface of liquids in which they
could not afterward live, even in fluids that were caustic or absolutely
poisonous. Though the solid materials employed had been subjected to a
heat greater than that of molten iron, and the solutions used had been
poured while boiling into the apparatus, still these strange insects made
their appearance; nor did an atmosphere impregnated with chlorine or
loaded with muriatic acid gas prove any bar to their production. Similar
experiments were afterwards undertaken by Mr. Weeks, of Sandwich, with
still greater precaution, if possible, to exclude every exterior element of
animal life, but still in the end—though a period of twelve or eighteen
months sometimes elapsed — the insects appeared.

The publication of these experiments caused a great deal of talk, much
of which took the shape of a direct personal attack upon the unlucky phi-
losopher.. In the true spirit of the middle ages, which long confounded
experimental philosophy with impiety, Mr. Crosse was arraigned as an
impious man. If he began by creating animals by electrical power—no
matter of how inferior a sort — who could tell where he might stop? It was
a plain usurpation of the functions of Deity. Mr. Crosse must certainly be
an atheist. Letters were addressed to him in which he was denounced as
“a disturber of the peace of families,’ and a “ reviler of our holy religion.”
““T have met,’ says Mr. Crosse, ‘‘ with so much virulence and abuse, so
much calumny and misrepresentation, in consequence of these experiments,
that it seems in this nineteenth century as if it was a crime to have made
them.” In fact, he found himself obliged to come out with a public decla-
ration that he was neither an atheist nor a materialist, nor a self-imagined
creator, but a humble and lowly reverencer of that great Being, of whose
laws those who accused him seemed to have lost sight.

ON THE USE OF ELECTRICITY FOR PRODUCING LOCAL ANESTHESIA,

The application of electricity for producing local anesthesia, as in tooth-
pulling, has been recently made with marked success. The arrangement for
using or applying this agent is simple, and consists of the common electro-
magnetic machine used in medical electricity, a single cell and pair of plates
constituting a Smee’s battery, and a small electro-magnetic coil with a bun-
die of wires for graduating the strength of the current. One end of the
thin wire conveying the secondary current is attached to the handle of the
forceps, and the other end of it to a metallic handle to be placed in the hand
of the patient. The instrument touching the tooth completes the circuit, and
the current passes instantaneously. The wire attached to the forceps should
be made to pass through an interrupting footboard, so that the continuity
of the wire may be made or broken in an instant by a movement of the
right foot of the operator. The advantage of this arrangement is, that it
allows the instrument to be placed in the mouth without risk of producing a
shock in coming in contact with the lips, cheeks, or the tongue, which would
interfere with the quiet of the patient. A hole drilled in the end of the left
handle of the forceps, and the end of the wire tapered to fit rather tightly,
allows the substitution of one pair of forceps for another with scarcely a
moment’s delay.

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 109

IMPROVEMENT IN ELECTROTYPING.

The National Intelligencer says an improvement in the process of electro-
typing has been made, by which electrotypes can be produced with great
rapidity and accuracy. The improvement consists in covering the face of the
wax, or other material of which the matrix is made, with fine metallic leaf
before the impression is taken. In this way a perfect conducting metallic
surface is obtained; that is, over the entire face of the letters, as well as over
the spaces between the lines.

The sides of the letters do not, as a general thing, have a metallic conduct-
ing surface, inasmuch as the types, when the impression is taken, cut the leaf,
and force a part of it down into the matrix, thus leaving the wax exposed
on the sides of the letters. This cutting of the leaf, however, is rather an ad-
vantage, since such exposed parts of the wax are the very parts where aslow
deposit is preferred, and which is effected by touching such parts over with
plumbago. The advantages are these:) The moment that the mould or
matrix is placed in the bath and the battery applied, the deposit of metal
commences at once on the entire surface, —the deposit being more rapid,
however, on the face of the letters, and on the spaces between the lines than
on the sides of the letters; and this is just what is wanted, since it prevents,
especially when the letters are small and deep, what is termed “ bridging
over ”’ (hollow letters). By the use of silver leaf an electrotype may be pro-
duced with a bright silvered face, — a feature of considerable importance in
all cases where the plates are to be laid aside for future use, inasmuch as the
face of the letters will not be so easily injured by long and continued expo-
sure to air and moisture, as when of the usual copper face.

ELECTRIC DISCHARGES IN AIR HIGHLY RAREFIED.

On making a current of static electricity to pass through a tube of rarefied
air, a luminous arc is obtained, which experiences modifications, when sub-
jected to the action of the poles of a powerful magnet. This fact, which
calls to mind the corresponding effect experienced by a luminous arc pro-
duced by a powerful galvanic battery, was discovered by De la Rive in 1849.
He first used as the source of the electricity the hydro-electric machine of
Armstrong, afterwards acommon electric machine, and quite recently Ruhm-
korff’s apparatus. M. Pliicker, of Bonn, has tried the same, and his results
are published in a recent number of Poggendorff’s Annalen.

According to De la Rive, it is necessary for success that the tube or globe
should contain some vapor, equivalent in tension to six millimeters of mer-
cury, and the vapors answering best are those of alcohol, sulphuret of car-
bon, and camphine. De la Rive has applied the experiments to the illustra-
tion of the Aurora Borealis, so frequent in the Polar regions.

ON A MODIFICATION OF RUHMKORFF’S INDUCTION COIL.

At the last meeting of the British Association, Mr. W. Ladd, presented the
results of a very extensive course of experimenting with Ruhmkorff’s in-
duction coils, with a description of the machine, as it is now constructed.
His object, he said, was not to make very large machines, but to obtain the
greatest results from a three-mile coil, that being sufficiently large for all ordi-
nary purposes. I find the best length for the iron core to be thirteen inches

10

110 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

and about 15°S diameter, composed of fine iron wire not larger than No. 22,
very carefully annealed. The primary wire should be of sufficient size to
carry freely the whole of the battery current, and of sufficient quantity to
thoroughly saturate the iron core with magnetism. For this purpose I use
three layers of one continuous No. 12 copper wire carefully annealed; if more
layers are used I find that the secondary wire is removed too. far from the
magnetic influence. The secondary wire ought not to be larger than No. 35,
covered with silk, which must be laid on perfectly even and insulated from
the primary wire, and also from the layers of the secondary next to it. I
find the best insulating medium to be the thinnest gutta-percha made, and
which, I believe, to be the only gutta-percha sold which cannot be adulter-
ated; it is true that it has many minute preforations, but by laying on, at
least, six thicknesses between each layer of wire, perfect insulation is secured.
The greatest care must be taken in protecting the ends of the layers so as to
prevent the sparks passing from one to the other. The condenser should
be, at least, fifty sheets of tin-foil of about one square foot in size. These
sheets must be separated from each other by three sheets of varnished paper
or gutta-percha tissue. Every alternate sheet of foil is connected together,
thus forming two poles, to be attached one to each side of the break. It may
be placed at the bottom of the stand or in a separate box; the latter I prefer.
In developing the power of the machine, everything depends upon the con-
tact breaker, which should be capable of retaining contact until the whole of
the magnetism is obtained, and capable also of breaking contact as soon as
the smallest quantity is induced. These results are obtained in the break at-
tached to this instrument. The hammer is made to vibrate freely between the
core and the coil, and the brass screw terminating with the platina plate at the
back of the hammer, a very small amount of magnetism will be sufficient to
attract the hammer and so break the contact. If now I bring this screw
(placed half-way up the spring carrying the hammer) to bear upon the spring,
it will have the effect of pressing the two platina plates together, so that it
takes a greater amount of magnetism to separate them. By this means I
can regulate the power of the instrument to the purposes for which it is
required. The battery I employ is a five cells of ‘‘ Grove’s,” with immersed
platina plates 5 x 3, having an exposed surface of 140 square inches. With
such a battery and a coil thus constructed, I can always insure sparks from
half an inch to four inches in air. The machine now exhibited contains six
miles of wire, and worked with the same battery, gives six and a quarter
inch sparks. The position which the induction coil is now taking in this elec-
trical age is one of considerable importance. It has awakened new philo-
sophical ideas, and is being successfully applied to practical purposes of the
highest advantage to mankind. For blasting purposes, a three-mile coil is
capable of firing fifty charges simultaneously. But, important as its present
position is, and successful as its past application has been, it is yet in its in-
fancy, and there can be little doubt that by patient perseverance machines
can be constructed that will obviate the necessity of employing such ponder-
ous machines, and still more ponderous batteries, as are now at work on the
Atlantic Cable.

JAN’s IMPROVEMENT. — In using Ruhmkorff’s coils, damage is not unfre-
quently sustained by the electric spark forcing its way through the apparatus
itself, in place of passing between the poles. To avoid this, M. Jan has
devised a plan of plunging the apparatus in a non-conducting liquid, such as
the spirits of turpentine. The liquid filling the interstices of the coil, con-

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. kt

stituting the immediate instrument of the induction, assures the perfect iso-
lation of the several convolutions, and if a spark too violent passes through
the instrument, the presence of a non-conducting fluid stops its passage and
insures safety. M. Quet, thus using the Ruhmkorff machine, has produced
results which have hitherto defied the Voltaic battery, and, of course, the
ordinary electrical machine.

STUDY OF THE THERMO-MULTIPLIER.

This instrument, valuable to the experimentalist for its extreme delicacy,
and for its extensive scale, has been the object of careful theoretic and prac-
tical study, by M. de la Proyostaye, whose results as reported to the Acad-
emy of Sciences, at Paris, may be summed up as follows:

First, as to the galvanometer.

1. Whatever may be the position of the needles, the forces which act upon
each half are reducible practically to one, perpendicular to the plane of the
meridian.

2. That the amount of deviation makes but a slight change in the amount
of this resultant: hence, the apparatus may be regarded as a tangent-needle
of a very considerable degree of perfection.

Secondly, as to the thermo-electric pile.

1. The progress of heating the thermometer takes place by the same
decrees, and in the same time, as if it were placed in a space at the constant
temperature which the pile attains under the influence of the source of heat.

2. When the rise of the temperature is sufficienily small, if we withdraw
the calorific action, it cools again, in the same time, and by the same degrees,
as if heated.

Thirdly. He terminates the integral expression for the movement of the
needle: shows that its position of rest under the action of the current is pro-
portioned to the constant quantity of the current when the anterior face of
the pile has assumed a stationary excess of temperature, and to the intensity
of the incident heat: and then derives expressions for the times correspond-
ing to the maximum and minimum excursions of the needle, and the extent
of these excursions; and terminates with the following observation: “If,
after making an observation with the thermo-pile in the common way, and
awaiting the fixed deviation of the needle, the screen is replaced, the energy
of the current diminishes, and the needle returns to zero. I have found that
the retrograde motion of the needle, counted from the fixed deviation, takes
place by oscillations of the same extent and times as the primitive motion
counted from zero.”

HUGHES’S TELEGRAPH.

The following is a fuil description of this somewhat famous instrument,
with its latest improvements, as it has been employed during the past year
on one of the lines between New York and Philadelphia. By it, messages
are transmitted simultaneously to and fro at the rate of two hundred letters
a minute each way. With all other telegraphs, the current runs through the
magnet of the instrument, and a sign is transmitted by breaking the current
for an instant; with this one, the line is connected with the ground, and the
current is made to pass through the machine only for an instant, when a sign
is to be transmitted. This arrangement constitutes one of its most important
advantages, namely: Any surplus of electricity produced by an overcharged

Ti? ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

atmosphere has full time to flow into the ground, and Hughes’s machine
may be operated without danger to the attendants, during a storm which
stops all the others. To accomplish this, the magnet is made of a natural
horse-shoe magnet capable of sustaining five pounds, in contact with the
poles of which are placed two pieces of soft iron, surrounded by coils of
wire. The armature is provided with a spring nearly as strong as the mag-
net, the tendency of which is to pullthem apart. When the machine is at rest
the armature is in contact with the pieces of soft iron where it is kept. As
these have become magnetic from their contact with the natural magnet,
when a key is pressed down the current is made to pass through the coil in
such a direction as to destroy the natural magnet by creating an artificial
one with poles reversed. The armature is thus instantaneously let free, and
is thrown up by the spring; this motion acts upon a detent, and the other
parts of the instrument do their office in transmitting a letter, and also of
cutting off the current from the magnet and of forcing back the armature
against it. In this manner the natural magnet is not required to attract the
armature from a distance, but acts only, when in contact, to hold it in its
place; that is, in the position of its greatest power. The parts of the
machine which are in constant motion consist of a horizontal main shaft
under which is a vertical shaft, connected with the first by beveled wheels ;
of a train of cog-wheels, of a drum, weight, spring and treadle. The main
shaft of the instruments at both extremities of the line move with exactly
the same speed. The velocity of each is regulated, like that of a common
clock, by an anchor escapement, with this difference, that the vibrations of
a slender bar of steel, held by one extremity, are substituted for the beats
of apendulum. A clock is made to go slow or fast by lengthening or short-
ening the pendulum, and the velocity is regulated here by doing the same
with the bar of steel. This escapement acts about sixty times in a second,
or twenty times faster that that of a clock; and this result could not be
obtained from a pendulum, as this would have to be only 1-80 part of an
inch long from the point of suspension to the centre of the ball, to beat
sixty times. The upper portion of the vertical shaft is isolated from the
lower portion by an intermediate piece made of ivory. The upper part
is provided with an articulated horizontal arm which rests on a shorter
arm extending from the lower part, and this contact connects together
the two portions of the shaft. This arm describes circles a quarter of
an inch above the table. Under its extremity a circular row of twenty-
eivht slats is cut in the table, and as many metal slides are placed
vertically in them. Twenty-eight keys are connected with these slides,
in such a manner that, when a key is pressed down, the corresponding
slide is raised in the slat sufficiently high to reach the arm, which, in
revolving, slides un the inclined end of the slide. This operation makes
the current pass through the coils of the other instrument, as will be shown
hereafter. The main shaft carries by friction a type-wheel, the types of
which are inked by a small tangential inking roller. A second horizontal
shaft moving with the first, but faster, is provided with a chuck, by means
of which it carries the printing shaft once round each time a letter is tele.
gravhed. This printing shaft, by means of a projecting cam, brings at each
turn the roller which carries the paper in contact with the type-wheel, and
the letter actually there is printed. The slip of paper is carried onward the
distance of a letter by a dog acting on a ratchet, when the roller recedes from
the type-wheel. ;

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 113

All the parts having been described separately, we will now explain their
connection, together with the manner of using the machine. The instru-
ments at both stations are first started, and made to revolve at the same
rate, the type-wheels lying in such positions that each time the arm of the
vertical shaft of one instrument passes over the slide of key A, the letter A
engraved on the type-wheel of the other instrument is opposite the paper
roller. To print a letter at the other end of the line, the operator presses
down the key on which the letter is engraved; the key raises the correspond-
ing metal slide which raises the revolving arm before one half of a second has
elapsed, since the arm makes two revolutions per second. This makes the
current pass through the magnet of the instrument at the other station and
release its armature, which springs up. The detent acts instantly, makes
the chuck catch the printing shaft, and this last raises the printing roller
against the type-wheel, the letter is printed, and the armature coming down,
the printing shaft is unconnected, and every part returns to its original posi-
tion except the paper, which has proceeded the distance of one letter
forward.

The closing of the current at one station acts only on the magnet of the
other station. This allows of the writing both ways at the same time.
Generally the despatches travelling in opposite directions are interwoven; and
also two different letters may appear to be, the one received and the other
sent at the same moment; one, in fact, starts only after the other is arrived
and the way is clear; but, each time the same letter is transmitted by both
operators, the two machines act at the same mathematical instant. Two
batteries are erected, one at each station, and none at intermediate points of
the road, and they are connected with the instruments in a peculiar manner,
which will be best understood by making a diagram. One pole of each
battery is connected with the slides of the instrument, the other with the
ground. The wire of the line is connected at each end, through coil No. 1
of the instrument, with the upper portion of the shaft; the lower portion is
connected, through coil No. 2, with the ground. When the keys of both
machines are at rest the current of both batteries is broken—all the con-
necting wires and the line are free from electricity. When a key is acted
upon in New York, the corresponding slide raises the arm; this disconnects
one coil in New York and makes the current of one battery pass through
one coil in New York and through both coils in Philadelphia. The power
of the springs acting against the armatures is so calculated as to overcome
the magnet diminished by the current of one battery through two coils, but
to be smaller than the magnet diminished only by one battery through one
coil. Consequently the armature in Philadelphia is released, and a letter is
printed there, and that in New York is held in place. The explanation for
telegraphing the other way is the same. When the sides of the same letter
are raised at the same time in both instruments, one coil of each is discon-
nected; but there is the power of two batteries in the other coil of each; and,
as a power of two batteries through one coil is equivalent to that of one
through two coils, the result described occurs at both stations, and the letter
is printed at both places in the same identical instant.

A second manner of using the instrument is to place the batteries on the
line as is usual, and to arrange the arms so that they clear the currents
when the slides come in contact with them. With this plan, it is not possible
to telegraph both ways at the same time.

A third manner, which is favorite with the inventor, and which it is pro-

I?
we

114 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

posed to apply to the Submarine Atlantic Telegraph, consists in having only
local currents, which at the moment they are closed develop an induction
current of great intensity that shoots through the entire line. For this pur-
pose a coil of coarse wire is wound in three thicknesses around a piece of
soft iron of less than an inch in diameter, and about ten inches in length.
The local current is made to pass through it. Another coil of fine wire
is wound around the first, and is connected with the cable and with the
ground.

The manner of making the type-wheels start right is very simple. The
operator stops the type-wheel by depressing a small lever, which catches a
pin so placed on the wheel that when stopped blank is opposite the printing
roller. This lever is thrown up by the printing roller, so that all the care
the operator of the other station has to take is to begin by a-blank.

Teeth of a slanting shape are cut on the side of the type-wheel, and each
time the lever which carries the printing roller is raised, a projection on its -
side enters between two teeth of the type-wheel, and makes it slide back-
ward or forward as the case may be. The faster letters are telegraphed the
more often this correction is made, and it proves so effective that the vibra-
ting springs doing the office of pendulums require to be set with only a very
small degree of accuracy; in fact, one may beat fifty and the other fifty-one
without any inconvenience resulting from the difference.

The number of cups per hundred miles requisite for working House’s
Telegraph is two hundred; Morse’s requires fifty, and Hughes’s only four to
work both ways. A good operator can transmit two hundred letters a
minute; but this is the limit of human skill, and not that of the power of
the instrument. An average writer can pen one hundred and fifty letters
per minute. Consequently, one may play ona key-board or telegraph thirty-
three per cent. faster than he can write.

Hughes’s instrument is moved by a weight of seventy-five pounds, de-
scending two and a half feet in fifteen. This weight is raised now and then
by pressing down a treadle. This winding up does not require the stopping
of the machine— an intermediate spring being so arranged as to act during
the time the weight is raising.

BONELLIV’S AUTOGRAPHIC TELEGRAPH.

The autographic telegraph of M. Bonelli, the Sardinian director of tele-
graphs, is attracting considerable attention on the continent, and bids fair
to supersede many of the existing systems of telegraphic communication.
Indeed, the action of this telegraph is sufficiently wonderful, and its advan-
tages sufficiently obvious, to give it a claim to public interest. It reproduces
with the utmost exactitude any inscription or design which may be traced
upon the strip of metalized or conducting paper, which is given to the
sender of a message; and this it does with such rapidity, that four times the
number of words that can in any given time be transmitted by the usual sys-
tem, can, it is confidently asserted, be sent by this method. Many advan-
tages beside that of rapidity are, moreover, to be derived from an unerring
process of autographic reproduction. It is well known that the various sym-
bols or ciphers, by means of which secrecy is ensured in confidential and
important communications, are-a constant source of error, owing to the
necessary ignorance of the clerk who transmits the message with regard to
the value and significance of the signs employed. In a copying telegraph,

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. PES

where the process is purely mechanical, no such inconvenience can occur, and
all errors of manipulation are easily avoided. The method employed by M.
Bonelli, is to write the despatch, or draw the sketch to be transmitted, on a
metalized or conducting paper in non-conducting ink. It is then placed on
the transmitting machine, and passed by clock-work under a number of fine
conducting wires, arranged in line like the teeth of acomb. These conduct-
ing wires (there are sixty in Bonelli’s machine) are insulated separately in a
gutta-percha cable, which is stretched between the two places in communica-
tion. At the other end, they are spread out in the same comb form. Under
this receiving comb is passed, by means of similar clock-work, a chemically
prepared paper, the yellow color of which is changed to green by the action
of the magnetic currents which pass over the wires. When the wires at the
transmitting end are passing over the insulating ink, they of course convey
no fluid, and make no change in the color of the receiving paper. The mes-
sage appears, therefore, in yellow letters on a green ground, the letters being
composed of lines, the nearness of which depends on the distance between
the wires. To accomplish the same thing with one wire, it is necessary to
have the two machines move in exact time with each other, and the point of
the wire must pass necessarily over every portion of the written despatch,
transmitting it point by point. By Bonelli’s method, this exactness of time
would not be requisite.

THE ATLANTIC CABLE.

The great scientific event of the year 1858 was the successful submergence
of the Atlantic Telegraph Cable, and the temporary transmission of messages
between the Old World and the New. The main facts pertaining to the his-
tory of this important enterprise are as follows:

The telegraphic fleet, comprising the Niagara and the Agamemnon carry-
ing the cable, with two attendant steam-frigates, sailed from Queenstown,
Ireland, on the 17th of July, 1858, and united at the rendezvous, lat. 52° 5/
long. 32° 40’ W., on the 28th. On the succeeding day, July 29th, at 1 Pp. m.,
lat. 52° 59’, long. 32° 27’ W. the “splice”? between the two ends of the cable
was successfully made, and electrical signals passed perfectly through the
whole length on board both ships. Depth of water 1550 fathoms. The dis-
tance from the entrance of Valentia harbor was eight hundred and thirteen
nautical miles; to the entrance of Trinity Bay. N. F., eight hundred and
twenty-two nautical miles, and from there sixty miles to the telegraph house
at the head of the Bay of Bulls, equal in all to eight hundred and eighty-two
nautical miles. The Niagara had sixty-nine miles farther to run than the
Agamemnon. Each ship had on board about eleven hundred nautical miles
of cable. The following table presents a condensed view of the Niagara’s
voyage:

Dist. sailed) Miles and
- ‘aq_.| Excess | Depth of wa
Date, Lat. N. | Long. W. es asus per cent. ma Gittins.
July 30, Friday, | 51° 507 | 34° 497 89 131m. 48 1550 — 1985
** 31, Saturday, | 51° 507 | 38° 287 | 137 159m. 358f. 13
Aug. 1, Sunday, | 50° 32/ | 41° 55/ | 145 164. 683. 14 1950 — 2424
“c 2, Monday, | 49° 527 | 45° 377 154 lijm. 150f. 15 1600 — 2885
«¢ 8, Tuesday, | 49° 177 | 49° 237 147 161m. 768f. 10 = |1742( ?)—1827
4, Wedn’y, | 48° 177 | 52° 48/! 146 154m. 860f. 6 é 200

5, Thursday, Niagara anchored. 64 66m. 882f. 4

116 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

It will be observed that the distances run during the five full days were re-
markably uniform, 149 miles per day, and the excess of cable paid out was
about 15 per cent. more than the ship’s record. Twice during the progress of
the ship, from some unexplained cause, signals failed to pass between them,
viz., at 71-2 p. M. July 29, for an hour, and August 2, from 12h 38m 4. M. to
5.40 A.M. But during all the remainder of the time signals were constantly
received; and at the last, the Agamemnon, August 5, signalized the Niagara
that they had paid out 1010 miles of cable. The cable was landed at Valen-
tia Bay on Thursday, August 5, and at 6 A. M. the shore end was carried into
the telegraph house, and a strong current of electricity received through the
whole cable from the other side of the Atlantic.

On the 6th of August, a message of thirty-one words was transmitted from
Ireland to Newfoundland in thirty-five minutes, and on the 17th of August,
the Queen of Great Britain transmitted a congratulatory message to the Pres-
ident of the United States, expressing her joy at the completion of this
great international bond, to which President Buchanan responded in the
same spirit.

After this the electrical condition of the wire became daily more faulty, and
it was only with the greatest difficulty, and by constant repetition, that mes-
sages were transmitted to Newfoundland, although return messages to Val-
entia were, in almost every case, clear and distinct. The last intelligible sig-
nal received at either end of the line was on the 4th of September; since which
date the cable has remained practically inoperative. We are, however, in-
formed, that the electric current is still unbroken, but that its indications are
too feeble to admit of any application to telegraphic purposes. The electri-
cian-in-chief has arrived at the conclusion that there are at least two serious
faults in the cable, one of them dating from before the submergence, and
between 500 and 600 miles from Valentia; the other about 270 miles distant,
and at the place where, owing to the sudden change in the depth of the sea,
danger had always been apprehended; that one or both of these faults have
been aggravated, if not made fatal, by the intense currents used to overcome
the difficulty, and that electrical tests indicated, what was otherwise too prob-
able, that at least the Agamemnon’s portion of the cable was in a very dam-
aged state before it was submerged.

In the present condition of the line, the great natural currents of electricity,
which are continually traversing the surface of the earth in various directions,
act by their inductive effects upon the great length of cable submerged, and
disturb the needles and galvanometers at both ends of the line to a consider-
able degree. This nature and action, if properly observed and studied by
means of the Atlantic Cable, would, no doubt, throw considerable light upon
the phenomena of diurnal magnetic variations, to account for which no sat-
isfactory law has been proposed. On the night of Monday, the 6th of Sep-
tember, one of those extraordinary phenomena called magnetic storms must
have passed over the track of the cable; for from half-past eleven to half-past
twelve, the reflecting galvanometer in connection with the line was most vio-
lently disturbed. The reflections were so rapid and violent that it was only
occasionally that the reflected ray of light could be distinguished upon the
reading scale.

The London Times, in commenting on the present condition of the Atlan-
tic Telegraph enterprise, uses the following language:

For the present, and as regards this particular cable, we feel as people do
about a tree languishing from some inscrutable disease, or a child that pines

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. VIA

away, it cannot tell why. What is the matter with it? Where is the pain?
What part is hurt? Answer, there is none. In asmall room on the Irish
coast a bit of copper wire is fixed on the table or the wall, and knowing men
are coaxing it to tell them what has happened a thousand miles off in the mid
abyss of the ocean. Its vitality expires, its pulsation grows weaker; it
responds more and more feebly to the tortures of science, and the very means
used to rouse it from its stupor, draw on its constitution. In their urgency,
the operators cut off their own hopes, and it is now suspected that they have
done themselves no small part of the mischief that they deplore. What is
this but the old story of the genius, maliciously true, keeping the very letter
of his bond, doing superhuman service, but gone forever if a word or a
movement be omitted? There is too much reason to fear that the affair is
reduced to a post mortem examination. There is a length of wire, but how
long no man can say. It is, indeed, almost the greatest wonder of the age,
and, fairly considered, beats even the Atlantic Telegraph itself, should that
ever be an existent fact, that our men of science can stand at one end of a
fine copper wire and ask it how long it is. ‘ Answer, wire, are you 10
miles Jong, or 270, or 560, or 1,000, or even 2,000? What is the nature of
your fracture or injury?” Witchcraft itself cannot beat such divination. It
is even some comfort to reflect, that, though for the present science does us
no good, yet it gains by our failure, and though we do not yet obtain what
we want, we know more.

Since the deposition of the cable, says the London News, a great variety of
interesting experiments have been performed to show the kind of electricity
best suited for working through the line, both in a perfect and imperfect con-
dition; and the results which have been arrived at are both useful and inter-
esting. The high tension electricity from the induced coils was found to
burn up and destroy a wire where a fault in the gutta-percha was made. The
second experiment was made with discharges from Henley’s magneto-elec-
tric machine. This was found to suffer a slight loss through the fault, but
not to injure the wire at the point of egress in any way as long as negative
discharges only were sent through. The direct battery current, of great
quantity, but low tension electricity, was found to answer best, and to cause
less injury to the cable, and to suffer less loss through the fault; but some
copious currents of this low tension electricity are now unable to make the
cable show signs of activity even with the most delicate arrangement of Pro-
fessor Thomson’s reflecting galvanometer. Much has been said about this
beautifully sensitive little instrument, yet but few know its nature or the advan-
tages it possesses over other galvanometers in observing very minute currents
of electricity. It consists of a coil of very fine insulated wire, in the interior
of which is suspended a very small mirror of the finest microscopic glass, to
the back of which are fastened two magnetic needles not more than a quar-
ter of an inch in length. The two needles, with the reflecting mirror they
bear, not weighing more than two grains, are suspended by a single fibre of
silk. When the instrument is in use a ray of light is thrown upon the mir-
ror, and is reflected upon an index board. The very faintest currents of elec-
tricity are measured by these means; for the very faintest deflection of the
needles, caused by an almost imperceptible current of electricity passing
through the coil, of course, is very perceptible upon the index board by the
motion of the reflected spot of light.

The supposed difficulty of working through the cable, after it was sub-
merged, which was so much talked about, has turned out to be altogether a

118 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

mistake, and therefore the high tension induction coils, which were made by
Mr. Whitehouse, were not only unnecessary, but absolutely hurtful and dan-
gerous — unless the whole length of the line was perfectly insulated in every
inch of its vast length, which, of course, it is impossible to expect that any-
thing made by human hands could be. Theretarding influences of induction
which where so much spoken of while the cable was lying at Keyham, were
probably due to the inductive influence of one layer of the cable lying over
another in the coil; for so little has it been experienced since the cable has
been laid, that Professor Thomson thinks if the line was in fair condition it
could be worked through with ease with a few battery cells of Daniel’s con-
stant battery.

That the wire is exposed to a considerable extent, in at least two places, is
well ascertained, and where a metallic surface through which currents of
electricity are passing, is exposed to water, oxidation takes place by the
electrolytic decomposition of the water, and thus the wire must soon be
eaten away. This may be ina great measure avoided by transmitting all
signals with negative currents, which would prevent the direct oxidation of
the wire by electrolysis; but at the same time, according to the experiments
which have been made, both by Professor Thomson and Mr. Henley, an
exposed wire is not entirely free from a species of decomposition, even
when negative currents alone are transmitted through it. It soon became
encrusted with a light-colored substance, the precise nature of which is not
quite ascertained as yet, but it is supposed to be a combination of chloride of
copper with some of the organic compounds contained in the gutta-percha.
So, no matter what may be the result of the preconcerted experiments at

«both termini of the wire, one thing cannot be doubted, viz., that, before per-
manent, certain, and rapid telegraphic communication can be secured
between Europe and America, another cable must be laid.

Thus, for the present, the cable must be considered a failure, at least as
regards its paying and working properties. Nevertheless, in spite of all obsta-
cles, the attempt has demonstrated the ease, and, indeed, almost certainty,
with which, under ordinarily favorable circumstances, a submarine cable
across the Atlantic can always be laid; and all the theories of the cross cur-
rents which were to break the cable, the floats which were necessary to buoy
it up, and, above all, the idea that it could never sink to the bottom, are set
at rest forever. The cable has been laid, and has been worked through; and
really, when we Jook for one moment at what that coil has had to undergo,
from the day the first mile of it was made up to the present time, it seems
nothing less than marvellous how it has been submerged, and still more
astounding that any signals ever came through it. On the very place where
the splice was made, in the centre of the Atlantic, an air-bubble, almost the
size of a coffee-bean, had to be cut out. How many hundreds of similar
places might there have been that were never seen! The defective centring
of the copper conductor in its gutta-percha covering was also, no doubt, a
source of many serious faults; for the reason that the gutta-percha, being
very thin in some parts, allows the powerful electric currents from the induc-
tion coils to pierce it and touch the outside wires. Once this fault, which
is technically termed “ blowing a hole” in a cable, takes place, such a loss
of the signaling current ensues that the cable is rendered useless, or a great
augmentation of battery power is rendered necessary; and when this last
remedy is resorted to, the hole becomes larger and larger, until the water,
getting freely to the wire, oxidates it away in a very short time. Such acci-

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 119

dents have frequently occurred in the cables between England and the
Hague, and there is not the least doubt that there are many scores of such
faults along the Atlantic wire. A good deal of attention has lately been
turned to the question of rope-covered wire, and there is now no doubt but
that all future attempts to connect Europe with America will be made with
cables so constructed. At the same time it will not be strands of hemp
loosely thrown around the gutta-percha covered wires that will make a ser-
viceable cable; but rope-yarns, bound in with the same fineness as the wires
are now twisted by the ‘‘closing machine.” In fact, rope-covered wire
would have to be made by Glass and Elliot, or Newall, just in the same
manner, and on the same plan, as the wire-covered cables are now made by
those firms.

There is one difficulty which many suppose will influence the success of
the deep sea cables in no slight degree — namely, the pressure to which all
cables must be subjected at great depths. Some people are sufficiently ill-
informed to deny that there is any pressure exerted by the water of the
ocean at the bottom at all. Such absurd blunders only arise from ignorance
of the difference between density and weight. It does not follow that,
because water is almost incompressible, it weighs nothing, no more than
it follows that, because a block of granite is not elastic, it does not press
upon the spot on which it rests. The pressure of the water at the bottom of
the Atlantic averages about two tons and a half to a squareinch. Itis a
simple matter of calculation to ascertain the fact. At such a pressure as this,
wrought brass can be saturated with water like a sponge, and a block of it
so saturated requires days for it to ooze out again.

ON THE SUBMERGENCE AND CONSTRUCTION OF SUBMARINE TELE-
GRAPH CABLES.

At a recent meeting of the London Society of Civil Engineers, it was men-
tioned as a practical illustration of the facility with which light cables could
be laid, that, although the submarine telegraph between Varna and the Cri-
mea was submerged under considerable difficulties, and during a storm, yet
the actual length payed out was only 33-4 miles in excess of the distance
between those places, which was nearly 350 miles. The depth of the Black
Sea, where this cable was laid, was about 70 fathoms. The cable consisted,
throughout the greater portion of its length, simply of No. 16 copper wire,
covered with gutta-percha, and wholly unprotected. The shore ends had an
iron sheathing, extending to a distance of ten miles from Varna, and of six
miles from the Crimea. Its insulation was perfect; and it remained unin-
jured for twelve months, during the time of the Russian war, notwithstand-
ing the many violent storms to which it was exposed in the Black Sea, until,
during a storm of more than usual severity, it was broken on the 5th of De-
cember, 1855.

With reference to the best form for a submarine cable, it had been proved
that, when great depths had to be traversed, one of light specific gravity was
to be preferred. The conductor, which constituted the weight to be carried,
should, therefore, be as light as possible; and, to insure its continuity, it
should be relieved from strain by the external coating. The conductor,
when of copper, had a specific gravity of 11, the gutta-percha insulator was
nearly equal in weight to sea-water, and the iron external covering had a
specifie gravity of 7. Probably, aluminium might be substituted for copper

120 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

in deep sea cables, with advantage, as it was nearly equal in conducting
power, and was only one-third of the weight. The outer covering should be
of hard material, so as to resist the longitudinal strain during the process of
submerging; but it should add as little as possible to the weight. It was
considered that no material fulfilled these conditions as well as soft steel.

It had been found that the light and heat of the sun, the mycellium of a fun-
gus, and other substances and conditions, had the power of rendering gutta-
percha unfit for the insulation required for the transmission of messages by
means of electricity. Several specimens of gutta-percha, in a decayed state,
were exhibited; and also a piece of copper wire, five feet in length, covered
with gutta-percha, which was strained until it broke; when the gutta-percha,
owing to its partial elasticity, contracted, and left seven inches of copper wire
uncovered. A newly-made tube of gutta-percha, under a strain of 276 lbs.,
stretched from 14 inches to 24 inches before breaking; but a similar tube,
which had been exposed for about five years to the atmosphere, light, and
heat of the sun, was so brittle as to be easily broken by the hand.

The London Builder publishes the following curious item of information

bearing on the subject of the duration of submarine telegraph cables:
_ “Onexamining a piece of submarine cable cut from the end of the La
Manche line, long in use, there were noticed an indefinite series of ruptures
or subdivisions, as if the wire had been chopped into morsels, or had been
disintegrated, under the influence of the electrical vibrations. Since, in the
case of the transatlantic cable, currents positive and negative alternately are
launched through it, such a disintegration of the wire must be expected to
come about even more rapidly. The fact itself is too mysterious to be dis-
cussed at present.”

ON THE PRESENT STATE OF OUR KNOWLEDGE RESPECTING TER-
RESTRIAL MAGNETISM.

From the report of a joint committee appointed on the part of the Royal
Society and the British Association to consider the expediency of memorial-
izing Government to renew the system of magnetic observations formerly
carried on at various colonial and foreign stations, but now suspended, we
derive the following information respecting the results thus far obtained
from the accumulated observations made at the several observatories at St.
Helena, Toronto, Hobarton, and the Cape of Good Hope. In the first place,
the committee report, that the mean state of the several elements for each
of the stations, as reduced to a fixed epoch, has been obtained with a precis-
ion of which nothing previously done has afforded any example — emulat-
ing, in this respect, the exactness of astronomical determinations, and com-
petent to serve as a fixed point of departure, to the latest ages; and this for
each of the elements in question —the dip, the declination, and the intensity
of the magnetic force.

Secondly, that at each station the rate of regular progressive secular
change, in all three of the elements above mentioned, has been ascertained,
with a degree of precision which contrasts strongly with the loose and inac-
curate determinations of former times.

Thirdly, that the laws of the diurnal, annual, and other periodic fluctua-
tions in the value of these elements, as exhibited at each station, have been
established in a manner and with a decision to which nothing hitherto exe-
euted in any branch of science, astronomy excepted, is comparable; and
that the results embodied in the examination of these laws have laid open

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 121

a view of magnetic action so singular, and so utterly unexpected, as to
amount to the creation of a new department of science, and a detection of a
completely novel system of physical relations; for that, in the first place,
the systems of diurnal and annual magnetic changes have each been sepa-
rated into two perfectly distinct and physically independent systems, — the
one, at any particular station, holding its course according to laws depend-
ing solely on the sun’s hour-angle at the moment of observation, and his
meridian altitude at different seasons, — the other, comprehending all those
movements which, under the name of magnetic storms, or “ irregular dis-
turbances,” have hitherto presented the perplexing aspect of phenomena
purely casual, capricious in amount and in the particular occasions of their
occurrence when regarded singly, has been shown, by these discussions, to
be subject in its totality to laws equally definite with the others, though
more dependent for their application on peculiarities of local situation. As
regards the first of these fluctuations, they find it demonstrated:

That the sun’s regular action on the magnetism of the globe is determined
by a law of no small complexity and intricacy, but which, nevertheless, has
been traced with precision and certainty, and shown to be referable, in the
first place, and for one of its arbitrary coéfficients, to the geographical situ-
ation of the place of observation with respect to a certain line or equator on
the earth’s surface, which cannot yet be precisely traced for want of sufli-
ciently numerous stations (but which seems to approach to the line of least
intensity, and is very far from coinciding with the geographical equator), —
and in the next, and for its other influential cause, to the fact of the sun’s
having north or south declination; so that the waole diurnal change in any
one of the elements, and at any station, is made up of two portions, one of
which retains the same sign and a constant coéflicient all the year round;
the other changes sign, and varies in the value of its coéfficient with the
annual movement of the sun from one side of the equator to the other.

That, consequently, for a station on the magnetic equator (so defined), the
mean amount of diurnal change is nil, when taken over the whole year, but
that on any particular day of the year it has a determinate magnitude, which
passes through an annual periodicity, with opposite characters in opposite
seasons. And that for a station in middle latitudes the mean diurnal fluctu-
ation is not ni/, but such as, during every part of the year, to exhibit an east-
erly deviation in the morning hours, and a westerly in the evening hours,
for stations north of the equator, and vice versa for those south of it; but that
the amount of this deviation, or the amplitude of the diurnal fluctuation,
varies with the seasons, being exaggerated or partially counteracted by the
alternate conspiring and opposing influence of the sun’s declination during
the summer and winter seasons.

As regards the irregular disturbances, though arbitrary and capricious in
extent, and in the moments when they may be expected, individually, this
does not prevent their obeying, with great fidelity, the law of averages, when
grouped in masses, and treated separately from those of the former class.
So handled they are found to conform, in their average effect, at each of the
twenty-four hours of the day, and on each day of the year, to the very same
rules, as regards the sun’s daily and annual movement, with one remarkable
point of difference, viz., that their hours of maxima and minima are not
identical with those of the regular class, but that each particular station has,
in this respect, its own peculiar hours, analogous to what is called the ‘ estab-
lishment ” of a port in the theory of the tides. And that, in consequence, the

11

122 ANNUAX OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

superoo.ition of these two systems of diurnal fluctuation gives rise to a
series of compound variations analogous to the superposition of two undula-
tions having the same period, but different amplitudes, and different epochal
times. And that, by attending to this principle, many of the most complex
phenomena, such as that of a double maximum and minimum, with the
occurrence of a nightly as well as a daily movement, are explained in a sat-
isfactory manner.

The discussion of the observations already accumulated has further
brought into view, and, in the opinion of your committee fully established,
the existence of a very extraordinary periodicity in the extent of fluctuation
of all the magnetic elements, and in the amplitude and frequency of their
irregular movements especially, which connects them directly with the phys-
ical constitution of the sun, and with the periodical greater or less prevalence
of spots on its surface—the maxima of the amount of fluctuation corres-
ponding to the maxima of the spots, and these again with those of the exhi-
bitions of the Aurora Borealis, which appears also to be subject to the same
law of periodicity; a law which, as it does not agree with any of the other-
wise known solar, lunar, or planetary periods, may be considered as, so to
speak, personal to the sun itself. And thus we find ourselves landed in a
system of cosmical relations, in which both the sun and the earth, and prob-
ably the whole planetary system, are implicated.

That the sun acts in influencing the earth’s magnetism, in some other
manner than by its heat, seems to be rendered very probable by several fea-
tures of this inquiry; and the idea of a direct magnetic influence exterior to
the earth, is corroborated by the discovery of a minute fluctuation in the
magnetic elements, having for its period not the solar but the lunar day,
and, therefore, directly traceable to the action of the moon. The detection
of this fluctuation by Mr. Kreil, from a discussion of the Prague observa-
tions, has been confirmed by the evidence afforded by those of our colonial
observatories, and appears to be placed beyond all question by the recent
deductions from the horizontal force and the declination extending over
three years of observation at the Cape of Good Hope, which General Sabine
has submitted for your committee’s inspection, and in both which the fluc-
tuations in question emerge in a very satisfactory manner, and one calcu-
lated to give a high idea of the precision of which such determinations are
susceptible, when it is considered that the total amplitude of oscillation due
to this cause in the direction of the Cape needle is only about 16’ of angle.

The committee also quote the following extract from a communication
addressed to them by Gen. Sabine, on the importance of continuing the sys-
tem of observations at the present time:

“Recent observations in North America, discussed in the proceedings of
the Royal Society for January the 7th, 1858, have made known that the gen-
eral movement of translation of the isoclinal and isogonic lines, which from
the earliest observations have been progressing from west to east, has within
a few years reached its extreme eastern oscillation, and that the movement
in the reverse direction has already commenced; we live, therefore, at an
epoch in the history of terrestrial magnetism, which, we have reason to
believe, will be regarded hereafter — when theory shall have more advanced
as a highly important and critical epoch. The geographical position of
the maximum force in the northern hemisphere appears to have reached its
extreme easterly elongation, and from this time forth may be expected to
move for many years to come towards the meridian which it occupied in

NATURAL PHILOSOPi#IY. 12s

Halley’s time, accompanied by a corresponding change in the positions and
forms of the isodynamie, isoclinal, and isogonic lines in North America; a
careful determination of the absolute values and present secular change of
the three elements at this critical theoretical epoch, at stations situated on
either side of the American continent, and nearly in the geographical
latitude of the maximum of the force, would furnish, therefore, data for
posterity, of the value of which we may have a very inadequate appreciation
at present.

ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF A PHYSICAL THEORY OF TERRESTRIAL
MAGNETISM.

At the last meeting of the British Association, Mr. J. Drummond presented
a new theory of terrestrial magnetism, an outline of which he submitted to
the meeting for 757. (See Annual Scientific Discovery 1858, page 370.) The
fundamental principles of this theory are as follows: Assuming the prevail-
ing idea regarding the early condition and present state of the globe, viz.,
that it has cooled down from a state of fluidity, and now consists of a solid
crust inclosing a molten nucleus—the author assumed also that the sun,
moon, and other planetary bodies, must exert the same influence upon the
inclosed fluid which they exert upon the surface ocean in producing the
tides,— that, consequently, a system of internal tides must be occasioned
simultaneously with the external tides. Further, accepting the theory of
Gauss, that the entire matter of the globe is magnetic, he concluded that
the passage of these internal waves must occasion corresponding changes
in the position of the needle; and, reasoning from these premises, he arrived
at the following conclusions in regard to the changes in position which the
needle ought to undergo. A. declination needle at any station, resting on
the line of the magnetic meridian, ought, upon one of the internal waves
coming from the eastward, to make an excursion to meet, it; as the crest of the
wave approaches the station of observation, che needle ought to return with
it; and when it comes immeciateiy beneath -he point of observation, the
needle ought to coincide ain with the meridian. As the wave proceeds
westward, the needle ought to follow it, making a westerly excursion equal
-o the easterly; and as the wave passes further west, and its influence over
che needle thereby declines, the latter ought slowly to return again to the
meredian. Again, an inclination needle ought to begin slowly to dip as the
erest of the wave approaches the station of observation, reaching its maxi-
mum when the wave is immediately beneath it, and slowly rising to its
former position as the wave passes easterly; and the intensity, as indicated
by the oscillating needle, ought to increase as the crest of the wave ap-
proaches the station, reaching its maximum when it is immediately beneath
it, and decreasing gradually as the wave proceeds to the westward,— the max-
imum of intensity thus coinciding with the maximum of inclination. The
results of observation, Mr. Drummond stated, harmonize completely with
the conditions of the theory.

INFLUENCE OF MAGNETISM OVER CHEMICAL ACTION.

The following inquiry, by Mr. H. F. Baxter, originated in an endeavor to
ascertain whether Magnetism possessed any influence over Organic Forces ;
and the kind of experiments that were undertaken for the purpose of solving
this question, was that of submitting seeds during vegetation to the influence
of magnetism. These experiments, however, having failed to give anv

J2i ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

definite or decided result, Mr. Baxter was ultimately, and perhaps naturally,
led to ask the question — Does magnetism possess any influence over chemical
action? The solution of this question appeared to be almost a necessary
preliminary step to the continuation of Mr. Baxter’s original inquiry.

The author’s investigations will be found detailed in the Edinburgh New
Philosophical Journal, No. 10. The following are the general conclusions
deduced from his investigations :

1. That Magnetism (in its static or quiescent -condition), does not excite or
originate chemical action.

2. That when substances undergoing chemical action are submitted to the
influence of magnetism (in its static or quiescent condition) no increase in the
chemical action is observed; but that,

3. Under certain conditions during chemical action, the influence of mag-
netism is such as to indicate a directive influence over chemical action; this
influence being shown by a rotatory motion of the fluid around the pole of the
magnet.

4. Thatit is not necessary for the production of this rotatory motion that the
solution should act chemically upon the iron bar forming the pole; for, if the
pole be surrounded by a metal ring, the rotation occurs, provided the solution
is capable of acting chemically upon this metal ring.

5. That the influence of the magnet, as well as the existence of the chemical
action, and its continuation, are essential for the production of this rotation ;
and,

6. That the direction of the rotation is dependent upon the poles of the mag-
net, being contrary for each pole.

°

DOES MAGNETISM INFLUENCE VEGETATION?

Mr. H. F. Baxter states that the results of his inquiry into this subject are
negative: that is, no positive evidence has been obtained to show that Magne-
tism either does or does not influence vegetation. After noticing the opinions
of Becquerel, Dutrochet, and Wartmann, the author says:— ‘‘As it may be
considered a law in vegetable physiology that all plants have a tendency,
during the germination of their seeds, to develop in two diametrically oppo-
site directions (the root and the stem), the question arose — Might not this
direction be influenced or counteracted by submitting the seeds whilst germi-
nating to the influence of magnetic force?”’ Accordingly, a series of exper-
iments were undertaken by the author, which are classed under two principal
heads: 1st, Those in which the line of magnetic force was directed perpen-
dicularly to the plants; and 2d, In which the line of force was directed
transversely to the plants. The author gave details of the experiments,
which were varied and multiplied. No definite conclusions, however, could
be drawn from them relative to the effects of magnetism. — Proceedings of the
Botanical Society of Edinburgh.

MAGNETIC DISCREPANCIES.

At Point Barrow, the ultima thule or north cape of the American continent,
between Mackenzie’s River and Behring’s Straits, the British relief ship
Plover waited for Sir John Franklin — waited and hoped for two long years,
from the summer of 1852 to the summer of 1854, when hope failed, and
her crew came home. During those two long, dreary, solid winter nights,

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 125

Capt. Maguire and his officers amused themselves with observing and
recording for seventeen months unremittingly the hourly variations of the
needle and the shifting scenery of the Aurora. Their observatory was the
sand of the shore with a dome of ice slabs lined with seal-skin fur. Their
instruments had come from Woolwich; their observations were as skilful
and exact as those of their fellow officers at Toronto, and their results have
been reduced, under the eye of the same master-mind in London, Major-
General Sabine, the highest authority living in this particular branch of
science. To the astonishment of all, these observations at Point Barrow
have turned out to be in some respects the direct reverse of those at Toronto.
While the regular solar declination of the needle follows the same law, the
needle bending furthest to the east and west at the same hours of the day at
both places, the disturbance diurnal variation at the one is just the opposite
of what it is at the other — the west of one agrees with the east of the other,
and the east of the one with the west of the other,—a difference the more
remarkable, since, at both places, there can be no doubt that the sun’s heat is
the cause of the disturbance of the needle. At the same time the auroral
exhibitions keep time with the magnetic disturbances. Out of one thousand
seven hundred and eighty-eight hourly observations in three months of
1852-53, four hundred and sixty-one showed an aurora; and out of one
thousand eight hundred and thirty-seven in the corresponding quarter of
the following year, six hundred and sixteen exhibitions of the aurora took
place. Six days out of seven, during these six months of night, the auroral
light replaced the sun light. For the first time, then, in the annals of me-
teorological science, the apparitions of this polar spectre have been studied
steadily and long enough to fix them to the different hours of the solar day,
and it is found that not a single record of their appearance was made
between eleven o’clock in the morning and three in the afternoon, whereas
one hundred and two are recorded at one o’clock at night. From this, their
favorite hour, their visits regularly decrease in number until midday, and
increase as regularly through all the evening hours up to midnight. But
this beautiful cycle of illumination for those polar wastes leaves us in total
darkness as to its hidden cause. And, to make perplexing conjectures more
perplexed, there seems to be a law of agreement between the frequency of
the auroras and the disturbances of the needle toward the west, but not
toward the east.

ON THE INTENSITY OF THE TERRESTRIAL MAGNETIC FORCE.

Mr. J. Drummond, in a communication to the British Association, 1858,
stated that, in comparing the observations of dip with those of intensity, he
had found some anomalous results, of which the following is an example.
In the diurnal variation the dip is at a minimum about 8 A. M., ata maximum
about 11 A. M., after which it decreases to a minimum again about 2 Pp. M.
Turning now to the intensity, the maximum is found to occur about 8 A. M.,
and the minimum about 11 A. M., after which it again increases, reaching a
maximum in the afternoon. From these facts, then, it would appear that,
while the earth exerts a greater attracting power over the needle about 11 A. M.,
than either before that hour or after it, the intensity of the force by which
this is accomplished is then at its minimum. In other words, we are driven
to the conclusion, that the earth exerts a greater attracting power by a mini-
mum of force than by a maximum,—a conclusion entirely at variance with

fi*

i126 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

all our knowledge of the magnetic force. This anomalous result the author
traced to the assumption laying at the foundation of the present theory of
the intensity, viz., that the terrestrial force is exerted in the direction of the
dip; and from an analysis of the phenomena of the dip he arrived at the
following laws:—1. That the true direction in which the earth’s force is ex-
erted is in the radial line of its centre, at least so within certain limits, the
earth being a spheroid and not a sphere. 2. That the force being at all
points upon the earth’s surface exerted in the radial line of its centre, and
the vibrations of a horizontal needle being therefore, at all stations, made at
right angles to the direction of the force, their number at any two or more
stations in similar times, or at different periods in similar times, indicates
exactly the ratio of the force at each station and at each period.

ON FLUORESCENCE PRODUCED BY THE AURORA.

Mr. T. R. Robinson, of Armagh, in a letter to the Phil. Magazine, writes as
follows: On the occasion of an aurora of more than average brightness, on
the 14th of March, 1858, I availed myself of the opportunity to try whether
this light was rich in those highly refrangible rays which produce fluorescence,
and which are so abundant in the light of the electric discharges; and I
found it to be so. A drop of desulphate of quinine on a porcelain tablet
seemed like a luminous patch on a faint ground; and crystals of platino-
cyanide of potassium were so bright, that the label on the tube which con-
tained them (and which by lamplight could not be distinguished from the
salt at a little distance) seemed almost black by contrast. These effects were
so strong, in relation to the actual intensity of the light, that they appear to
afford an additional evidence of the electric origin of the phenomenon.

RELATIONS OF MATTER AND FORCE.

The late Dr. Samuel Brown, of Edinburgh, whose scientific essays have
recently been published, was one of the boldest and most original thinkers
among the scientists of the present century. His speculations concerning
ultimate connection of matter and force, as embodied in the following para-
graph, are especially worthy of notice.

“A particle,” he says, ‘‘is a molecular nucleus, surrounded by five polar
spheres of force; the first, that of repulsion, which is never overpassed in the
chemical, any more than the first repulsive sphere of the sun is in the astro-
nomical, operations of nature; the second, that of proper chemical affinity ;
the third, that of repulsion, which hinders the compression of a solid body
by surrounding forces; the fourth, the attractive sphere of solidiformity ; and
the fifth, the repulsive sphere of gasiformity. It is called a molecular nucleus
to distinguish from both the point of infinite repulsion defined by Boscovich,
and the solid nucleus of Newton, and to indicate that the chemist has no more
to do with what is within his ultimate atoms than the astronomer with what
is within his stars. Nor is it meant that there are no more than five spheres of
force; but only that the chemical atomician, contemplating matter under the
conditions of gasiformity, liquidity, solidity, and chemical combination, has
to consider these five alone. <A particle of hydrogen, revolving like a planet
round oxygen on their outermost spheres of repulsion, produces the smallest
mass of these gases diffused by Dalton’s law in the ratio of particle to par-
ticle; revolving round oxygen on the second outermost spheres of repulsion,
they should produce the smallest mass of an analogous solidiform substance,

NATURAL PITILOSOPTIY. 127

which, however, cannot exist, inasmuch as if the mutual repulsion of oxygen
to oxygen, and hydrogen to hydrogen, in contiguous molecules, could be so
far constrained as to admit of such composition, there were no opponent
foree to hinder their compression into the more intimate union of chemical
combination. And, lastly, a particle of hydrogen revolving round an oxy-
gen on their third outermost (7. e. innermost) spheres of repulsion, produces a
particle of the compound water.”

Speaking of Sir Isaac Newton’s theory of chemistry, founded on some
facts in astronomy, Dr. Brown says:

“The master of astronomy and the creator of optics, he does not appear to
have done anything for concrete chemistry, his laboratory notwithstanding ;
always saving and excepting his conjecture that the diamond was combusti-
ble because it is a strong refractor — a prosperous guess which it is customary
to extol as sagacious, in spite of the notorious fact that there are stronger
refractors than that crystalline carbon, which are not combustible a whit. Its
combustibility has no connection with its refractive power, in fact; and,
though the hypothesis was not atrociously inconsequent when it was made,
it is as ridiculous as illogical to admire it now. It was just one of those
countless little strokes of fortune which are constantly befalling the man of
genius and industry. In the game of discovery, long and difficult though it
is, Nature always gives her darling loaded dice, because she will have him
win the day. But Isaac Newton has almost become the mythical man or
demigod of British science, owing partly to the assault of Voltaire, partly
to the lofty rhymes of Thomson, partly to the clangorous eloquence of Chal-
mers, yet chiefly, and all but entirely, to the overwhelming conceptions with
which his very name amazes the mind; and one of the consequences is, that
all sorts of trumpery stories about falling apples, as well as every kind of
encomium, may be heaped with impunity on the Atiantean shoulders of ‘ the
incomparable Mr. Newton,’ now that the shade is divinized. If nil nisi bonum
is to be written on the tomb of the vulgar dead, after all, what shall men
not say or sing, if so please their uncrowned majesties, at the shrines of the
immortals!”

LIGHT AND ELECTRICITY.

The evidences connecting electricity and magnetism, as forces, with the
sun, and other bodies of our system, are, of course, different and inferior to
those which establish the relations of light. Yet they are now continually
becoming more numerous and significant. Whoever has seen the star of pure
and intense light which bursts forth on the approach of the charcoal points
completing the circuit of a voltaic battery, or the flood of light thence poured
by reflection over wide and distant spaces, cannot but suspect that the new
“fountain”? thus opened to the eyes of men (and certainly not destined to
remain an idle and valueless gift of science) may be the same in source and
qualities as that higher fountain which diffuses light and heat over the whole
planetary system. Sir J. Herschel, who ever makes his highest speculations
subordinate to cautious induction, has assigned strong reasons for believing
the sun to be ina permanently excited electrical state. Meanwhile the moon
also has been found, by delicate observations and averages carefully collected,
to exercise a magnetic influence on the earth, — the needle expressing to hu-
man eye certain small variations which strictly correspond with the lunar
hour angle. The fact has its peculiar interest in mdicating, and this not

128 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

vaguely, a similar influence throughout the whole planetary system, and
possibly far beyond. The magnetic conditions and changes of the earth
itself come into direct testimony here; so general and strictly coincident over
its surface, as to give us assurance that the total globe is in a definite mag-
netic state; and capable, through this state, of affecting other worlds, as
well as the little needle which man makes his index here of this mysterious
force. — Edinburgh Review.

ON THE NATURE OF FLAME AND THE CONDITION OF THE SUN’S
SURFACE.

The following paper, on the above subject, by Professor John W. Draper,
is published in the L. E. & D. Phil. Magazine, Vol. XV., page 90:

Among the recent publications on photo-chemistry, there is one by Pro-
fessor Dove, on the Electric Light (Phil. Mag., Nov., 1857), which will doubt-
less attract the attention of those interested in that branch of science. Ex-
amination by the prism, and by absorbing and reflecting colored bodies,
leads him to the conclusion that it is necessary to consider the luminous ap-
pearance as having two distict sources : — First, the ignition or incandescence
of the material particles bodily passing in the course of the discharge; sec-
ondly, the proper electrical light itself. As respects the first, he illustrates
its method of increase from low to high temperatures by supposing a
screen to be withdrawn from the red end of the spectrum through the col-
ored spaces successively towards the violet; and that of the latter from the
bluish brush to the bright Leyden sparks, by a like screen drawn from the
violet towards the red.

The true electric light exhibits properties resembling those observed in
actual combustions, as though there was an oxidation of a portion of the
translated matter when the spark is taken in air. The order of evolution of
rays in this instance happens to be the same as in the second illustration of
Professor Dove, that is, from the violet to the red. There are certain facts
connected with these appearances of color which are not generally known,
and deserve to be pointed out,

In the Philosophical Magazine (February, 1848), I showed, experimentally,
that there is a relation between the color of a flame and the energy with
which the combustion giving rise to it is going on. The more vigorous and
complete the combustion, the higher the refrangibility of the light. A flame
burning in its most tardy and restricted way emits rays that are red; but
burning in its most complete and effective manner, rays that are violet. In
intermediate states of combustion, the intermediate colors are evolved in
their proper order of refrangibility.

The flame of a candle or lamp consists of a series of concentric luminous
shells, surrounding a central dark core. These shells shine with different
colors, the innermost one immediately in contact with the dark core being
red, and having a temperature of 977° F. Upon this, in their proper order
of refrangibility, are shells, the light of which is orange, yellow, green, blue,
indigo, violet. When we look upon such a flame, the rays issuing from all ~
the colored strata are received by the eye at once, and impress us with the
sensation of white light.

The differently colored shells, of which a flame thus consists, may be
easily parted out from one another, and demonstrated by a prism. Their
cause is the slower rate at which combustion occurs at points more and more

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 129

towards the interior. On the outside, which we may say is in contact with
the air, the combustion is most vigorous and complete, and hence the light
there emitted is violet; but in the most interior portion of the shining shell,
resting upon the dark combustible matter, the atmospheric air can hardly
penetrate, or, rather, its oxygen is exhausted and consumed, Between the
exterior and interior surface, the burning is going on with an activity con-
stantly declining, because the interpenetration or supply of oxygen is gradu-
ally less and less.

But, besides this collection of colored shells, constituting what may be
termed the actual flame, there is another region exterior thereto, and to be
distinguished both in its chemical nature and in its optical relations. Chem-
ically, it consists of the products of combustion and of the unburnt residue
of the air, that is to say, carbonic acid, steam, and nitrogen. These are all
the time escaping out of the true flame, and envelop it as an exterior cone
or cloak. Optically, this portion differs from the true flame in the circum-
stance, that it is shining as an incandescent, ignited, but not a burning body.
For physiological reasons, into the detail of which it is not necessary here
to go, the tint of this exterior cloak seems to be a monochromatic yellow.
That, however, is, to a considerable degree, a deception; prismatic examina-.
tion proving that all the other colors are present, and that the yellow merely
exceeds the rest in force and intensity.

A flame thus far may be considered as offering three regions: — First, a
central nucleus which is not luminous, and consists of combustible vapor;
secondly, an intermediate portion, the true flame, arising from the reaction
of the air and the combustible vapor, and being composed of a succession of
superposed shells, the interior being red, the exterior violet, and the inter-
vening ones colored in the proper order of refrangibility; the cause of this
difference of color being the declining activity with which the combustion
goes on deeper and deeper in the flame. As to temperature, the inner
red shell cannot be less than 977° F., and the exterior violet one probably
more than 2506° F. Thirdly, an envelop consisting of the products of com-
bustion, exterior to the true flame, shining simply as an incandescent body,
and its light for the most part overpowered by the brighter portion within.

By the aid of the facts thus presented, we can easily explain the nature
of thé other regional divisions, distinguishable in such a flame. There must
be a blue portion below; blue, because it consists of the most refrangible
rays, which issue forth in abundance, for there the exterior air is most copi-
ously and perfectly applied. At the upper end of the flame, particularly if
the wick be long and the supply of combustible matter abundant, the light
emitted is red; for the products of combustion ascending past that part, make
it difficuit for the exterior air to get access.

Upon these principles we may also predict what color a flame will have
when we vary the circumstances of its burning. Tallow or wax, at temper-
atures greatly beneath their usually understood point of combustion, oxidize
with a pale violet phosphorescent light, quite perceptible, nevertheless, in a
dark room; and here the light is violet, for the supply of combustible mat-
ter is small, and that of the air abundant. The oxidation is therefore thor-
ough and prompt. Fora like reason, sulphur, as we commonly see, burns
blue; but if a piece of it is thrown into nitrate of potash ignited in a cruci-
bie, the light yielded is of intolerable brilliancy, and absolutely white. Its
whiteness does not depend upon the physiological fact, that any color, if
it be intensely brilliant, will seem white to the eye; but it is optically white,

130 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

as is proved by prismatic examination, when all the colors are perceptible.
And the reason of this is, that at the high temperature to which the sulphur
is exposed, it volatilizes faster than the nitrate of potash and air together can
oxidize it, and offers every intermediate rate of combustion, and emits rays
of every refrangibility.

In like manner it may be shown that carbonic oxide must burn with a blue
flame, and cyanogen with a red. We can also foresee what must be the
optical result of resorting to unusual methods of combustion, as when we
throw into the interior of a flame a jet of air from a blowpipe. In this case
we destroy the red and orange strata, replacing them by bluer colors. Ex-
amining such a blowpipe cone by the prism, we have a beautiful demonstra-
tion that such has actually taken place.

There is one of these special cases which deserves attentive consideration
in connection with the appearance of the electric light; it is the production
of Fraunhoferian lines, when things have been arranged in such a way that
an incombustible material is present in the substance to be burnt. This
state is perfectly represented in the case of cyanogen, which contains more
than half its weight of incombustible nitrogen. When the peach-colored
nucleus of the cyanogen flame is properly examined, it yields a series of
dark lines and spaces exceeding in number and strength those of the sun-
light itself. These fixed lines are the representatives of dark shells, super-
posed among the shining ones with definite periodicity. In such a cyanogen
flame they bear no relation to the burning of the carbon, but must be attrib-
uted to the disengagement of the nitrogen.

In other cases dark lines are replaced by bright ones, as in the well-known
instance of the electric spark between metallic surfaces. The occurrence of
lines, whether bright or dark, is hence connected with the chemical nature
of the substance producing the flame. For this reason they merit a much
more critical examination than has yet been given them; for by their aid we
may be able to ascertain points of great interest in other departments of
science. Thus, if we are ever able to acquire certain knowledge respecting
the physical state of the sun and other stars, it will be by an examination
of the light they emit. Even at present, by the aid of the few facts before
us, We can see our way pretty clearly to certain conclusions respecting the
sun. For, since substances which are incandescent, or in the ignited state
through the accumulation of heat in them, show no fixed lines, their pris-
matic spectrum being uninterrupted from end to end, it would appear to
follow that the luminous condition of our sun, whose light contains fixed
lines, cannot be referred to such incandescence or ignition. At various times
those who have studied this subject have offered different hypotheses; one
regarding the sun as a solid or perhaps liquid mass in a condition of igni-
tion; another considering the light to be electrical; a third supposing it to be
the seat of a fierce combustion. Of such hypotheses we have given reason
for declining the first. Prismatic analysis, which demonstrates no resem-
blance between the light of the sun and that of any form of electric dis-
charges with which we are familiar, enables us in like manner to reject the
second; and upon the whole, facts seem most strongly to prepossess us in
favor of the third, in artificial combustions similar fixed lines being observed.
If such is to be regarded as the physical condition of the sun, we can no
longer contemplate it as an immense mass, slowly and tranquilly cooling in
the lapse of countless centuries by radiation into space, as so many consider-
ations drawn from other branches of science have hitherto led us to suppose;

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 131

but it must be regarded as the seat of chemical changes going on upon a
prodigious scale, and with inconceivable energy. If the law designated
above, that the more energetically the chemical action in combustion the
more refrangible the emitted light, be translated into the conceptions of the
undulatory theory, it not only puts us in possession of a distinct idea of the
manner in which the combustive union of bodies is accomplished, the quick-
ness of vibration increasing with the chemical energy, but it also enables us
to transfer for the use of chemistry some of the most interesting numerical
determinations of optics.

OPTICAL PROPERTIES OF PHOSPHORUS.

At the last meeting of the British Association, Dr. Gladstone read a com-
munication from himself and Rey. T. Dale, on some optical properties of
phosphorus. He said that phosphorus was known to be highly refractive and
disfusive. Its refractive index had been determined at 2°125 or 2°224, a num-
ber scarcely exceeded by that of diamond or chromate of lead. This determi-
nation was made without reference to temperature, and was that part of the
spectrum measured indicated. Their own experiments produced numbers
which showed not merely a very high refractive power, but an amount of dis-
fusion unknown in any other substance. The disfusive power was nearly twice
that of bi-sulphide of carbon, and largely exceeded that of even oil of cas-
sia; its only rival was that assigned to chromate of lead, but some doubt
seemed to rest on that determination. The determinations of the disfusion
of phosphorus, made by persons experimenting, had indicated an amount
scarcely exceeding that of bi-sulphate of carbon; but a difficulty attending
the examination of phosphorus would sufficiently explain this. Phosphorus
in a liquid condition had apparently never been examined, as difficulties had
arisen from its inflammability, and from the action on cement. An exami-
nation of the properties of liquid phosphorus showed a considerable dimi-
nution of both the refractive and the disfusive power, it not being in direct
ratio with the diminution of density. Liquid phosphorus exhibits a greater
amount of sensitiveness than had been observed in any other substance,
and it was evidently greater at the high than at the low temperatures. The
effect of temperature on disfusion could not be accurately determined. A
saturated solution of phosphorus in bi-sulphide of carbon was almost as
refractive and disfusive as melted phosphorus itself. There was a certain
want of clearness in phosphorus which prevented the lines being distin-
guished without great difficulty, which did not arise from any opacity, or
from the crystalline character of solid phosphorus, or from unmelted pieces
floating about; for it occurred in a solution of bi-sulphide of carbon. The
addition of phosphorus to bi-sulphide of carbon rendered the spectrum seen
through it misty, according to the amount of phosphorus. This was not
due to the great refraction, or the great disfusion, or the great sensitiveness,
though this had undoubtedly something to do with it. To what was this
due? Different specimens of phosphorus differ widely in respect to this
property, and it was perhaps connected with some want of homogeneity in |
the substance. The phosphorus experimented on was generally colorless.
It was a curious circumstance that yellow phosphorus cuts off the extreme
red ray —this being the opposite of what yellow bodies usually did, and was
remarkable also in connection with the red modification of phosphorus.

132 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

RESEARCHES ON THE INDICES OF REFRACTION.

Jamin has undertaken to determine the refracting power of water when
compressed or when reduced to vapor. The experiments were executed by
means of the author’s very beautiful apparatus for interferences, described in
the 42d volume of the Comptes Rendus. The water examined was enclosed
in two parallel tubes, one of which was open, while the other was subject to
variable pressure. At every change of pressure the fringes underwent a dis-
placement, which was measured, and from which the variations in the refract-
ing power of the liquid could be calculated. To avoid the error arising from
the increase in the length of the compressed column, the two tubes were
plunged into a trough full of water, so that the interfering rays traversed
the length of the tubes and the spaces separating their extremities from the
sides of the trough. If one of the tubes changes its length by a small quan-
tity, the external space diminishes by the same quantity, and thus the effect
of the dilatation is sensibly destroyed. The author finds that with this
apparatus one millimetre of pressure, more or less, produces an interval of
zea of a fringe, which is easily observed: for an entire atmosphere there
is a displacement of 28 fringes. The sensibility of the apparatus could be
still more increased by giving the tubes a greater length than that of one
metre which was employed. The author found that, in all his experiments,
the difference of path produced by pressure was sensibly proportional to the
pressure; so that if we calculate the compressibility of water from the opti-
cal experiments, we find the coéfficient to be 0°0000500 for common distilled
water, and 0°0000511 for water deprived of air. According to the direct
measures of Grassi, this coefficient is 0°0000504. Jamin has also measured
with the same instrument the index of refraction for the vapor of water.
Two tubes were employed 4 metres in length: one of these was filled with
perfectly dry air; the other with air charged with a known proportion of the
vapor of water. The difference in the refractive powers could then be ob-
served by the change produced in the fringes. There was generally a differ-
ence of 8 fringes between dry and saturated air. More than fifty measure-
ments made under very different circumstances of temperature, pressure,
and hygrometric condition, agreed in assigning to the refractive power of
vapor at 0° and 760™™ the value 0°000521. The author finds farther that
the diminution in the index of refraction of air by saturation with vapor
would only affect the seventh decimal of the number 1°000292. . . . . found
for that index, and that, consequently, in astronomical refractions, it is useless
to trouble oneself about the vapor of water. — Comptes Rendus, xly. 892.

NOTES ON THE SCINTILLATION OF STARS.

The following is an abstract from a paper recently read before the Royal
Astronomical Society, England, by Prof. Dufour:

Down to the year 1852 no person, as far as J am aware, had undertaken
a serious of regular observations on the scintillation of the stars. Struck
with the difference which the phenomenon presented from night to night, I
commenced in that year to observe it assiduously. At first it occurred to
me merely to make it a subject of meteorological inquiry; but I soon found
that the question was more complicated than I originally supposed it to be,
and that in any case, before entering upon its discussion, it would be neces-
sary to collect tozether a mass of observations extending over a considerable

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 133

period of time. This object I have actually accomplished. I have now
more than 20,000 observations, and the number is daily increasing. I have
commenced the calculations and reductions, relative to meteorological re-
searches, but much yet remains to be done before bringing them to a close.
However, as Arago has well remarked, in scientific inquiries, what had not
been foreseen has most frequently the lion’s share. Although at first I had
not the remotest idea of studying the phenomenon of scintillation for its own
sake, still I have been led, by the force of circumstances, to consider the
subject; and in the course of last year I succeeded in establishing the follow-
ing propositions, which I have developed in a memoir published in the
“ Bulletin de la Société Vaudois des Sciences Naturelles:”’ 1. The scintilla-
tion of one star differs from the scintillation of another star, and in general
red stars scintillate less than white stars. 2. Exceptin the case of stars near
the horizon, the scintillation is very nearly proportional to the product ob-
tained by multiplying the astronomical refraction of the star by the thick-
ness of the aerial stratum traversed by the rays of light emanating from the
star. By adopting the theory of scintillation proposed by M. Arago, who
was of opinion that the phenomenon depends entirely upon the principle
of the interference of light, I have assigned an explanation of the first of
these facts, namely, that red stars scintillate less than white stars. Professor
Montigny, of Antwerp, who has devoted much attention to the theory of
scintillation, has adduced another explanation of the fact, which he conceives
to be established by my observations. He supposes that a ray of homoge-
neous light —like redlight, for example — is less dispersed by astronomical
refraction, so that the pencil of light from a red star reaches the eye in a
less expanded state, so to speak, than a pencil of white light, and is, conse-
quently, liable to be partially turned aside or modified by atmospheric dis-
turbances. Hence, according to the theory of M. Montigny, the scintillation
of stars, whose light is homogeneous, ought to be more feeble than that of
white stars. I do not wish to pronounce an opinion here between the theory
of M. Montigny and that which I have proposed. However, it is not difficult
to see that the study of the scintillation of the stars may give rise to ques-
tions of great importance in regard both to optical and meteorological
science. Now, with a view to this object, it would be interesting to study
the phenomenon in different climates and at different altitudes. Accord-
ingly, in the year 1856, [ spent some time at the Hospice of Great St. Ber-
nard, at an altitude of 2475 metres, in order to make observations on the
phenomenon of scintillation, and I found it to be much less intense than on
the plains. Since that time Mahmoud Effendi, Director of the Observatory
of Cairo, has also resolved to undertake the study of this phenomenon at the
Observatory confined to his charge. He has announced to me that he will
shortly visit me at Morges, France, to confer with me on the subject, and
that he will then return to Egypt and commence his observations.

The following are some of the points upon which I conceive it would be
important to call the attention of observers: 1. The observation on each
evening of the progress of scintillation, according as the stars are ascending
or descending with respect to the horizon. Do the stars scintillate at all
altitudes? Is there any altitude at which it ceases to manifest itself ? At
Morges the stars in general scintillate at all altitudes, although feebly near
the zenith; but on the nights when the scintillation is very faint, it ceases
completely at a zenith distance of 45°. Is itso also on the peak of Teneriffe ?
2. Is there a very marked difference between the scintillation of one evening

12

134 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

and that of another? 3. Do the stars scintillate less feebly on the peak of
Teneriffe than when observed from the plains below, as in the case of Mount
St. Bernard? 4. It would be interesting to observe, upon ascending the
peak of Teneriffe, whether the stars Achernard and Canopus, which are
invisible in our latitudes, scintillate more or less intensely than certain other
stars of comparable magnitude. I hope that you will be able to continue
the prosecution of the interesting observations which you have commenced;
and since for this expedition it is necessary to obtain the authorization of
the government, which must possess adequate materials for forming an
opinion beforehand of the importance of the expedition, you might suggest
the scintillation of the stars as an additional phenomenon to be observed at
that exceptional station. Iwas glad to learn that on the peak of Teneriffe
the stars appeared to scintillate faintly. This was exactly conformable to
the observations I made during my residence at St. Bernard, notwithstand-
ing that the altitude was much less considerable (only 2480 metres). It coin-
cides in every respect with the results at which I have arrived. I continue
to pursue my observations as formerly, and labor at their reduction; but
when there are more than 20,000 observations to compute in various ways,
to combine by the hour, by the day, and according to certain meteorological
conditions, the labor is immense, and cannot certainly be accomplished in
less than several years. Theexplanation of the phenomenon of scintillation
proposed by M. Montigny appears to me admissible, and equally probable
with that offered by myself, according to which I attribute the faint scintilla-
tion of red stars in the circumstance that the red wave being the greatest
wave, it would less readily interfere, and, consequently, would with greater
difficulty be destroyed, or increase in intensity. Perhaps the only mode of
deciding between these two explanations would consist in observing the
scintillation of violet stars. If the theory of M. Montigny is correct, a violet
star, like a red star, ought to scintillate less feebly, because it is composed of
homogeneous light. If, on the other hand, my explanation of the phenome-
non is well founded, the violet star ought to scintillate more intensely than a
white star, because the violet wave is the smallest wave. Unfortunately,
there is no violet star sufficiently bright for such comparative observations.
Accordingly, at present, [do not wish to pronounce between the two expla-
nations, each of which appears to me to be possible. But precisely this
question and others suggested by the scintillation of the stars prove that
the study of the subject may possess a high degree of interest in several
respects.

INFLUENCE OF LIGHT ON THE RESPIRATION OF THE LOWER
ANIMALS.

M. Beclard, of France has recently made some curious experiments on
the Influence of Light on Animals and finds that those creatures which
breathe from the skin, and have neither lungs nor branchiz, undergo remark-
able modifications under different colored rays. He exposed the eggs of flies
(Musca carnaria) under bell-glasses of six different colors: little maggots
were hatched from all; but those under the blue and violet rays were more
than a third larger than those under the green. Frogs, which by reason of
their naked skin, are very sensitive to light, give off half as much more car-
bonic acid in a given time under the green ray as under the red; but if the
frogs are skinned, and the experiment is repeated, the excess is then with

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 135

those under the red ray. Frogs placed in a dark chamber lose one-half less
of moisture by evaporation, than when placed in common daylight.

ON MOLECULAR IMPRESSIONS BY LIGHT AND ELECTRICITY.

The following is an abstract of a paper on the above subject recently read
before the Royal Institution, London, by Mr. Grove:

The term molecular is used in different senses by different authors. It is
used in the present connection to signify the particles of bodies smaller than
those having a sensible magnitude, or as a term of contradistinction from
masses. If there be any distinctive characteristic of the science of the pres-
ent century, as contrasted with that of former times, it is the progress made
in molecular physics, or the successive discoveries which have shown that
when ordinary ponderable matter is subjected to the action of what were
formerly called the imponderables, the matter is molecularly changed. The
remarkable relations existing between the physical structure of matter, and
its effect upon heat, light, electricity, magnetism, etc., seem, until the present
century, to have attracted little attention: thus, to take the two agents
selected for this evening’s discourse, Light and Electricity, how manifestly
their effects depend upon the molecular organization of the bodies subjected
to their influence. Carbon in the form of diamond transmits light but stops
electricity. Carbon in the form of coke or graphite, into which the diamond
may be transformed by heat, transmits electricity but stops light. Leonard
Euler alone conceived that light may be regarded as a movement or undula-
tion of ordinary matter; and Dr. Young, in answer, stated as a most formid-
able objection, that if this view were correct all bodies should possess the
properties of solar phosphorus, or should be thrown into a state of molecular
vibration by the impact of light, just as a resonant body is thrown into
vibration by the impact of sound, and thus give back to the sentient organ
an effect similar to that of the original impulse. In the last edition of his
“Essay on the Correlation of Physical Forces ”’ (1855), Mr. Grove has made
the following remarks on this question: ‘‘To the main objection of Dr.
Young that all bodies would have the properties of solar phosphorus if light
consisted in the undulations of ordinary matter, it may be answered that so
many bodies have this property, and with so great variety in its duration,
that non constat all may not have it, though for a time so short that the eye
cannot detect its duration.”” The above conjecture has been substantially
verified by the recent experiments of M. Niepce de St. Victor, of which the
following is a short réswné:— An engraving which has been for some time
in the dark is exposed to sunlight as to one half, the other half being covered
by an opaque screen: it is then taken into a dark room, the screen removed,
and the whole surface placed in close proximity to a sheet of highly sensitive
photographic paper, the portion upon which the light has impinged is repro-
duced on the photographic paper, while no effect is produced by the portion
which had been screened from light: white bodies produce the greatest effect,
black little or none, and colors intermediate effects. Mr. Grove had little
doubt that had the discourse been given in the summer instead of mid-winter,
he could have literally realized in this theatre the Laputa problem of extract-
ing sunbeams from cucumbers! While fishing in the grounds of M. Seguin,
at Fontenay, Mr. Grove observed some white patches on the skin of a trout,
which he was satisfied had not been there when the fish was taken out of the
water. The fish having been rolling about in some leaves at the foot of a

136 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

tree, gave him the notion that the effect might be photographic, arising from
the sunlight having darkened the uncovered, but not the covered portions of
the skin. With a fresh fish a serrated leaf was placed on each side, and the
fish laid down so that the one side should be exposed, the other sheltered
from light: after an hour or so the fish was examined, and a well-defined
image of the leaf was apparent on the upper or exposed side, but none on
the under or sheltered side. The number of substances proved to be mole-
cularly affected by light is so rapidly increasing, that it is by no means un-
reasonable to suppose that all bodies are in a greater or less degree changed
by its impact. Passing now to the molecular effects of electricity, every day
brings us fresh evidence of the molecular changes effected by this agent.
The electric discharge alters the constitution of many gases across which it is
passed; and it was shown that by passing it through an attenuated atmos-
phere of the vapors of phosphorus, this element is changed by the electric
discharge into its allotropic variety, which is deposited in notable quantity on
the sides of the receiver. In this experiment, the transverse bands or strive
discovered by Mr. Grove, in 1852, are very strikingly shown. The glow which
is seen on excited electrics, such as glass, was also shown by Mr. Grove to be
accompanied with molecular change. Letters cut in paper, and placed be-
tween two well-cleaned sheets of glass, then formed into a Leyden apparatus, .
by sheets of tin-foil on their outer surfaces, and then electrified, by connec-
tion for a few seconds with a Ruhmkorf coil, had invisible images of the let-
ters impressed upon the interior surface, which were rendered visible by breath-
ing on them, and rendered visible, and at the same time permanently etched
by exposure, after electrization, to the vapor of hydrofluoric acid. So, again,
if iodized collodion be poured over the surface of glass having the invisible
image, and then treated as for a photograph, and exposed to uniform day-
light, the invisible image is developed in the collodion film, the invisible
molecular change being conveyed to the molecular fiitm, and rendering it,
when nitrated, more sensitive to light in the parts where it has been in prox-
imity to the electrical impression, than in the residual parts. Here we have
a molecular change, produced first by electricity on the glass, then commu-
nicated by the glass to the collodion, then changed in character by light, and
all this time invisible, and then rendered visible by the developing chemical
agent. Mr. Babbage had observed that some plates of glass which had
formed the ornamented margin of an old looking-glass, and were backed by
a design in gold-leaf covered with plaster of Paris, showed, when this back-
ing was removed by soft soap, an impression of the gold-leaf device, which
was rendered visible by the breath on the glass. Some of the plates had
been kindly lent by him for this evening; and in one, Mr. Grove had removed
a portion of the backing, and the continuation of the gilded design came
beautifully out by breathing on the glass while in the frame of the electric
lamp, and was projected (as were the previous electrical images) on a white
screen. Of the practical results to science of the molecular changes form-
ing the subject of this evening’s lecture, a beautiful illustration was afforded
by the photographs of the moon by Mr. De la Rue, which afforded, by the
aid of the electric lamp, images of the moon, of six feet diameter, in which
the details of the moon’s surface were well defined, — the cone in Tycho, the
double cone in Copernicus, and even the ridge of Aristarchus, could be
detected. The bright lines, radiating from the mountains, were clear and
distinct. A photograph of the planet Jupiter was also shown, in which the
belts were very well marked, and the satellites visible. The following question

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 137

was suggested by Mr. Grove. As telescopic power is known to be limited by
the area of the speculum or object-glass, even assuming perfect definition, as
the light decreases inversely as the square of the magnifying power, a limit
must be reached at which the minute details of an object become lost for want
of light. Now, assuming a high degree of perfection in astronomic photo-
graphs, these may be illuminated to an indefinite degree of brilliancy by ad-
ventitious light. With a given telescope, could a better effect be obtained, by
illuminating the photographic image, and applying microscopic power to
that, than by magnifying the luminous image in the usual way by the eyc-
glass of the telescope? Can the addition of extraneous light to the photo-
graph permit a higher magnifying power to be used with effect than that
which can be used to look at the image which makes the photographic im-
pression? In other words, is the photographic eye more sensitive than the
living eye; or can a photographic recipient be found which will register im-
pressions which the living eye does not detect, but which, by increased light
or by developing agents, may be rendered visible to the living eye? The
phenomena treated of, which are a mere selection from a crowd of analogous
effects, show that light and electricity, in numerous cases, produce a molec-
ular change in ponderable matter affected by them. The modifications of
the supposed imponderables themselves have long been the subjects of inves-
tigation; the recent progress of science teaches us to look for the reciprocal
effects on the matter affected by them. Few, indeed, if any, electrical effects
have not been proved to be accompanied with molecular changes; and we
are daily receiving additions to those produced by light. Mr. Grove feels
deeply convinced that a dynamic theory, one which regards the impondcr-
ables as forces acting upon ordinary matters in different states of density,
and not as fluids or entities, is the truest conception which the mind can
form of these agents; but to those who are not willing to go so far, the
ever-increasing number of instances of such molecular changes affords a
boundless field of promise for future investigation, for new physical discov-
eries, and new practical applications.

NIEPCE DE ST. VICTOR’S DISCOVERIES IN REGARD TO THE ACTION
OF LIGHT.

The following is a résumé of the highly important discoveries recently
made by M. Niépce de St. Victor, in regard to the action of light, as com-
municated by M. Chevreul to the French Academy.

The conditions now determined are—that any body, after having been ex-
posed to light, retains in darkness some impression of this light. M. Niépce
remarks —“‘The phosphorescence and the fluorescence of bodies are well
known, but lam not aware that any experiments have ever been made on
the subject which I am about to describe.”

Expose to the direct rays of the sun, during a quarter of an hour at least,
an engraving which has been kept many days in obscurity, and of which
one-half has been covered by an opaque screen; then apply this engraving
upon a very sensitive photograph paper, and, after twenty-four hours’ contact
in darkness, we shall obtain, in black, a reproduction of the white parts of
the engraving, which, in the process of insulation, has not been sheltered by
the screen.

If the engraving has been kept for many days in profound darkness, and
we then apply it upon sensitive paper, without having previously exposed it

i?

138 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

to light, it is not reproduced. Certain engravings which have been exposed
to light are reproduced better than others, according to the nature of the
paper; but all kinds of paper, even the filtering paper of Berzelius and the
papier de soie, with or without a photographic design, and others, are repro-
duced more or less perfectly after exposure to light. Wood, ivory, parch-
ment, and the living skin, are reproduced perfectly under the same circum-
stances; but metals, glass, and enamels, are not reproduced. If an engraving
is exposed to the rays of the sun for a very long time, it is saturated with
light; and the intensity of the impressions obtained by contact in darkness
is so great, that M. Niépce hopes to arrive at a process by which, operating
upon very sensitive papers — as paper prepared with the iodide of silver, for
example, or upon the dry collodion or albumen tablets, and developing the
image with gallic or the pyrogallic acid — to obtain proofs sufficiently vigor-
ous to form an original, from which impressions may be taken. A new
means for reproducing engravings will thus be secured.

Further results of M. Niépce’s experiments are described by M. Chevreul
as follows:

If we interpose a plate of glass between the engraving and the sensitive
paper, the whites of the engraving are no longer impressed upon it. The
same interruption of the radiations takes place if we interpose a plate of
mica, or a plate of rock-crystal, or of yellow glass stained with the oxide of
uranium. We discover, further, that these substances arrest equally the
impression of the phosphorescent rays when placed directly in front of the
sensitive paper.

An engraving covered with a film of collodion or of gelatine, is reproduced ;
but an engraving covered with a layer of varnish or of gum, is not repro-
duced. An engraving placed at three millimetres’ distance from the sensitive
paper, is very well reproduced; and if the design is of a bold character, it
will be reproduced at the distance of a centimetre.* The impression is
not, then, the result of action of contact, or of chemical action. <A colored
engraving of many colors is reproduced very unequally; that is to say, the
colors imprint their image with different intensities, varying with their
chemical nature—some producing an impression which is very visible,
whilst others scarcely tint the sensitive paper.

It is similar with characters printed with different inks. Printers’ ink,
whether it be such as is used with type or for copper-plate printing, and the
ordinary writing ink, formed of a solution of nutgalls and sulphate of iron,
do not give images; while certain “‘ English inks give impressions sufficiently
strong.” Vitrified characters, traced upon a plate of varnished porcelain,
or covered with enamel, are imprinted upon the sensitive paper without the
porcelain itself leaving any trace of its presence; but a porcelain not covered
with varnish or enamel, such as biscuit china or “‘ la pate de kaolin,” produces
a slight impression.

If, after having exposed an engraving to the light during one hour, we
apply it upon a white card which has remained in darkness during some
days, and if, after having left the engraving in contact with the ecard during
twenty-four hours at least, we put the card in its turn in contact with a leaf of
sensitive paper, we shall have, after twenty-four hours of this new contact,
a reproduction of the engraving, a little less visible, it is true, than if the

*The millimetre is 003987 of an English inch. The centimetre is 0°39371 of an
English inch. -

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 139

engraving had been applied directly upon the sensitive paper, but yet
distinct.

When a tablet of black marble, lightly strewn with white spots, after
having been exposed to the light, is applied at once to a sensitive paper, the
white parts of the marble only are imprinted upon the paper. Under the
same conditions, a tablet of white chalk will produce a sensible impression,
while a tablet of charcoal will produce no such effect. When a black and
white feather has been exposed to the sun, and applied in darkness to a
sensitive surface, the white parts alone imprint their image. The feather
of a parrot—red, green, blue, and black— has given scarcely any impres-
sion, acting as if the feather had been black. Certain colors, however, have
left traces of a very feeble action.

Experiments have been made with textile fabrics of different natures and
of various colors. The following are a few of the results:

Cotton— White impressed the sensitive paper.
6 Brown (by madder and alumina). Nothing given.
oe Violet (by madder, alumina, and iron). Scarcely anything.
ge Red (by cochineal). Nothing.
= Turkey Red (by madder and alum). Nothing.

si Prussian Blue, upon white ground, is the blue which produces
the best impression.

.s Blue (by indigo). Nothing.
eb Chamois (by peroxide of iron). No impression.

Linen, silk, and woollen cloths give equally different impressions, accord-
ing to the chemical nature of the colors.

M. Niépce calls particular attention to the following experiment, which is,
as he says, curious and important:

We take a tube of metal—of tin-plate, for example, or of any other
opaque substance — closed at one of its extremities, and cover the interior
with paper or white card; the open end of the tube is exposed for about an
hour to the direct rays of the sun. Then apply this open end to a sheet of
sensitive paper, and preserve it in this state for twenty-four hours, when the
circumference of the tube will have designed its image. Morethan this. Jf
an engraving upon china paper is interposed between the tube and the sensitive
paper, we find the same reproduced. Reproduced, be it remembered, by the
radiations which have been absorbed and redeveloped from the interior of
the tube. ‘If we close the tube hermetically as soon as we cease to .expose
it to the light, we shall preserve, during an indefinite time, the faculty of
radiation, which the insulation has communicated, and we shall see that this
is manifested by the impression produced when we apply the tube upon a
sensitive paper, after having removed the cover by which the tube was
closed.”

Niépce then informs us that he has repeated upon images formed in the
camera-obscura similar experiments to those which he has made with the
direct light. A piece of card which had been kept in darkness was placed
in the camera-obscura for about three hours, and on it was projected an
image brilliantly illuminated by the sun. Then the card was applied to sensitive
paper, and after twenty-four hours there was obtained a reproduction of the
primitive image of the camera-obscura. There must be a long exposure to
obtain an appreciable result.

It will be remembered that, some few years since, Professor Stokes drew

140 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

attention to some peculiar conditions of light, to which he gave the name of
Jluorescence. M. Niépce has made several experiments with substances
which possess this peculiar property. A design was traced upon a sheet of
white paper with a solution of sulphate of quinine, one of the most fluores-
cent bodies; the paper was then exposed to the sun, and subsequently applied
to the sensitive paper. The fluorescent parts were reproduced in black,
much more intense than that of the paper upon which the design was
formed. <A plate of glass interposed between the design and the sensitive
paper prevented any impression. A plate.of glass, colored yellow by the
oxide of uranium, produced the same effect. If the design in sulphate of
quinine has not been exposed to light, nothing is produced upon the sensitive
paper. M. Niépce then tells us that a design traced with phosphorus upon
paper, will, without being exposed to light, impress very rapidly the sensitive
paper. This impression is, beyond all doubt, due to the formation of phos-
phide of silver — it is a chemical change quite independent of the luminous
effect, and has nothing in common with the other phenomena. He says,
however, that the same effects are produced by fluate of lime, rendered
phosphorescent by heat.

Such are the principal matters to which M. Niépce now directs attention;
and if his results are confirmed by further experiments, they must materially
change our views of luminous variations.

Addenda.—The details of the method of reproducing engravings by means
of the vapor of phosphorus, alluded to above, are given as follows in the
Cosmos (Paris) :

The engraving to be copied is exposed to the vapors of phosphorus burn-
ing slowly in the air, the shadows only absorb the vapors; a sheet of sensi-
tive paper prepared with chloride of silver is applied; after a contact for a
quarter of an hour, the engraving is imprinted upon the paper with phos-
phuret of silver, which, when strong enough, resists the action of dilute
chemical agents. The best mode of operating, consists in placing the
engraving in a box in front of a shect of pasteboard, covering one side of
the box, whose surface has been sufficiently rubbed with a stick of phos-
phorus. The pasteboard must be rerubbed for each operation; for if the
phosphorus is red, it produces no effect. A sheet of water of a centimetre
(0-4 inch) or more in thickness, does not stop the deposition or action of
the vapors of phosphorus. The action is exerted on the sensitive paper
even through india-paper; that is to say, that if an engraving on india-paper
is laid upon a sheet of sensitive paper, and these placed together in the box
in face of the phosphorescent wall, a negative image of the engraving will
be obtained, as if the shadows had behaved like a screen, and the lights had
allowed the vapors to pass through and impress the sensitive paper. Only
if the exposure be too long prolonged, the shadows will also impress their
image, and this will even prevail over the ground. The vapor of sulphur
produces analogous effects, and gives an image or reproduction of the
engraving drawn in sulphuret of silver; but this image is not stable.

LUNAR AND STELLAR PHOTOGRAPHS.

At a recent meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society, Mr. De la Rue
exhibited a great variety of beautiful photographs of the moon and Jupiter,
which, through the aid of a magnifying glass of moderate power, exhibited
a considerable amount of detail, not visible to the unassisted eye.

7 NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 141

While on the subject of lunar photography, Mr. De la Rue begged to direct
the attention of the Society to one or two points of physical interest, which
may be thus stated: points on the lunar surface having optically equal inten-
sity of light, do not produce equally brilliant positive and equally obscure
negative impressions; the actinic rays are evidently not always in propor-
tion to the illuminating rays. Another curious fact, which he thought he
had well made out, is, that those portions of the lunar surface which are
illuminated by a very oblique ray from the sun, do not produce an equal
effect on the sensitive plate, though they are equally bright to the eye. Such
a phenomenon obtains during the afternoon in terrestrial photography, when
the sun’s rays. reach us obliquely through the atmosphere. The moon has
no visible atmosphere; nevertheless, from whatever cause it may arise, that
portion of the moon which is illuminated by an oblique ray, does not pro-
duce a corresponding effect on the sensitive plate which it does to the eye.

By paying particular attention to the state of the collodion film, he had
been very successful in reducing the time of exposure, and had produced
pictures, not only of the lunar surface, but also of Jupiter, in from three to
seven seconds. The photographs of Jupiter show his belts remarkably well.
The beauty of the photographs exhibited of the moon, he thought it would
be admitted, gave great promise that at a future period photography will be
considered as the only correct means of mapping down the lunar surface.
When we shall be able to obtain collodion finer in grain and still more sen-
sitive, it will supersede hand-drawing altogether; and even now the results
obtained are much more accurate than anything hitherto done by mapping
or hand-drawing. It is nearly impossible, by micrometrical measurement,
to lay down all the details of the moon, and much, after a sort of triangula-
tion, has to be filled up by the eve. The work is too laborious; and the
famous map of Beer and Madler, wonderfully accurate as it is, does not
fulfil the conditions of absolute accuracy in all the minute points of detail.

The light proceeding from Jupiter possessed considerably more actinic
power than that of the moon, in proportion to its luminosity; or, in other
words, although the light of the moon is at least twice as bright as that of
Jupiter, its actinic power would appear to be not greater than as from 6 to
5,or6to 4. It is not improbable that the blue tint of Jupiter may have
something to do with its photogenic power. It may also be stated, that the
darkest parts of Jupiter’s surface came fully out by an exposure which did
not suffice to bring out those portions of the moon situated near the dark
limb, and consequently illuminated by a very oblique ray.

Mr. De Ja Rue also stated that he had compared the pHtlogenic power of
Jupiter and Saturn, and that, on a recent occasion, he had turned the teles-
cope alternately on each of these two planets, and found that to produce
pictures of equal intensity, the sensitized plate had, on the average, to be
exposed five seconds to Jupiter and sixty seconds to Saturn. Hence the
chemical rays from Jupiter are twelve times more energetic than those from
Saturn —an effect undoubtedly, in a great measure, attributable to the
greater brilliancy of the former planet.

ON THE ACTION OF LIGHT UPON OXALATE OF THE PEROXIDE OF
IRON.

Professor J. W. Draper, in a paper on the measurement of the chemical
action of light, communicated to the London Philosophical Magazine,

142 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

notices particularly the action of light upon the oxalate of peroxide of iron.
The golden yellow solution of this salt undergoes no change when kept in
total darkness, but on exposure to a lamp or to daylight is decomposed with
evolution of carbonic acid and pecipitation of oxalate of the protoxide as a
lemon-yellow powder. In sunlight it effervesces violently. The indigo ray
is especially active in producing this effect, and undergoes absorption in
doing so, since a sunbeam which has passed through one layer of solution is
incapable of affecting another. The author points out several methods of
employing this salt in photometry, the most advantageous of which is to col-
lect and measure the quantity of carbonic acid absorbed in a given time.
The solution is sufficiently sensitive for all ordinary purposes. When great
sensitiveness is required the author recommends the use of the tithonometer
invented by him in 1843, and since employed, in a modified form, by Bunsen
and Roscoe.

IMPROVEMENTS IN PHOTOGRAPHY.

Sensitiveness of Photographic Reagents. — The sensitiveness of the reagents
used in photography is well known. But there are others more sensitive still,
which often interfere with photographic results. Photographers are aware
that they do not succeed well in the vicinity of a perfumery, and that even
the effluvia from the hand that has been wet with an essence, will prevent
success when it was thought to be sure. It has even been supposed that in
clear weather, when the atmosphere was full of vegetable emanations and
vapors drawn from the soil by heat, photographs do not succeed as well,
and that these influences must be avoided for the finest results. Evidently
the emanations from the soil and plants are themselves sensitive to the
chemical rays, and more so than the photographic reagents, especially chlo-
ride of silver; and hence, as far as they are not destroyed, may monopolize
the chemical action.

These thoughts are suggested by a fact recently made known by Mr.
Ford. He had always had perfect success; but afterwards, in spite of all
precaution, failed of good pictures. After long seeking the cause, he finally
found that it was owing to his room being near a storehouse of “ noir ani-
mal,”’ for economical uses, — the effluvia was injurious to the photoraphic
liquids, the principal of which were nitrate of silver, pyrogallic acid, and
hyposulphite of soda. He moved to another place, and had no more diffi-
culty.

Novel application of Photography.— M. Persoz, Professor of Chemistry at the
Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers of Paris, has just published a most inter-
esting discovery of his, by which photography may be applied to the orna-
menting of silk stuffs. The bichromate of potash is a substance commonly
used in photography, being extremely sensitive to light. If a piece of silk
stuff, impregnated with this salt, be exposed to the rays of light penetrating
through the fissures of the window-blinds in a closed room, the points where
the stuff has received these rays of light will assume a peculiar reddish tint.
Now, suppose a piece of metal or of strong paper to be cut out after a given
pattern, and to be laid upon a piece of silk prepared as before; if exposed to
the sun, or, better still, to simple daylight, the pattern will be reproduced in
afew instants. The pale red, which the parts acted upon by the light assume,
is so permanent that nothing can destroy it; nay, it will fix other colors,
such as madder, campeachy, etc., just like a mordant, and in that case it

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 143

will modify the color of those substances in absorbing it. The experiment
may be varied as follows: Let a fern Jeaf be laid upon a piece of prepared
silk and kept flat upon it by a pane of glass; then that part of the silk which
is protected by the leaf will retain its original color, while all the rest will
receive the impression of light, as above described, forming the ground on
which the figure of the leaf will appear in white, gray, or whatever other
color the silk may have had before the operation. The richest patterns may
thus be obtained on plain silks, and at a comparatively small expense.

Photographic Enamels. —MM. Armengaud, in the Genie Industriel, an-
nounce that ‘‘ the MM. Bruder, of Neufchatel (Switzerland), have discovered
a process by which photographs may be developed on white enamel, incor-
porated by vitrification, and covered with a glaze of glass also melted and
incorporated with the enamel. They apply the same process also upon
metals and wood.”

Practical Applications of Photography.— During the Paris exhibition of
1855, some of the non-commissioned officers of the Royal Engineers who
were employed there received instruction in photography, and on their
return to England their knowledge thus obtained was turned to a practical
use by Colonel James, the director of the Ordnance Survey, in making
reductions of the various maps and plans required in that work. This is the
first instance of the scientific use of photography on a large scale, and some
idea may be formed of its importance from the fact that the saving in this
item only has been not less than £20,000.

Since then, a systematic course of instruction in photography has been
given to non-commissioned officers in the English engineer corps, and
this constant supply of men practiced in the art is maintained. ‘These are
distributed in all parts of the world, where a detachment of engineers is
maintained, and the orders to officers commanding companies to which pho-
tographers are attached, are, to send home, periodically, photographs of all
works in progress, and to photograph and transmit to the war department
drawings of all objects, either valuable in a professional point of view, or
interesting as illustrative of history, ethnology, natural history, antiquities,
etc., etc.

New Photographic process for the Printing of Positive Proofs.— A piece of
sulphur is dissolved in sulphuret of carbon, in the proportions of twenty-five
parts of the former to seventy-five of the latter, and the solution is then fil-
tered. The solution in sufficient quantity is poured on the paper, which is
shaken quickly in every direction, in order that it may spread equally, and
crystals of opaque sulphur may not form. The paper thus prepared is kept
in the dark. At the required moment, the paper is put under an ordinary
negative, and exposed to the light for twenty-five seconds to a minute, or
five minutes on a dark day. When taken out, nothing is seen on the paper.

Nothing appears upon the surface of the paper when it is removed from
the slide. It is then put over a mercury bath, at the bottom of which are
placed some grams of this metal. The sulphurized paper from the camera
is then exposed at the distance of eight centimetres above the mercury
(which is heated meantime), sustained on a frame of paper forming a cover
to the bath, on the under side of which, with its face to the mercury, is the
prepared paper. The vapor of mercury combines with the portions of sul-
phur which have received the influence of the sun’s rays, forming a yellow-
ish brown sulphuret of mercury, which perfectly reproduces the details of

144 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

the impression. The picture is then protected by a film of varnish-gum, or
albumen, to preserve it.

This is the process of M. Salmon, of Chartres.

Me Craw’s new, cheap, and permanent process in Photography.— The following
account of a new process for producing cheap and permanent photographs
without employing either silver or gold salts, or the noxious hyposulphite
of soda, was presented to the British Association, 1858, by Mr. W. McCraw:

“The labors of the committee appointed by the Photographic Society of
London to inquire into the cause of the fading of photographs, after a
elapse of two years, have only amounted to this: that photographs of a cer-
tain kind have all faded; and that some of those of the kind that have stood
best, have unaccountably faded —the sad presumption being, that in time all
photographs produced in the usual way, by the means of chloride of silver,
and fixed (as it is called) by hyposulphite of soda, will perish. These con-
siderations, and the fact of a prize being offered by a French nobleman for
the discovery of a process for printing photographs in carbon, set me to ex-
periment in that direction. But my experiments with carbon and various
pigments led me to think that no material applied mechanically, or that
could not be made to take the shape of a dye or chemical solution, would
ever give results with the exquisite half-tints of the present beautiful but
perishable process. The photographic properties of bichromate of potass
were pointed out by Mungo Poutou twenty years ago, giving photographs of
a pale, tawny color. <A piece of paper is washed over with the saturated solu-
tion of the bichromate, and when dried in the dark is of a light yellow color,
and very sensitive to light. If a negative photograph, or a piece of lace or
a leaf, be placed over the prepared paper, and put in sunshine, in a few min-
utes a perfect impression of the object is obtained. The light darkens the
color of the bichromate, and renders it insoluble in water, while the yellow
color washes out from the parts protected from the light by the lace or leaf, .
or negative photograph, as the case may be. But pictures of this kind have
little or no practical value; for although the lights are good enough, the deep
black shadows are only represented by a tawny shade. Some eighteen
months ago a process was patented for deepening these photographs by
treating them with gallic acid and a salt of iron, which went by the name of
*Sella’s process.’ I tried this process at the time according to the specifi-
cation of the patent, but failed to make one satisfactory specimen. They
wanted everything that a good photograph should have, — pure lights, clear
half-tints, and deep shadows, — and as I found that others had not been more
successful, [abandoned my experiments. But in the course of further exper-
iments, a year afterwards, with carbon, I was struck with the fact, that a
drop of a solution of bichromate of potass allowed to fall on a piece of white
paper and afterwards dried and exposed to the sun, when washed with a solu-
tion of proto-sulphate of iron, and then with gallic acid, while the spot
became perfectly black, the surrounding white paper was unaffected by the
liquids. Knowing the photographic properties of the bichromate already
described, I believed that this might be the foundation of a good photo-
graphic process; and that if the bichromate could be kept from penetrating
the pores of the paper, by being kept on its surface, the defects of Sella’s
process might be avoided. With this view, I began by filling the pores of
the paper with albumen, and then, to render it insoluble, immersing the paper
in ether. This, however, did not answer. But as it would be tedious to

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 145

detail all the pains I took to discover what would not do, and to find in what
proportions and in what order the right materials could be best applied, I will
briefly give the formula which I have adopted, and by which the specimens
alluded to were produced : — First, take the white of eggs, and add 25 per
cent. of a saturated solution of common salt (to be well beat up and allowed
to subside); float the paper on the albumen for thirty seconds, and hang up
to dry. Secondly, make a saturated solution of bichromate of potass, to
which has been added 25 per cent. of Beaufoy’s acetic acid. Float the paper
ou this solution for an instant, and when dry it is fit for use. This must be
done in the dark room. Thirdly, expose under a negative, in a pressure
frame, in the ordinary manner, until the picture is sufficiently printed in all
its details, — but not over-printed, as is usual with the old process. This re-
quires not more than half the ordinary time. Fourthly, immerse the pictures
in a vessel of water in the darkened room, — the undecomposed bichromate
and albumen then readily leaves the lights and half-tints of the picture.
Change the water frequently, until it comes from the prints pure and clear.
Fifthly, immerse the picture now in a saturated solution of protosulphate of
iron in cold water for five minutes, and again rinse well in water. Sixthly,
immerse the pictures again in a saturated solution of gallic acid in cold water,
and the color will immediately begin to change to a fine purple black. Allow
the pictures to remain in this until the deep shadows show no appearance of
the yellow bichromate; repeat the rinsing. Seventhly, immerse, finally, in
the following mixture: Pyrogallic acid, two grains; water, one ounce; Beau-
foy’s acetic acid, one ounce; saturated solution of acetate of lead, two
drams. This mixture brightens up the pictures marvellously, restoring the
lights that may have been partially lost in the previous parts of the process,
deepening the shadows, and bringing out the detail; rinse, finally, in water,
and the pictures are complete, when dried and mounted. The advantages
of this process may be briefly stated as follows: — First, as to its economy.
Bichromate of potass, at 2d. per ounce, is substituted for nitrate of silver at
ds. per ounce. Secondly, photographs in this way can be produced with
greater rapidity than by the old mode. Thirdly, the pictures being composed
of the same materials which form the constituent parts of writing-ink, it may
be fairly inferred that they will last as long as the paper upon which they are
printed.”

Gaudinet’s mode of preserving Photographs on paper. —I dissolve a certain
quantity of the gutta-percha of commerce in the Colas benzine. I decant in
a few days, so as to have only the clear portion. I plunge my paper, sheet
by sheet, in this solution, and withdraw it almost immediately; then, hang-
ing it by a corner, I let it dry. I then present these sheets which contain the
gutta-percha as a powder, but not as a varnish, toa good fire. The grains of
gutta-percha unite, and cover the fibres, forming an interior varnish which
is nearly impermeable.

I albuminize this paper which has lost none of its transparence (albumen,
100; rain-water, 25; chloride of sodium, 6). I dry it, and render it sensitive
by a solution of 15 per cent. of nitrate of silver. I allow it to drip, and dry
it by a gentle fire; I produce a positive in the usual way, and fix it by
hyposulphite of soda at 10 or 15 per cent.; but this operation is so much
abridged, that in a few minutes the proof is fixed like one on glass, and of a
beautiful sepia tint. Nothing prevents the use of chloride of gold, if that is
desired. The washing may be done in a quarter of an hour, in place of last-

15

146 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

ing from twelve to twenty-four hours, and the proof is of admirable trans-
parence, the paper also keeping all its whiteness. — Comptes Rendus.

Photo-Lithography.—This name has been applied by the discoverers,
Messrs. Cutting & Bradford, of Boston, to a new and beautiful application of
the photographic art, which is evidently destined to revolutionize, in a great
measure, the ordinary processes of lithography. The requisites for the pro-
duction of the effect are, in the first instance, a well-ground lithographic stone,
and a glass negative photograph. The stone, by a peculiar treatment, which
is really the discovery itself, and is yet a secret, is prepared in a few minutes
to receive the photographic impression, through the glass negative, by expo-
sure to sun-light. The stone-picture can then be washed, inked, and any
number of photo-lithographs printed from it upon paper, by means of the
usual lithographic press. Images magnified by the microscope, and thrown by
means of the camera upon a prepared stone surface, are depicted with wonder-
ful accuracy. The value of this discovery, as applied merely to the illustra-
tion of books, especially scientific treatises, is obvious.

The French Academy have recently received some interesting memoirs on
subjects connected with photography. In the camera obscura, which is
usually employed in photographic operations, the objects daguerreotyped are
traced by the sun on a plane surface, whose extent (being necessarily re-
strained) corresponds to a field of vision which cannot well cover more than
thirty or thirty-five degrees of angular space. So, too, in the art of draw-
ing, when the draughtsman would represent a scene on the plane, he takes
care to restrict it to the same limits, as they include all the objects our eye is
able to take in at the same time, without changing its direction. Butif he
desires to depict a larger portion, or rather all the objects which may be seen
in every different direction from a given station, it is evident that instead of
taking a plane surface, he must take the interior surface of a cylinder; for the
observer, being placed upon the axis, will discover a suitable element, on
whatever side he may look, for tracing the object supposed to be placed in
the same direction. This sort of cylindrical picture, developed in a circular
manner around the spectator, is called a panorama. In 1845, a photographer
named Martens, published a method for obtaining, upon the daguerreotype
plate, and in one single operation, a demi-panorama of exterior views. The
plate was curved in a demi-cylindrical form around the optical centre of the
objective, which being placed on a vertical pivot, was directed in succession
to the different points of the horizon, carrying along with it a diaphragm,
having an aperture with vertical edges; in this way the different portions of
the plate were affected in succession, so that when once the proof was com-
pleted, it represented all objects visible within an angular field of 180 degrees.
The scenes obtained in this way by M. Martens, were beautiful little pano-
ramas; but the objects were represented in it in an inverse order to that they
occupied in nature, and, unfortunately, the geometrical combination on which
the method was founded, prevented the operator from restoring the objects
to their original position. Had the operator attempted to place a reversing
mirror before the objective, he would instantly have discovered that, during
the evolution of the optical system, the clouds would have assumed a relative
motion on the plate, which would have rendered it impossible to take a
daguerreotype. Besides, as more daguerreotypes are taken on glass than on
metal at the present day, and as it is inconvenient to bend a plate of glass,
M. Martens’ ingenious method gradually fell out of use. We now have a

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY, 147

new method, devised by M. Garella, an engineer of the mining school, which
completely solves the problem.

When the operator takes a view on paper, the view is reversed naturally,
by the simple transfer to another sheet. Therefore, imagine an apparatus
constructed so as to turn on the horizontal plane which supports it, and be
directed at pleasure towards any point of the horizon. While this motion is
taking place, the exterior objects represented on the ground glass change
places in the same direction with the head of the objective, and if the screen
is suitably arranged, the operator will be able to move it in such a manner as
that these points remain at the same points of the image during the whole
time they take to cross the field of vision. As this movement is indefinite,
the operator may in this way sweep the whole horizon. To step from this
simple observation to the practical realization of a panoramic apparatus, it
is necessary to find the mechanical contrivance which coordinates in the re-
quired ratio the motion of the apparatus which sustains the glass plate on
which the view is to be secured, and the motion of the whole apparatus on
its plane. Now, it is easily demonstrated that the motion of the screen must
be such that its plane moves without slipping on the ideal cylinder which
describes the mean vertical line of the focal plane by its motion round the
optical centre of the objective. If this motion of the screen could be effected,
each of its points would describe in space an evolvent circle; if, therefore, the
evolvent is materially contracted, and secured on the base of the apparatus,
and the apparatus which contains the glass plate is fastened to its edges, so
as to follow its contour, it would necessarily constantly occupy a position
which would assure its relative steadiness to the image. Such is the elegant
solution proposed and practised by M. Garella to obtain, on a rigid plate, as
extensive panoramic views as the operator may desire, If the operator does
not reverse the view obtained directly in the camera obscura, the image is
engendered progressively, band by band, on the inner surface of a supposed
cylinder, which corresponds exactly with M. Marten’s real cylinder. But if
he desires to reverse the objects at once, the image must be traced on the ex-
terior surface of a cylinder of the same radius. He will then see that the
centre of rotation of the apparatus must be moved back of the screen, and
to a distance equal to the principal focal length of the objective. This
change (which is the geometrical translation of a change of sign) enables
the evolvent of circle to continue to guide the apparatus which supports the
plate and secures the clearness of the images. M. Garella’s plates exhibit by
their clearness the perfection of this mechanical process. They cover a sur-
face of great length, and when they are seen lying flat it is easy to detect that
they represent impossible scenes. Each part may be examined by itself; but
when the spectator attempts to take in the whole, he at once perceives very
great deformities in the horizontal lines, which are caused by the difference
existing between the position in which it is seen and that in which it was
formed, part by part. As soon, however, as the curve of the ideal cylinder
is reéstablished where it was formed, and the observer places his eye at the
point occupied by the objective of the camera obscura, all the objects appear

at their real angles.

THE *“* ELLIOTYPE” PROCESS.

A new application of photography is now a matter of such frequent an-
nouncement, that the reader’s patience is sorely tried by an invitation to

148 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

examine anything which promises novelty in this direction. And yet we
believe a thought has at length been struck out, at once so simple and so
practicable, that it cannot fail to produce a great extension of the art, both
in the number and style of its products. In distinguishing the method we
are about to describe, it may be premised at once, that this operation does
not, as in the case of the great majority of other photographic processes,
profess to give an immediate transcript of some scene or figure existing in na-
ture. In ordinary cases the sun transfers to the photographic paper a picture
of some object or group which has already a complete and independent exis-
tence, — whether it be a human figure, a building, a piece of sculpture, an
engraving, or a landscape. It records established facts, or repeats works
which were designed without reference to it. But the Elliotype photographs
are always the results of paintings made expressly for the purpose. This
involves, of course, a principle, namely, that the peculiar skill of the living
painter, with all its powers and resources, is transferred at once, fresh from
his hand, to the very sheet of paper which is to spread through the world
the example of his style and composition. The other important point is the
simplicity of the operation, which encourages attempts, obviates failures,
and insures an unusual freedom, etc., in the result. A simple idea may gen-
erally be simply expressed; and to the reader familiar with these subjects,
the whole process will be rendered clear at once by the explanation, that the
artist who wishes to produce an Elliotype picture, paints the subject himself
in white body colors upon one side of a piece of glass. It is evident when a
sheet of sensitive paper, stretched on the other side of the glass, is exposed
to the light —that where the glass is transparent the paper will come out
black, and where the light is blocked out by a layer of paint, it will remain
white. But the paint itself is slightly translucent, and thus every variety of
shade may be produced by duly graduating the thickness of the layers.
This is in substance the whole of the invention—for such it is believed to
be, notwithstanding its simplicity. But there are several other points which
deserve attention. As the oil painting is on one side of the glass, and the
photographic paper on the other, the rays of light have to pass, not only
around and partially through the paint, but also through the glass, before
they reach the paper. The consequence of the light passing through the
glass is, from refraction, or some other cause, to give a soft, melting outline
on the paper, even where there is a sharp line drawn on the glass. The
effect of this, in many instances, is very welcome and desirable, as in the
case of clouds, feathers, or the rounded outlines of the face, limbs, etc.
Where, however, sharpness in the photograph is absolutely required, this
property becomes objectionable; and a remedy was long sought for by the
inventor in vain. It was discovered at length by accident. A fragment of
cotton thread, or some small foreign substance, had, much to the operator’s
annoyance, lodged between the glass and the paper, 7. e., on the opposite side
to the painting. The effect was a blur on the photograph; but it had such
remarkably clear, sharp edges, that the idea instantly occurred — Why not
paint the sharp lines of the picture on the other side of the glass, next to the
iodized paper? The result turned out exactly such as was expected and
required; and sharpness of outline can thus be secured, as well as round-
ness. :

The painter’s part of the proceeding is an extremely simple one; he has
only to lay a piece of black paper under the glass upon which he_ paints;
everything then is as it will finally appear in the picture. His ground is

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 149
dark, and he paints in the lights, heightening his color where they are high-
est, and leaving it blank where they are low. The first and most obvious
application of this method is to the copying of paintings and engravings. A
sheet of glass can be laid over the work to be copied, and thus every line
and boundary of shadow can be accurately traced, and the very handling
and manner of the original imitated, until the copyist’s work begins to con-
ceal what is beneath. The glass can then be removed, the black paper laid
behind the glass, and the work proceeded with in the ordinary way. When
it is complete, or, if desired, at any stage of the proceedings, an endless
number of photographic proofs can be taken. Engravings and lithographic
stones wear out, but there is literally no end to the fac-semiles that may be
taken of an oil painting on glass. When the number of good copyists who
can be found of works in oil is considered, and that their work is so much
more rapid than that of an engraver, the cost of production being conse-
quently less, it really seems as though the engraver’s art, except in its
very highest efforts, must be to a great extent superseded by this method.
Another application of the Elliotype process is the painting of subjects from
nature. The artist who paints upon glass instead of canvas, not only pre-
pares a work which may be multiplied indefinitely in the way we have
described, but which also remains a finished work of art, distinguishable
only, as we are told, by practised eyes from an ordinary drawing or painting
on paper or canvas. It will be remarked at once that no colors can be em-
ployed except black and white. This is undoubtedly the case, so far as
painting for the copying sake is concerned; but, after that is done with, it
appears to be quite possible to paint in colors upon the reverse or back of
the glass, so as to give the effect of a finished painting when hung in a room.
It remains only to add, that the inventor and patentee of this ingenious
process, from whom it takes its name, is Mr. Robinson Elliott, an artist
who has himself practised the method to a considerable extent, and with a
success that is very remarkable, even at this, which he considers an early,
stage of the discovery. The roundness and accuracy of outline, and the
depth and transparency of the shadows, are remarkably conspicuous, whilst
it is in bringing out the high lights that the skill of the artist is chiefly exer-
cised. The adaptability of the method to subjects requiring a multiplicity
of minute and sharply-defined detail has not yet been so well established as
to others where the forms are simple, and the effect of the picture depends
mainly upon its light and shade. That this process will recommend itself at
once and extensively to original painters, for the sake of imparting to their
pictures the capability of being reproduced in a cheap, rapid, and direct
manner, can hardly, perhaps be expected; but that it will be resorted to for
the purpose of reproduction, we cannot doubt, particularly when the results
are so satisfactory in themselves, and so flattering to the hand and pencil of
the painter. — London Literary Gazette.

PHOTOGLYPHIC ENGRAVING.

The following is a summary of Mr. Fox Tablot’s recently patented inven-
tion of photographic etching, which he terms “‘ Photoglyphic Engraving.”

Mr. Talbot uses the steel, copper, or zine plates, ordinarily employed by
engravers. The plate to be operated on is covered with a thin film of a
solution of the common gelatine of the shops (in the proportion of a
quarter of an ounce of gelatine to eight or ten ounces of water), to which
has been added about an ounce of a saturated solution of bichromate of

13*

150 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

potash. The object to be engraved, which “may be either material sub-
stances, as lace, the leaves of plants, etc., engravings, writings, or photo-
graphs, etc.,” is then placed on the prepared plate, and both are screwed in
a photographic printing-frame. After exposure to sun-light, or for a longer
period to the common daylight, as is usual in photographic printing, the
plate is removed from the frame, when “a faint image is seen upon it — the
yellow color of the gelatine having turned brown wherever the light has
acted.” Thus far, the process is precisely the same as that of Mr. Talbot’s
invention, patented in October, 1852. But in that process the next stage was
to wash the plate in water, or water and alcohol, in order to dissolve that
portion of the gelatine on which the sun had not acted, and in so doing the
image has almost invariably been found to be injured. In the new method
the plate is not washed at all, but the operator proceeds at once—and in
this it is that the novelty of the new method mainly consists — to cover the
surface of the plate evenly with a little finely-powdered gum copal, which is
then melted by holding the plate over the flame of a spirit lamp. A uniform
aquatint ground is thus formed, and as soon as it is cold the plate is ready
for etching. If Mr. Talbot’s specification be sufficient, the etching process
is the simplest of any yet practised. The etching liquid is a solution of
perchloride of iron—five or six parts of the saturated solution to one of
water. A small quantity of this is poured upon the plate, and with a camel’s
hair brush spread equally all over it. “‘ The liquid penetrates the gelatine
wherever the light has not acted on it, but it refuses to penetrate those parts
upon which the light has sufficiently acted. It is upon this remarkable fact
that the art of photoglyphic engraving is mainly founded. In about a
minute the etching is seen to begin, which is known by the parts etched
turning dark-brown or black, and then it spreads over the whole plate — the
details of the picture appearing with great rapidity in every part of it.” If all
proceeds well, the details of the picture will present a satisfactory appearance
to the eye of the operator in two or three minutes; the operator stirring the
liquid all the time with a camel’s hair brush, and thus slightly rubbing the
surface of the gelatine, which has a good effect. When it seems likely that
the etching will improve no further, it must be stopped, and the plate cleaned,
when the etching is found to be completed.

The etching process, as will have been seen, is finished at once. No
“stopping out” even of the more delicate parts, as in ordinary engraver’s
etching, would seem to be necessary; at least none is mentioned. In order
to bring out faint parts, or to deepen others, we are told, however, that the
operator may ‘‘ touch with a camel’s hair brush, dipped in liquid (No. 3),
those points of the picture where he wishes for an increased effect.”’ The
No. 3 liquid is merely ” weaker solution (equal parts of water and the
saturated solution) of the perchloride of iron—for it is note-worthy that
the weaker solution is the most rapid in its effect. A simpler process of
photographic etching is inconceivable. If it answer as perfectly, and if its
range be as comprehensive as is here stated, the great question of sun-
engraving is in a fair way of settlement,— not settled, however, as has been
too hastily assumed. The process here described is etching simply; and we
fear, from the description, is too superficial to produce many perfect impres-
sions. However, if it go no further, it is an extremely beautiful extension of
heliography, and to us it seems to lay the foundation for a more satisfactory
result than has yet been achieved.—London Literary Gazette.

The process of Herr Pretsch, which excited so much attention a year ago

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. a53% A

(see Annual Scientific Discovery, 1858), has not worked as well as was
expected, inasmuch as the prepared plates were found to require too much
assistance from the engraver’s scraper in order to perfect them. A company
formed in England to carry out the process upon a large scale, has proved,
commercially, a failure.. Several processes of photographic engraving are,
however, now used to some extent in Europe; the best of which is that of
Niépce St. Victor, of Paris, whose results resemble an aquatint engraving,
and are very beautiful. The great drawback encountered by all who have
worked in this field thus far, appears to be, the small number of perfect
impressions which the photographically engraved plates are capable of
printing.

BINOCULAR VISION.

Of the thousands who gaze with delight upon the magical effects produced
by that small instrument known as the stereoscope, how few there are who
comprehend, or attempt to assign reasons for, the extraordinary optical illu-
sions experienced through its instrumentality!

It is with the view of, in some degree, elucidating the principles of vision
upon which these are founded, that the following article is written.

It will, in the first place, be well to consider the difference between monoc-
ular and binocular vision. Nature has furnished us with several means of
determining the distance of objects which may happen to come within reach
of our visual organs. One is, that of distinctness; a greater or less degree
of which — other things being equal—gives an idea of greater or lesser
distance in the object viewed, The second is through the change of focus
required in the lens of the eye in refracting to a point on the retina, rays of
light entering it with a greater or lesser degree of parallelism, thus producing
in the brain a consciousness of unequal distances in the objects from which
they emanate.

The means above alluded to, it is evident, are enjoyed in almost the same
degree when viewing with one eye as where both are used. By far, however,
the greatest power with which nature has endowed us of discriminating
distances, is through the agency of binocular vision; or, in other words, in
the sensation produced in the brain by the different degrees of convergency
of the optic axes required in obtaining distinct vision of the differently dis-
tant points of objects upon which they are directed. It is to this faculty
that we are indebted for our most palpable evidence of differential distances,
and for that consciousness of solidity and relief so remarkably experienced
in the stereoscope. It is evident, for example, when we are looking at a
house or other object that has depth as well as breadth, from such a point of
view as to enable us to see two sides of it at once, that we receive a differ-
ently perspective image upon the retina of either eye, or that we must see
more of one side and less of the other with the right eye than with the left,
or vice versa,— thus accomplishing with one view what a person with but
one eye would require two views at positions 2 1-2 inches apart — the distance
between the eyes—to accomplish. These are the differently perspective
views of the stereoscopic cards, and it is the effort to reconcile these dissim-
ilar pictures by converging the optie axes at points differently distant from
the eyes which produces the wonderful effect above alluded to, and which
enables us to experience all the sensations of delight which would be pro-
duced by the contemplation of the landscape itself. The stereoscopic pic-
tures will, of course, never quite correspond. They are taken simultancously

{a2 NNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

with a camera constructed with two lenses, or consecutively with a camera
with one moyeable lens. The lenses of the stereoscope, besides magnifying
the pictures, are so placed as to unite certain similar points of them, thus
relieving the eyes of too great effort in uniting them entirely by convergency
of the axes.

The means above alluded to, by which we are enabled to judge of differ-
ential distances, are of course much diminished by the distance that the
objects viewed are removed from us. Our consciousness of different dis-
tances by distinctness is diminished through decrease of light. Our judg-
ment, through change of focus, is diminished in consequence of the paral-
Iclism of rays from distant objects being so nearly the same as to require
but little change in refracting them to a point on the retina. And lastly, the
binocular effect is in a great degree impaired through the identity of distant
views when seen from positions only separated by a base of 21-2 inches.
Nature has thus observed her usual economy in providing for our necessities
alone, —it being of little comparative importance to us generally to be
acquainted with the relative positions of distant objects; whereas our per-
sonal convenience, and even safety, depend greatly upon our knowledge of
those near at hand. We are therefore provided with much more ample
means of determining the latter than the former. — Jour. Franklin Institute.

TELESTEREOSCOPE.

Prof. Helmholtz has recently published a description of an instrument
which he calls a Telestereoscope (telescopic stereoscope), the object of which
is to present, stereoscopically united, two pictures of a landscape corre-
sponding to two points of view, whose distances considerably exceed the
distance between the two eyes. The stereoscopic power of the eyes is
small, because the distance between them is small; by the instrument it
is widened, and the effect which a stereoscope produces in a picture of a
landscape is thrown over the landscape itself. The instrument is made up
of four mirrors and two eye-glasses. Two mirrors placed, alike, at an angle
of 45°, one to the right and the other to the left, receive the rays of light
from the landscape. These mirrors throw the rays horizontally towards
one another, to two oblique mirrors, which throw the rays through the eye-
glasses to the eyes. In a window, place on either side, say three or four
fect, or the width of the window apart, a mirror, at the angle stated, to
receive the rays from outside, the planes of the two mirrors converging, of
eourse, to a point in the room. The mirrors will have the position of the
half-opened shutters of the window. The rays from the scene outside, on
reaching them, will be thrown parallel to the window, those of one mirror
towards the other. Now, by placing at the middle of the window two
smaller mirrors, meeting like the legs of a V, but at an angle of 90°, and
facing in the room, the rays will be thrown into the room; and if these two
mirrors are not too large, or are properly placed, the rays will have just the
distance apart required to pass into the eyes. A box or frame may enclose
the mirrors, and a couple of lenses be inserted as eye-pieces, and the effect
thereby be improved,—though the lenses should have a focal length of
thirty or forty inches. The mirrors should be made of the best plate glass.
The size may be much larger than the breadth of a window, although not
to any very great advantage.

To see near objects in the telestereoscope, the reflectors must be turned

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 153

round their vertical axes so that the angle between their surfaces and the
long edge of the box is somewhat greater than 45°. The objects then
appear greatly reduced in size, but in surprisingly prominent relief. When
the large mirrors only are turned, the small ones being left at the angle
of 45°, an exaggerated relief is obtained. If the dimensions in the direc-
tion of the depth of the field of view, to those on the surface, are to retain
their right relations, the large mirrors must always remain parallel to the
small ones. The aspects of near objects, particularly of the human figure,
are strikingly beautiful in the telestereoscope. The impression differs from
the reduction produced by concave glasses, in the circumstance that it is not
reduced pictures that the observer imagines he sees, but actually reduced
bodies.

Magnifying power may easily be connected with the telestereoscope: it
is only necessary to place a double opera-glass between the eyes of the
observer and the small reflectors; it is still preferable, for the field of view,
to separate the eye-glass from the object-glass of the instrument, and so
fix them in the telestereoscope that the light at each side first strike the
large mirror, then the object-glass, then the small reflector, and finally,
the cye-glass; so that in this arrangement the optic axis of the telescope
itself is broken at a right angle. The greater the magnifying power, the
greater, of course, must be the perfection of the plane reflectors; but then
it is not necessary to choose them larger than the object-glass of the
telescope.

These views, at the same time telescopic and stereoscopic, also exceed,
to an extraordinary degree, the common image of the telescope in vivid-
ness. In the simple telescopic images, difference of distance disappears
totally: the objects look exactly as if they were painted on a plane sur-
face. By the ordinary combination of the two Galileo’s telescopes, the
appearance of relief for nearer objects is in some degree obtained; and
hence it is that a double opera-glass gives a much livelier impression of
relief than a single one. But in the usual construction of the instrument
the relief is false; the objects appear as if they were squeezed together
in the direction of depth. In the case of human faces, on which, for the
most part, opera-glasses are directed, this is very striking. When they
are regarded from the front, they appear much flatter than they really
are; and when looked at in profile, they appear too narrow and sharp.
In both cases the expression of the countenance is essentially altered.

When a double opera-glass is turned round, and the observer looks
through the object-glass, the deep dimensions of objects are magnified out
of proportion. While, therefore, through a simple telescope all objects
appear as paintings, through a double opera-glass complete objects are
seen as bas-reliefs; while, by reversing the opera-glass, objects appear in
high relief.

ON THE PHENOMENA OF RELIEF OF THE IMAGE KORMED ON THE
GROUND GLASS OF THE CAMERA OBSCURA.

The following paper was recently read before the Royal Society, by M.
Claudet:

The author having observed that the image formed on the ground glass
of the camera obscura appears as much in relief as the natural object,
when seen with the two eyes, has endeavored to discover the cause of

154 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

that phenomenon; and his experiments and researches have disclosed the
singular and unexpected fact, that although only one image seems depicted
on the ground glass, still each eye perceives a different image; that in
reality there exist on the ground glass two images, the one visible only to
the right eve, and the other visible only to the left eye,— that the image
seen by the right eye is the representation of the object refracted by the
left side of the lens, and the image seen by the left eye is the representa-
tion of the object refracted by the right side of the lens. Consequently,
these two images presenting two different perspectives, the result is a
stereoscopic perception, as when we look through the stereoscope at two
images of different perspectives.

It appears that all the different images refracted separately by every part
of the lens, are each only visible on the line of their refraction when it cor-
responds with the optic axes; so that while we examine the image on the
ground glass, if we move the head we lose the perception of all the rays
which are not corresponding with the optic axes, and have only the per-
ception of those which, according to the position of the eyes, gradually
happen to coincide with the optic axes. Consequently, when we look on
the ground glass perfectly in the middle, the two eyes being equally distant
from the centre, the right eye sees only the rays refracted from the left of
the lens, and the left eye only those refracted from the right of the lens.

If we move the head horizontally, as soon as we have deviated about
6° from the centre on the right or on the left, in the first position the right
eye sees no image, and the left eye sees the image which before was seen by
the right eye; in the second position the inverse takes place, and of course
in both cases there cannot exist any stereoscopic illusion.

When we examine on the ground glass the image of a solid produced by
the whole aperture of the lens, if we have taken the focus on the nearest
point of the solid, we remark, in looking with the two eyes, that the image
is stereoscopic, and as soon as we shut one eye the illusion of relief disap-
pears instantly.

The stereoscopic effect is beautifully brought out by the image of a group
of trees; and when experimenting in an operating room, it is rendered quite
conspicuous if we take the image of an object having several planes very
distinct, such as the focimeter, which the author has described in a former
memoir (see Pihl. Mag. for June, 1851).

If, without altering the focus, we examine the same image with the pseudo-
scope, the effect is pseudoscopic. But if the focus has been set on the most
distant plane of the focimeter, the effect is pseudoscopic, and it becomes
stereoscopic in looking with the pseudoscope.

The image loses its relief when it is produced only by the centre of the
lens. The stereoscopic and pseudoscopic effects are therefore as much less
apparent as the aperture of the lens has been more reduced, and they are
the more evident if the image is produced by two apertures on both extrem-
ities of the horizontal diameter of the lens. This mode of conducting the
expcriments presents the most decided manifestation of the whole phenom-
enon.

But it must be remarked, that if the image is received on a transparent
paper instead of ground glass, it does not in any case present the least illu-
sion of relief. The surface of the paper has the property of preserving to
both eyes the same intensity of image, from whatever direction the rays are
refracted on that surface, and at whatever angle the eyes recede from tie

NATURAL PHILOSOPIIY. ESS)

centre to cxamine the image. In fact, all the various images refracted
through every part of the lens and coinciding on the surface of the paper, are
visible at whatever angle they are examined.

The reason of this difference between the effect of the ground glass and
that of the paper is, that through the surface of the ground glass, composed
of innumerable molecules of the greatest transparency, only deprived of
their original parallelism by the operation of grinding, but acting as lenses or
prisms disposed at all kinds of angles, the rays refracted by the various parts
of the lens continue their course in straight lines in passing through these
transparent molecules, and are visible only when they coincide with the
optic axes, being invisible in all other directions; that, in short, they are not
stopped by the surface of the ground glass; while the paper, being perfectly
opaque, stops all the rays on their passage, by which the image of the object
remains fixed on the surface. Each molecule of the paper, becoming lumi-
nous, sends new rays in all directions; and from whatever direction we look
on the paper, we always perceive at once all the images superposed; so that
each eye seeing the two perspectives mingled, the process of convergence,
according to the horizontal distances of the same points of the various
planes, cannot have its play, and no stereoscopic effect can take place, as is
the case with the ground glass, which presents to each ray an image of a
different perspective.

The author explains that he has ascertained these facts by several experi-
ments, the most decisive of which consists in placing before one of the mar-
ginal openings of the lens a blue glass, and a yellow glass before the other.
The object of these colored glasses is to give on the ground glass two images,
each of the color of the glass through which it is refracted.

The result is two images, superposed on the ground glass, one yellow and

the other blue, forming only one image of a gray tint, being the mixture of
yellow and blue, when we look with the two eyes at an equal distance
from the centre. But when shutting alternately, now the right and then the
left eye, in the first case the image appears yellow, and in the second it
appears blue.
* If, while looking with the two eyes (the opening on the right of the lens
being covered with the yellow glass, and the opening on the left with the
blue glass), we move the head on the right of about 6°, the mixture of the
two colors disappears, and the image retains only the blue color; on the
other hand, if after having resumed the middle position, which show again
the mixture of the two colors, we move the head on the left of 6°, the mix-
ture disappears again, and the image retains only the yellow color.

This proves evidently that each eye sees only the rays which, when after
having been refracted by any part of the lens, and continuing their course in
a direct line through the ground glass, coincide with the optic axes, while all
the other rays are invisible.

The consideration of these singular facts has led the author to think that
it would be possible to construct a new stereoscope, in which the two eyes,
looking at a single image, could see it in perfect relief; such a single image
being composed of two images, of different perspectives superposed, one
visible only to the right eye and the other to the left. This would be easily
done by refracting a stereoscopic slide on a ground glass, through two
semi-lenses separated enough to make the right picture of the slide coincide
with the left picture at the focus of the semi-ienses. The whole arrangement
may be easily understood; we have only to suppose that we look through a

156 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

ground giass placed before an ordinary stereoscope at the distance of the
focus of its semi-lenses, the slide being strongly lighted, and the eye seeing
no other light than that of the picture on the ground glass. The whole
being nothing more than a camera having had its lens cut in two parts, and
the two halves sufficiently separated to produce at the focus the coincidence
of the two opposite sides of the stereoscopic slide placed before the camera.
The Stereomonoscope. — At a subsequent meeting of the Royal Society, M.
Claudet presented a new optical instrument of his invention, called the Ste-
reomonoscope, by which, as its name implies, a single picture produces the
stereoscopic illusion. In the centre of a large black screen there is a space
filled with a square of ground glass, upon which, by some light managed
behind the screen, is thrown a magnified photographic image representing a
landscape, a portrait, or any other object. When we look naturally at that
picture, with the two eyes, without the help of any optical instrument, an
extraordinary phenomenon takes place: we sce the picture in perfect relief, as
when we look at two different pictures through a stereoscope. It is not nec-
essary to be at a fixed distance from the picture; it may be examined as
well at ten feet as at one foot, as an ordinary picture, without the least
fatigue to the eyes. Although considerably enlarged by the instrument
itself, we may magnify the picture still more by using large convex lenses;
and two or three persons at once can examine it with the greatest ease, being
able, while looking, to exchange any remarks, or express the sensations sug-
gested by the picture,—an advantage which is denied by the use of the
common stereoscope. By this remarkable discovery, M. Claudet has solved
a problem which has always been considered as an impossibility by scien-
tific men, —for the stereomonoscope, by its very name, must sound like a
paradox to the ears of all those who are versed in the knowledge of the
principles of binocular vision, until they have had the opportunity of repeat-
' ing the experiments by which the author has found a new fact which they
had not noticed or explained before. This new fact is, that the image on
the ground glass of the camera-obscura produces the illusion of relief. But
the phenomenon does not take place if the image is received on paper.
When the medium is ground glass, the rays refracted by the various points
of the lens upon that surface are only visible when they are incident in a
line coinciding with the optic axes. So that the rays emerging from the
ground glass, and entering the right eye, are only those which have been
refracted obliquely in the same direction, by the left side of the object-glass ;
and those entering the left eye are only those which are refracted by the
right side of the object-glass; consequently, both eyes have a different view
and perspective of the object represented on the ground glass, and the single
image is, in point of fact, the result of two images, each only visible to one
eye, and invisible to the other. This is the main point of M. Claudet’s dis-
covery, Which cannot be fully understood without reading the preceding
paper, and without repeating the experiments described in that paper. The
stereomonoscope is founded on the same principles; it is nothing more than
a camera-obscura, before which are placed two images of a stereoscopic
slide, and by means of two object-glasses, sufficiently separated, the two
images are refracted on the same space, at the focus of the camera-obscura
on the ground glass, where they coincide. By the same laws we have
alluded to before, the right picture is seen only by the left eye, and the left
picture by the right eye; so that, although only one picture appears repre-
sented on the ground glass, each eye secs on the same spot a different pic-

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 15%

ture, having its particular perspective; and, consequently, in order to obtain
a single vision, the eyes have to converge differently, to bring consecutively
in the centre of both retinas the different similar points of the two pictures
according to their horizontal separation on the ground glass, the criterion of
their respective distances. This alteration of the convergence of the optic
axis, according to the distances of the various planes, gives the same sensa-
tion of relief we obtain when we look at the natural objects, or at their pho-
tographic representations. There is a charm in the effects of this instrument
peculiarly agreeable to the senses; and we may congratulate M. Claudet
upon having made a very remarkable and pleasing discovery.

ALMEIDA’S STEREOSCOPE.

An important modification of the Stereoscope has recently been commu-
nicated to the French Academy by M.d’Almeida. With the common instru-
ment, only one observer at a time can view the relief. M. d’Almeida renders
it visible to several at a time, and at a distance of several metres. For this
purpose he causes two stereoscopic images to be reflected simultaneously
on a screen; as they are not identical, but only similar, the outlines of the
one will intersect those of the other, and generate a confusion which can
only be obviated by making each eye see only one of the images. For
this purpose the inventor causes the luminous rays from each image to pass
through a glass of a different color, one red and the other green; whereby
one of the images will be reflected on the screen in red, the other in green.
Now, if the observer’s eyes be provided with glasses of the above-mentioned
colors, the eye covered with a green glass will only see the green image,
while the other will only be visible to the eye protected by a red glass. The
moment this is effected, the relief appears; and if the observer shift his po-
sition laterally, the figure will appear to move in a contrary direction, which
adds to the illusion. M. d’Almeida proposes another plan, in which both
images are uncolored, and each eye is made to perceive one image only by
rapidly intercepting the other from view by means of a revolving piece of
pasteboard, cut so as only to cover one of the images at a time by each half
revolution. As soon as the rotary motion acquires sufficient rapidity, the
figures appear in relief.

6

ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF A HAND HELIOSTAT, FOR FLASHING
SUN-SIGNALS.

The following paper was presented to the British Association, 1858, by
Mr. F. Galton. A flash of sunlight from a looking-glass of a few inches in
the side, can be seen further than any terrestrial object whatever; and the
instrument about to be described shows how this remarkable power may be
utilized for the purpose of telegraphy. Heliostats are used in all government
surveys, and their power is well known in penetrating haze, and their utility
in requiring no ‘‘sky line.’”? They were also habitually employed by the
Russians, for telegraphy, during the Crimean war. But all heliostats that
have been hitherto used have been fixtures of large dimensions ; commonly,
a shaded screen, with an aperture in it, was placed at many yards from the
signaller, who stationed himself in such a way, that, when he could see the
play of his flash about the hole in the screen, he might be sure that some of
the rays which passed through the aperture would be visible at the distant
station. At other times a polished ring was used for the same purpose 23

* 14

158 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

the screen, but the principle was the same. The present instrument dis-
penses with all fixture —it is more portable than a ship’s telescope, and as
manageable as a ship’s quadrant, and may be made by a carpenter for 4s.,
if he possesses a convex spectacle lens of short focus, and a piece of good
looking-glass. The looking-glass attached to the heliostat is about three
inches by four and a half inches, and therefore capable of being seen at
distances, which may be calcuiated from the fact, that a mirror one inch
square is perfectly visible, in average sunny weather, at a distance of eight
miles, and that it shows as a brilliant glistening star at two miles. Before
describing its principle and action, it will be necessary to explain clearly the
peculiar characteristic of the reflection of the sun’s rays from a mirror. If,
for instance, we take a small square looking-glass, and throw its flash upon a
wall two or three feet off, the shape of the flash will be little different from
that of the mirror itself, seen in perspective; but, if we direct it on an object
three or four yards off, the angles of the flash will appear decidedly rounded;
at twenty or thirty paces, it will appear fairly circular; and, if we can manage
, 10 see it at fifty or one hundred yards (which can only be effected by selecting
some object to throw it on that is naturally of a light color, but lying under a
dark shade), it will appear like a mock sun, of identically the same shape and
size as the sun itself; and for all greater distances, the appearance remains the
same. That is to say, whatever may be the shape or size of the mirror, and
whatever the irregularity of the distant objects on which the flash happens
to be thrown, the shape and size of that flash, if it could be seen by the
signaller, would always appear to him as exactly that of sun. In fact, the
flash forms a cone of light, at the blunted apex of which are the mirror and
the signaller’s eye, and whose vertical angle equals that of the sun’s angular
diameter. Whoever is covered by the flash, sees the mirror, like a small
fragment of the sun itself, held in the hand of the observer,— and the larger
the mirror, compared to the distance, the larger and the more dazzling does
it appear. Now, the hand heliostat provides a bright appearance of the
sun, which, when the instrument is adjusted and looked through, overlays
the exact area which is covered by the flash of the mirror, which is attached
to its side. It is a perfect substitute for that mock sun which we can see at
fifty or one hundred paces distant, but which becomes too faint to be traced
much further. All we have to do, when we wish to send a flash to a dis-
tant object, is to make that image of the sun overlay the object, just as may
be done in rough sextant observations. The principle of the instrument is .
extremely simple. A convex lens, of any focal distance (five inches is con-
venient), has a small screen attached to it, whose surface is at its focal
distance. The mirror is so placed that a small portion of its flash impinges
upon one end of the Jens. The signaller’s eye looks partly through the
other end of the lens, and partly free of it. Now the rays from any one
point of the sun’s surface are converged by the upper part of the lens toa
bright point on the screen; and those rays which radiate from that point and
impinge on the lower end of the lens, are brought back by means of it to a
state of parallelism with the rays that originally left the mirror. Conse-
quently, the signaller’s eve sees the bright spot in the precise direction of the
vanishing point of the mirror’s flash, and he can, by looking partly to the
side of the lens, refer it to some particular spot in the distant landscape.
But what is true for any one point on the sun’s disk, is true for every point;
and, accordingly, we obtain a bright disk upon the screen, which appears of
exactly the same shape and size as the sun itself, and necessarily overlays

‘S

NATURAL PHILOSOVHY. 159

the exact area covered by the flash of the mirror. It is scarcely possible to
describe the instruments that were submitted to the Association, without
drawings. They consisted of a tube of wood fifteen inches long, and with
an eye-hole at one end; a mirror turned on an axis at right angles to the
tube; and, in front of the mirror, a slip was cut away from the side of the
tube, and the lens was inserted athwart the cut-out part. Part of the lens
projected within the tube, and part outside of it, and in front of the mirror.
The screen was placed at the further end of the cut-out part, and an envelop
protected the whole from injury. A slide in front of the lens regulated the
amount of light thrown on it, and toned the image to the required degree of
brightness. The addition of a telescope was not found practically useful,
Neither was that of a second mirror, for double reflection, to meet the diili-
culty of sending signals when the sun was behind the back of the signaller.
It is not difficult to signal within twelve degrees of the point opposite to the
sun, and it is possible to do so within seven degrees. The looking-glass
should be of the very best plate-glass, and it ought to have its sides truly
parallel, else there will be a confusion of images and an irregularity in the
flash. Letters are conveyed by treble groups of flashes, each of which
groups consists of one, two, or three flashes, as the case may be.

TELESCOPIC MIRRORS.

Foucault has communicated to the Academy of Sciences a memoir on
the substitution of silvered glass for metallic alloys in the construction of
reflecting telescopes, and on the possibility of producing surfaces of revolu-
tion which reflect parallel rays to a single focus. He remarks, in the first
place, that the spherical surface itself is difficult to obtain with absolute
accuracy. When alaminous point is placed in the centre of curvature of a
concave mirror, the image of this point is usually surrounded by an aureole,
the appearance of which indicates defects in the surface. The author reme-
dies these defects by retouching the mirror in different parts, until the image
is free from faults. The spherical mirror is then converted into an ellipsoidal,
and finally into a paraboloidal mirror, by successive processes of approxima-
tion. A luminous point, placed at first in the centre of curvature, is made
gradually to approach the principal focus; the image, of course, recedes in
the opposite direction. By means of an appropriate polisher, the figure of
the mirror is corrected for each successive portion of the luminous point, until
finally the aberration becomes invisible for parallel rays. With a telescope
constructed in this manner, with a mirror thirty-three centimetres in diame-
ter, and having a focal length of 2m°25 the author succeeded in resolving the
blue star of y Andromede into two distinct points. This result had hitherto
been obtained only by Struve with the large Pulkowa instrument.— Comptes
Rendus, x\vii. 205.

ON THE DANGER ATTENDING THE USE OF RED AND GREEN LIGHTS
AT SEA.

The following is an abstract of amost valuable practical paper submitted
to the British Association, 1858, by Prof. G. Wilson. It commenced by stating
the Admiralty regulations, that “1. All sea-going vessels, when under way,
or being towed, shall, between sunset and sunrise, exhibit a green light on the
starboard side, and a red light upon the portside of the vessel. 2. The colored

160 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

lights shall be fixed wherever it is practicable, so as to exhibit them, and
shall be fitted with in-board screens, projecting at least three feet forward
from the light, so as to prevent the lights being seen across the bow.” The
author then went on to show that these regulations, which would effectually
secure the object intended in most cases, would be most dangerous, should a
seaman be put to steer or look out, who had that peculiar kind of blindness,
of which he had encountered many instances, of not being able to distinguish
red light from green. Statistics of color-blindness are defective, not includ-
ing females; but there is reason to think that not less than one in twenty
is defective in this respect; and of the markedly color-blind, not less than
one in fifty males are so. Out of 1,154 persons, including students, soldiers,
and policemen, examined by the author, one in fifty-five were markedly
color-blind, —7. e. entirely unable to distinguish the colors red, brown,
green, and blue. The author suggests two remedies: —1. A change of the
system itself, which in its details must be left to nautical men. 2. An
examination of all masters, mates, and pilots in the merchant service, as
to their power of distinguishing colored lights within the limits of vision, and
rigorously excluding those who could not.

ON THE DURATION OF LUMINOUS IMPRESSIONS ON CERTAIN
POINTS OF THE RETINA.

At the last meeting of the British Association, 1858, Sir David Brewster
stated that it was well known that the direction of luminous impressions
upon the retina is one third of a second for white light of ordinary intensity.
At a former meeting he had shown that the small circular area at the end of
the axis, whether it be the retina or the choroid, retains light longer than the
general retina, after the eye has been exposed to light; and he had recently
observed that certain points of that membrane, situated, apparently, near its
termination at the ciliary process, have even a greater retentive power. In
order to observe this curious phenomenon, we must extinguish, suddenly,
a gas-flame, to the light of which the eye has been for some time exposed.
We shall then observe a number of bright luminous points arranged in a
circle, the diameter of which is about 72°. These bright points or stars,
apparently placed at equal distances, vanish so quickly, that he had found
it very difficult to determine their number. They may amount to fifteen or
twenty. He had sometimes observed them upon extinguishing a candle, and
also upon quickly shutting the eyes. The parts of the retina from which
these points of light emanate, are probably places where the retina is
attached to the ciliary ring, or other parts in the interior of the eye, and
may, therefore, be detected by the anatomist.

ON THE LAWS OF COLOR.

The following is an abstract of a lecture on the above _ oject, before the
Royal Institution, London, by Mr. Grace Calvert. The lecturer stated that
he had three objects in view in his discourse. The first was to make known
the laws of color, as discovered by his learned master, M. Chevreul; secondly,
to explain their importance in a scientific point of view; and, thirdly, their
value to arts and manufactures.

To understand the laws of colors, it is necessary to know the composition
of light. Newton was the first person who gaye to the world any statement

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 161

relative to the components of light, which he said consisted of seven colors,
—-red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. It is now distinctly
proved that four of these seven colors of the spectrum are the result of the
combination of the three colors now known as the primitive colors, viz., red,
blue, and yellow. Thus, blue and red combined, produce purple or indigo;
blue and yellow, green; while red and yellow produce orange: these facts
being known, it is easy to prove that there are not seven, but three primitive,
and four secondary, called complementary, colors.

Several proofs can be given that light is composed of three colors only.
One of the most simple consists in placing pieces of blue, red, and yellow
papers on a circular disk, and rotating it rapidly,— the effect of the eye being
to produce a disk of white light. If, therefore, the eye can be deceived so
readily while the disk travels at so slow a rate, what must necessarily be the
case when it is remembered that light proceeds at the rate of 190,000 miles
per second?

The rapidity with which light travels is such that the eye is not able to
perceive either the blue, red, or yellow, — the nerves of the retina not being
sensitive enough to receive and convey successively to the mind the three or
seven colors of which the light is composed.

Before entering into the laws of color, Mr. Grace Calvert stated that it
might be interesting to know what scientific minds had devoted attention to
the laws of colors.

Buffon followed Newton, and his researches had special reference to what
M. Chevreul had called the “‘ successive contrasts ”’ of colors.

Father Scherffer, a monk, also wrote on the laws of color. Goethe, the
poet, also brought his mind to bear upon the subject, and studied it to a
great extent. Count Rumford, about the end of the eighteenth century,
published several memoirs on the laws of colors. He explained very satis-
factorily the “‘successive”’ contrast, and arrived at some insight into the
“ simultaneous ”’ one; still he did not Jay down its real laws.

Prieur, Leblanc, Harris, and Field, were also writers of most interesting
works on this subject. The reason that they did not arrive at the definite
laws of color was because they had not divided those laws into successive,
simultaneous, and mixed contrasts. These form the basis of the practical
laws of color, and the honor of their discovery is due to M. Chevreul.

The reason why a surface appears white or brilliant, is, that a large portion
of the light which falls on its surface is reflected on the retina, and in such
a quantity as gives to the surface a brilliant aspect; whilst in plain white
surfaces, the rays of light being diffused in all directions, and a small portion
only arriving to the eye, the surface does not appear brilliant. The influence
of colors on these two kinds of surfaces is very different, as may be perceived
by the examples round the room, showing the influence of different colors
on gold ornaments. When rays of light, instead of being reflected, are
absorbed by a surface or substance, it appears black; therefore white and
black are not colors, as they are due to the reflection or absorption of unde-
composed light. It is easy to understand why a surface appears blue: it is
due to the property which the surface has to reflect only blue rays, whilst it
absorbs the yellow and red rays; and if a certain portion of light is reflected
with one of the colored rays, it will decrease its intensity; thus, red rays with
white ones produce pink. On the contrary, if a quantity of undecomposed

ight is absorbed, black is produced, which, by tarnishing the color and
» making it appear darker, generates dark reds, blues, or yellows. The second-

14* ‘

162 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

ary colors are produced by one of the primitive colors being absorbed, and
the two others reflected ; forexample, if red be absorbed, and blue and yellow
reflected, the surface appears green. There are two reasons why a perfect
blue, yellow, red, cannot be seen, etc. The first is, that surfaces cannot
entirely absorb one or two rays, and reflect the others. The second is, that
when the retina receives the impression of one color, immediately its com-
plementary color is generated. Thus, if a blue circle is placed on a perfectly
gray surface, an orange hue will be perceived round it; if an orange circle,
round it will be noticed a bluish tint; if a red circle, a green; if a greenish-
yellow circle, a violet; if an orange-yellow circle, an indigo; and so on.

The ‘‘ successive” contrast has long been known; and it consists in the
fact, that on looking steadfastly for a few minutes on a red surface fixed on
a white sheet of paper, and then carrying the eye to another white sheet of
paper, there will be perceived on it not a red, but a green one; if green, red ;
if purple, yellow; if blue, orange.

The ‘‘simultaneous”’ contrast is the most interesting and useful to be
acquainted with. When two colored surfaces are in juxtaposition, they
mutually influence each other,— favorably, if harmonizing colors, or in a
contrary manner, if discordant; and in such proportion, in either case, as to
be in exact ratio with the quantity of complementary color which is gene-
rated in the eye. For example, if two half-sheets of plain tinted paper,
one dark-green, the other of a brilliant red, are placed side by side on a gray
piece of cloth, the colors will be mutually improved, in consequence of the
green generated by the red surface adding itself to the green of the juxta-
posed surface, thus increasing its intensity; the green in its turn augmenting
the beauty of the red. This effect can easily be appreciated if two other
pieces of paper of the same colors are placed at a short distance from the
corresponding influenced ones, as below:

Red. Red-green. Green.

It is not sufficient merely to place complementary colors side by side to
produce harmony of color, since the respective intensities have a most de-
cided influence. Thus, pink and light-green agree; red and dark-green, also;
but light-green and dark-red, pink and dark-green, do not: and thus, to ob-
tain the maximum of effect and perfect harmony, the following colors must
be placed side by side, taking into account their exact intensity of shade
and tint.

HARMONIZING COLORS.

Primitive Complementary
Colors. Colors.
Light-blue,
Red, - -.- - = - Green, - - -. Yellow, {Whit light.
Red,
Red,
Blue, - - - - - - Orange, - - - 4 Yellow, twit light.
' Blue,
Blue, -
Yellow-orange, - - Indigo, - - - 4 Red, White light.
Yellow, ;
( Red,
Greenish-yellow, - Violet, - - - ) Bie, {wie light.
Yellow,
Yellow,
Black, - - - + -=“White, - - - } Biss, White light.
Red,

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 163

If attention is not paid to the arrangement of colors according to the
above diagram, instead of their mutually improving each other, they will,
on the contrary, lose in beauty. Thus, if blue and purple are placed side by
side, the blue, throwing its complementary color, orange, upon the purple,
will give it a faded appearance; and the blue, receiving the orange-yellow of
the purple, will assume a greenish tinge. The same may be said of yellow
and red, if placed in juxtaposition. The red, by throwing its complementary
color, green, on the yellow, communicates to it a greenish tinge; the yellow,
by throwing its purple hue, imparts to the red a disagreeable purple appear-
ance. The very great importance of these principles to every one who
intends to display or arrange colored goods or fabrics, was convincingly
shown from a great variety of embroidered silks, calicoes, and paper-hang-
ings, Which demonstrated that if these laws are neglected, not only will the
labor and talent expended by the manufacturer to produce on a given piece
of goods the greatest effect possible, be neutralized, but perhaps lost. It was
clearly demonstrated that these effects are not only produced by highly-colored
surfaces, but also by those whose colors are exceedingly pale, as, for exam-
ple, light greens, or light blues with buffs; and that even in gray surfaces, as
pencil drawings, the contrast of tone between two shades was distinctly visi-
ble. The contrast of tone, or tint, was most marked when two tints of the
same color were juxtaposed, and it was therefore the interest of an artist to
pay attention to this principle when employing two tints of the same scale
of color. From the “‘ mixed contrast,” arises the rule that a brilliant color
should never be looked at for any length of time, if its true tint or brilliancy
is to be appreciated ; for if a piece of red cloth is looked at for a few minutes,
green, its complementary color, is generated in the eye, and adding itself to
a portion of the red, produces black, which tarnishes the beauty of the
red. This contrast explains, too, why the tone of a color is modified, either
favorably or otherwise, according to the color which the eye has previously
looked at. Favorably, when, for instance, the eye first looks to a yellow
surface, and then to a purple one; and unfavorably, when it looks at a blue
and then at a purple.

Mr. Calvert also showed that black and white surfaces assume different hues
according to the colors placed in juxtaposition with them ; for example, black
acquires an orange, or purple tint, if the colors placed beside it are blue or
orange; but these effects can be overcome, in the case of these, or any other
colors, by giving to the influenced color a tint similar to that influencing it.
Thus, to prevent black from becoming orange by its contact with blue, it is
merely necessary that the black should be blued, and in such proportion that
the amount of blue will neutralize the orange thrown on by influence, thus
producing black. As an instance, to prevent a gray design acquiring a
pinkish shade through working it with green, give the gray a greenish hue,
which, by neutralizing the pink, will generate white light, and thus preserve
the gray. Mr. Calvert, after explaining the chromatic table of M. Chevreul,
which enabled any person at a glance to ascertain what was the complemen-
tary of any of the 13,480 colors which M. Chevreul had distinctly classed in
his table, stated that it was of the highest importance to artists to be ac-
quainted with these, in order to know at once the exact color, shade, and
tint, which would produce the greatest effect, when placed beside another
color; and that they could save great waste of time —which, no doubt, the
great masters lost in ascertaining by experiment those laws — by consulting
M. Chevreul’s work.

164 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

ON SOME APPARATUS FOR EXHIBITING OPTICAL ILLUSIONS
OF SPECTRAL PHENOMENA.

Mr. H. Dircks, in a paper before the British Association on the above sub-
ject, after quoting some passages in Sir David Brewster’s “‘ Natural Magic,”
in which the author had intimated that reflection by concave specula must
form the basis of all spectral illusions by reflection, and pointing out the
inconvenience of using these for producing images of living and moving
persons, in consequence of their inverting objects, stated that he had con-
trived a means by which living actors, some the real persons, others the
images of persons concealed from the direct view of the spectators, might be
formed by a large plate of glass dividing the room in which the exhibition
was made; the spectators being in a darkened portion above, but at one side
of the glass plate, while the living persons on the other side of it could be
seen quite clearly through the glass; and the images of other persons walk-
ing about in the room under them, seen by reflection, would appear in the
same place as the living persons seen directly, and could be thus made to
appear to perform most amusing spectral feats, such as passing through
walls, into and coming out of the living actors, and so on.

NEW AND GIGANTIC TELESCOPE.

Mr. Lassell, the eminent English astronomer, has been for some time
engaged upon the construction of a new and gigantic reflecting telescope.
The diameter of the mirror (not yet worked) is to be four feet, the same size as
Sir William Herschel’s largest mirrors. Its weight is a ton and a half. The
tube is a skeleton. The mounting is equatorial, similar in its general form
to that which Mr. Lassell has used with smaller telescopes. A part of the
apparatus, of which the plan is perfectly novel, is the observing-box. It is
something like a very tall sentry-box, between thirty and forty feet high,
in which slides upwards and downwards a cage like the teagle of a cotton-
mill; in this cage the observer is stationed. The tall box stands upona
ring-turn-table which surrounds the telescope’s polar axis. The ring appears ©
to have a motion in azimuth, and the tall box has a radial motion on the
ring: and the combination of these two motions with vertical motion of the
teagle, gives command of the telescope’s mouth in all positions. The tall
box is so arranged that, when the telescope is turned to a proper azimuth,
and is depressed to a nearly horizontal position, the tall box, turning upon a
hinge at its base, can be lowered over the telescope tube to protect it from
the weather. In addition to the particular motions described, the mounting
for the observer was hinged, so as to cover the telescope; and it also turned
upon an axis, so as to present the observer in the more favorable position
with regard to the eye-piece.

ON THE INFLUENCE OF TEMPERATURE UPON PHOSPHORESCENCE.

FE. Becquerel has found that the color of the light emitted by phosphores-
cent bodies depends upon the temperature. Thus, sulphid of strontium,
obtained by the action of sulphur upon caustic strontia at 700° C. or 800° C.,
is luminous with a violet light at ordinary temperatures, but changes its
tints when the temperature varies, and returns again to its original tint
when the original temperature is restored. In the case of sulphid of stron-

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 165

tium, the colors diminish in refrangibility as the temperature rises; but the
reverse is the case with some other substances. The different effects depend
upon the particular molecular condition of each substance. — Comptes Ren-
dus, x\vii. 104.

EXPERIMENTS ON RADIANT HEAT.

The following account of some experiments on radiant heat, involving an
extension of Prevost’s theory of exchanges, was presented to the British As-
sociation, at the last meeting, by Mr. B. Stewart. The experiments in ques-
tion were performed with the aid of the thermomultiplier, the source of heat
being for the most part bodies heated to 212°... Four groups of experiments
were considered. Group the first contains those experiments in which the
quantities of heat radiated from polished piates of different substances at
a given temperature, are compared with the quantity radiated from a similar
surface Of lampblack at the same temperature. The result of this group of
experiments is, that glass, alum, and selenite radiate about 98 per cent. of
what lampblack does; thick mica, 92; thin mica, 81; and rock-salt only
15 per cent. The second group of experiments was designed to compare
together the quantities of heat radiated at the same temperature from pol-
ished plates of the same substance, but of different thicknesses. The result
of this group was, that, while the difference between the radiating power of
thick and thin glass is so small as not to be capable of being directly
observed, there is a perceptible difference between the radiation from thick
and thin mica, and a stiil more marked difference between the radiation
from plates of rock-salt of unequal thickness. The third group of experi-
ments was made with the view of comparing the radiations from various
polished plates with that from lampblack, as regards the quality of the heat,
—its quality being tested by its capability of transmission through a screen
of the same material as the radiating plate. From this group of experiments
it appears that heat emitted by glass, mica, or rock-salt, is less transmissible
through a screen of the same material as the heated plate than heat from
lampblack,— this difference being very marked in the case of rock-salt,
which only transmits about one-third of the rays from heated rock-salt.
The common opinion that rock-salt is equally diathermanous for all descrip-
tions of heat, is therefore untenable. The fourth group of» experiments
shows that heat from thick plates of glass, mica, or rock-salt, is more easily
transmitted by screens of the same nature as the heated plate than heat
from thin plates of these materials. It was shown that all these experi-
ments may be explained by Prevost’s theory of exchanges, somewhat ex-
tended. This extension consists of the following laws:—1. Each particle
of a substance has an independent radiation of its own, equal in all directions,
and without regard to the distance of the particle from the surface of the
body. 2. The radiation of a particle equals its absorption, and that for
every description of heat. 3. The flow of heat from within upon the interior
surface of a polished plate of indefinite thickness, is proportional to the index
of refraction of the body, and that for every description of heat. The bear-
ing of these experiments on Dulong and Petit’s law of radiation was then
attempted to be traced. It was shown that unless bodies from simply being
heated change their transmissibility for the same description of heat (which
there is no reason to suppose), the radiation of thin plates or particles at a

166 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

high temperature will bear a less proportion to the total radiation of that
temperature than at a low, —the consequence will be, that the radiation of
single particles will increase with the temperature in a less degree than Du-
long and Petit’s law would indicate. It may even be that the radiation of a
particle of very thin plate may be proportional to the absolute temperature
of that particle. Taking a piece of glass or mica, therefore, at a low temper-
ature, as it is very opaque with regard to the heat radiated by itself, we may
suppose that the total radiation consists of that of the outer layer of particles
only, that from the inner layers being all stopped by the outer. At high tem-
peratures, however, we may suppose there is not only the radiation of the
outer layer, but also part of that of the inner layer which has been able to
pass, swelling up the total radiation to what it appears in Dulong and Petit’s
experiments. This way of looking at radiation may possibly bring the
radiative power of particles to obey the same laws with the conducting
power of particles, which Professor Forbes has shown decreases with an
increase of temperature.

ON THE HEATING OF THE ATMOSPHERE BY CONTACT WITH THE
EARTH’S SURFACE.

The following is an abstract of a paper on the above subject, read before
the British Association for 1858, by Prof. Hennessy:
- The temperature of the atmosphere depends principally on the heat which
it receives from the sun and on what it loses by radiation. A portion of the
solar heat is absorbed in passing through the air, while another portion pen-
etrates to the earth’s surface. The ground becomes thus heated, and the
lower strata of the atmosphere acquire the greater part of their heat from
contact with the warmed surface. It is admitted that the mode in which the
air becomes heated by contact with the ground must he a kind of circulation
analogous to that seen in the movements of a heated mass of liquid, such as
boiling water. When studying the vertical movements of the atmosphere,
he had been led to consider the connection between such movements and the
influence of the heated ground. In order to experimentally study the ques-
tion, thermometers were suspended at different heights above the ground,
and under different circumstances of exposure to the influence of the sup-
posed currents. Observations were made every minute, and sometimes every
half minute, during short intervals, about the middle of the month of May,
on days when the sky was clear, and during which there was consequently a
great deal of solar radiation. In general the thermometers exhibited fluc-
tuations of temperature, the intensity of which diminished the more they
were protected from the influence of circulating currents in the air. The
greatest fluctuations were presented by thermometers with blackened bulbs
exposed in the sun. This arose from the circumstance that the blackened
bulbs, by acquiring a high temperature, became themselves disturbing agents
in the calorific conditions of the surrounding air. Evidence of similar phe-
nomena appears to be presented by the curves of temperature obtained by
the aid of photographical registration at the Radcliffe Observatory in Ox-
ford. Attention has been called by Mr. Johnson to a remarkable serration
in the temperature curves during the day. This serration is found only when
there is a considerable amount of solar radiation; it disappears during sun-
less and cloudy weather. While it is explained by referring it to the influ-

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 167

ence of the solar heat upon the ground, and the consequent circulation of
small atmospheric currents, it affords a very satisfactory confirmation of the
trustworthiness of the photographical method of registration.

Prof. H. also showed, that the decrease of temperature in ascending through
the atmosphere depended not only on height above the sea level, but also
upon the absolute height above the nearest surface of solid land. In this
way the decrease of temperature over plains, mountains, and plateaus, would
be necessarily very different; and we cannot immediately infer the state of
the phenomena in the two latter instances from what may exist in a former.

Admiral FitzRoy thought that one circumstance was too much over-
looked by Prof. Hennessy in these researches, namely, that along with these
ascending currents the whole body of the air was carried along by horizontal
currents, so that it could not be assumed that it was the very same air which
gave some of the indications which afforded the others. Again, it had been
clearly shown that a thermometer placed upon the ground, or close to it, fre-
quently fell 17° or 18° below one placed a few feet or inches above it, while
somewhat higher up still, the indications of the thermometer again fell; thus
clearly indicating a spot at which there was a maximum temperature. As to
the latter part of what he stated, it was so commonly observed, that if you
placed a thermometer in the lower window of a house, and another in the
window immediately above it, in nine cases out of ten you would find the
latter indicate a lower temperature than the former. Prof. Stevelly said
that, besides what Admiral FitzRoy had pointed out, there were two other
circumstances of much importance to be attended to in such observations as
Prof. Hennessy had been making. First, that evaporation was going on
more or less rapidly according to the circumstances of the locality where the
observations were conducted. Secondly, that the air, when having — either
gradually, as in some cases, or abruptly, as in others — to ascend in its course
very elevated ground, was compelled to contract in volume, become con-
densed, and yet, in some cases, part with a portion of its vapor, and thus
form the cloud which we so often saw capping the hills, as well as giv-
ing origin to the high winds and storms which so frequently prevailed
there. Dr. Tyndall said that in Switzerland, on the tops of high mountains,
he had a full opportunity of witnessing these phenomena on a scale of
grandeur truly sublime. The snow in these regions was naturally as dry as
dust, and he had frequently an opportunity of witnessing columns of it
whirled up to an immense height by the ascending currents of air, into
regions where it was soon dissipated or melted, and dispersed into vapor. It
was also to be observed that the sun’s heat had a power of penetrating water
and other screens, such as the clouds formed, far surpassing that possessed
by heat derived from less intensely ignited or heated sources, as, for instance,
from bodies heated red-hot, or from vessels filled with hot water and the like.
Hence the sun’s rays, though they penetrated the clouds and the earth, yet
there they totally lost their former powers, and when radiated back possessed
no such power as before of penetrating clouds or other screens; and thus the
carth and its atmosphere became a kind of trap for the solar rays.

ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF HEAT IN THE INTERIOR OF THE EARTH.

In a paper submitted to the British Association, 1858, by Dr. Siljestrom, of
Stockholm, on the distribution of heat in the interior of the globe, the author
stated as his belief, that the interior of the earth was occupied by currents of

168 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

various degrees of heat, which mixed with each other and attained a certain
degree of temperature in the same manner as substances subject to all the
physical influences of the earth’s exterior.

Prof. Hennessy remarked that the views of Dr. Siljestrom seemed to state
in other words the well-known fact, that a mass of fluid possessing different
temperatures in different parts of its interior must be subjected to a process
of convection. The result is usually a change of volume in the entire mass
of circulating fluid. This change is capable of being observed in ordinary
experiments, and may also affect the volume of the fluid matter in the inte-
rior of the earth, provided the changes of temperature of the fluid are sufli-
ciently great. But it is clearly proved that the refrigeration of the earth is
now so extremely slow, that it is not likely that any considerable changes of
volumes arising from this cause could have arisen within recent periods. If
such changes have arisen, they must have occurred during remote geological
epochs.

EXPERIMENT SHOWING THE CONTRACTION OF WATER THROUGH
TEMPERATURE.

At a recent meeting of the Edinburgh Philosophical Society, an experi-
ment showing the contraction of water above the freezing point, was ex-
hibited. The water operated on was contained in a glass jar, about 4 inches
in diameter and 18 inches high; and the changes in its density were shown
by the ascent and descent of colored glass balls, about an inch in diameter.
When the water was ice-cold the balls were all at the bottom; but gradually,
as the warmth of the room was communicated to the water, its contraction
and consequent increase of density caused the balls to rise. As the water
approached the state of greatest density, the heavier balls were seen to move
irregularly about, in consequence e of the current caused by the changes of
temperature. In the course of an hour, the point of maximum density hay-
ing been passed, the balls began to descend in reverse order, and at last all
again reached the bottom.

ON SOME PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF ICE.

In a recent lecture by Professor Tyndall before the Royal Institution on
the above subject, the author, after referring to the force by which crystalline
architecture is accomplished, exhibited some phenomena of crystallization by
means of the photo-electric microscope. The manner in which the molecu-
lar aggregation was affected when a beam of radiant heat was sent into the
interior of a mass of ice, was examined. The track of such a beam pre-
sented a beautiful appearance — flattened spheroids were observed, which at
certain incidences of the light shone with more than metallic brillianey, and
around each a liquid flower, consisting invariably of six petals, was formed.
The spot at the centre of each flower was proved to be a vacuum, and the
‘formation of the flowers in a piece of ice through which a beam of electric
light was transmitted was rendered visible to the audience. The air and
water cavities, which, in the case of glacier ice, have caused so much dis-
cussion, were next examined. It was proved that the water was due to the
melting of the ice round the air cavities. The hypothesis pronounced by M.
Agassiz and the Messrs. Schlagintweit to account for this water, and which
has hitherto been universally accepted, is, that the ice permits the radiant
‘heat to pass, the heat warms the air, and it in its turn melts the iec. It was

‘

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 169

proved by the speaker that this view is wholly untenable. One of its con-
sequences would be that a bubble of air would be capable of absorbing in a
few minutes a quantity of heat which would raise its temperature upwards
of 400,000 degrees, or more than 160 times that of fused cast iron. The
melting of the ice was shown to be a simple consequence of the dynamical
theory of heat; molecular motion is transmitted through the solid ice, with-
out prejudice to its solidity, and detaches the particles at the surface of the
internal cavity, as the last of a series of elastic balls is detached by force
which has traversed a row of them without producing visible separation.
The passage of snow into glacier ice was next considered. It was referred
to the enormous pressure of the moist neve upon its own mass. That mois-
ture was necessary was shown by moulding ice at thirty-two degrees into
cups; while, when it was rendered perfectly dry by immersion in a bath of
solid carbonic acid and ether, the ice on being crushed became a powder as
white as snow. Crushed glass or quartz could not have been whiter or more
opaque.

ON THE EXISTENCE OF AN ETHEREAL MEDIUM.

At a recent meeting of the French Academy, M. Le Verrier was asked
(on the occasion of announcing the return of Encke’s comet in almost ex-
actly the position assigned to it by caiculation) the very delicate and difficult
question, whether or not the present rate of return of this important little
body confirms the opinion which the study of its orbits originated, namely,
that the space through which the heavenly masses move, is full of a resisting
ethereal medium, tending always to retard their advances, diminish their
orbits, and bring them finally into the sun. The reply was entirely non-
committal, and, in brief, was that, even if Encke’s first suspicions of it should
not be confirmed, his long and admirable calculations of the subject of this
resistance shows the handling of a master. Mr. Babinet, however, boldly
entered upon the subject, and asserted that the continued observations of this
comet teach us, as yet, nothing definite upon the subject.

PERSONAL EQUATION.

At a recent meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society, England, the
Astronomer Royal read the following communication from Professor Mitchel
of Cincinnati, on “‘ Personal Equation.”

“At the meeting of the American Association of 1856, I announced the
fact that I had contrived a simple apparatus for the investigation of the
subject of ‘absolute personal equation.’ Sickness in my family, and other
causes, have combined to prevent a full investigation of this subject until
the beginning of the present year. In case a star could be made to record
the moment of its own transit, the difference between the star’s record and
that of any observer would be the observer’s absolute personal equation, or
what I shall term hereafter the ‘ personality of the eye.’ In like manner, in
case a sound: could be made to record the moment of its occurrence, the dif-
ference between the record and that of an observer would give what I term
‘absolute personality of the ear.’ The same of the sense of touch, which
as a matter of physiological curiosity, has somewhat engaged my attention.
As the stars cannot at present be made to record their own transits, I haye
substituted what I call ‘artificial stars, moving uniformly with a velocity
somewhat greater than that of an equatorial star observed with a power of

15

170 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

two hundred, the power of the eye-piece now used in the transit telescope.
By means of an electro-magnet, these artificial stars (ten in number) attached
to my revolving disk, are made to record the exact moment at which they
transit an artificial meridian line. The observer, by the aid of another
magnet, records the moment of his observed transit, and the difference of
these two records, corrected for difference of armature and gross time of
the two magnets, gives me the ‘absolute personality of the eye.’ This same
quantity has been obtained also from a record of the moment at which the
eye perceives a white ‘stripe’ on a dark ground, thrown into view by the
sudden action of the electro-magnetic armature, which records the moment
of transit of the artificial stars. These quantities, as will be seen hereafter,
are almost identical. To obtain ‘absolute personality of the ear,’ the ob-
server, with his magnetic key, attempts to record the moment he perceives
the sound produced by the fall of the ‘ time-pen’ on the disk, as driven by
the armature of the time electro-magnet, it falls, and makes its ‘true’ dot.
The interval between the dot struck by the time-pen and that struck by the
observer’s recording-pen, gives the time required for the ear to execute its
office, and for the nerves obedient to the will to execute the record. A like
process, which is quite unnecessary to describe, gives ‘personality of the
touch.’ To the practical astronomer the personality of eye and ear are
alone important; to those who have adopted the American method of tran-
sits, the ‘personality of the eye’ remains as the quantity whose value and
variations it is required to determine. Our regular observations have been
continued daily, with few exceptions, through some sixty or seventy days,
—my assistant, Mr. H. Twitchell, and myself making an equal number of
observations to determine the following quantities :— 1. Absolute personality
of eye. 2. Absolute personality of ear. 3. Observed moment of transit.
4. Observed moment of emersion. 5. Observed moment of immersion.
These constitute the regular observations. Besides these, I have obtained
the ‘eye and ear personality’ of about thirty persons (not observers) of each
sex, and of ages from fourteen to seventy-five years. Among these individ-
uals I find thus far no law which seems to govern the personality. The
range is small, as the personality of eye varies between the lowest limit
137 thousandths of a second, and the highest limit 214 thousandths of one
second of time. The personality of ear has for its least amount 157 thou-
sandths of a second, and for its greatest limit, 223 thousandths of one second
of time; and each of these limits belongs to the same two observers. The
mean personality of my own eye, as obtained from 255 observations, is 161
thousandths of a second. The mean personality of my ear, as obtained
from an equal number of measures, is 164 thousandths of a second. These
same quantities for Mr. Twitchell, as given by the same number of observa-
tions on the same days with my own, are for the eye 144, and for the ear,
153 thousandths of one second of time. My minimum ‘eye personality ’ is

39 thousandths of a second, the maximum reaches to 191 thousandths.
My minimum ‘ear personality’ is 143, my maximum ‘ear personality’ is
193 thousandths of one second of time. The same quantities for Mr.
Twitchell are for *

= Ss Ss
The eye, Minimum........- SHcaop Up UKs cb. orinibinos An BAGS homanitis 0.184
ear ue Sean rotator 0-129 ef Seat fae hs 40 208

Having reached the above results, I was now curious to learn whether the
eye and ear were steady for very short periods of time. For this purpose

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. ; 171

my assistant and myself each made five series of ten observations, each on
alternate minutes, which being continued several days, showed that we were
liable to a variation of ‘eye personality ’ amounting to about two hundredths
of a second on the mean of ten observations. [also found that the differ-
ence already established between Mr. Twitchell and myself was confirmed in
in these observations. I will simply remark that the sense of touch gave
results almost identical with those of the eye; and this fact being soon dis-
covered, the observations for personality of touch were discontinued. Thus
far we have presented results obtained by the eye, in seizing an almost
instantaneous movement, the sudden darting of a white line from behind a
black screen. When a comparison was instituted between the absolute and
observed moments of transits of the artificial stars, 1 found, much to my
surprise, that both my assistant any myself largely anticipated the true time;
and that in every instance, without one exception, the same fact was noticed
in other persons, who were ignorant of what they were doing, while record-
ing their transits. After learning the fact of this unconscious anticipation,
efforts were made to cure the evil by special attention. To some extent this
was done, but the tendency was to an immediate relapse the moment special
attention was discontinued. I find (on a mean of ten observations) my own
anticipations amounting to the tenth of a second of time in more than one
instance, while Mr. Twitchell’s error is nearly as large. The variations from
day to day, and from observation to observation in the same set were far
larger than I had anticipated. This gave rise to the observation of ‘emer-
sions’ of the artificial stars from behind a dark screen. Here I founda
steadiness in the results precisely equal to the performance of the eye as
already determined, which for my assistant and myself seems to be the
highest limit of attainable accuracy. The experiments of observed immer-
sion exhibited the fact of a strong tendency to anticipation, and a less degree
of steadiness in the work. I now became anxious to apply the discoveries
thus made in some practical manner to our star transits. For this purpose [
have constructed a diaphragm, consisting of eight occulting bars, four on
each side of a central spider’s line. We observe the emersion from the first
bar, both immersion and emersion from the second, third, and fourth bars,
the transit of the central wire, the immersion and emersion of the fifth,
sixth, and seventh bars, and the immersion on the eighth bar; in this way
we make fifteen observations; these bars are about two seconds of time in
width, and their intervals about four seconds at the equator. By observing
emersion and immersion, we hope to avoid any error arising from stars of
different magnitudes, as the larger stars will emerge sooner and disappear
later, a mean of the two observations giving us the place of an imaginary
wire between the two bars correctly.”

ON ROTATORY STABILITY AND ITS APPLICATIONS TO ASTRONOMI-
CAL OBSERVATIONS ON BOARD SHIPS.

The following paper has been read before the Royal Society, by Professor
Baden Powell. The subject of rotatory motion, especially when taking place
under those combinations which are presented in the gyroscope, or free-
balanced revolver, has attracted much attention at the present day; and
though the primary mechanical principles bearing upon it had long since
been understood, and acknowledged in theory, yet the practical results, to
which they might lead, had been so little considered, that when first tangibly

$732 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

exhibited, they created unbounded surprise. In a former lecture before the
Royal Institution (1854), he had discussed the principle of ‘composition of
rotations,” and those applications of it which had been found in certain
rotatory phenomena of projectiles, illustrated the same by the gyroscope in
its several earlier forms as successively modified by Bonenberger, Atkinson,
Fessel, and Wheatstone, showing the identity of these results on a small
scale with the grand cosmical phenomenon of the procession of the equinoxes.
Since the date of that lecture, the striking results produced by merely carry

ing out the same principles, and applying the gyroscope to demonstrate
directly the fact of the earth’s rotation, as well as under other conditions to
point to the poles, by M. Foucault, have become familiarly known.

In recurring to the subject on the present occasion, the object is to explain
another application of the same principles, like the former, very obvious when
once disclosed ; but which, nevertheless, remained unknown and unthought of
until it was pointed out and actually effected by the inventions of Professor
C. P. Smyth; the use of rotatory apparatus for giving an invariable plane or
platform for astronomical instruments used at sea. To render the subject intel-
ligible it is necessary to recur to two simple first principles in dynamics,
which, when distinctly apprehended, give the clue to the whole of the appli-
cations. The first of these is the tendency of a body in rotation to retain
that rotation in the same plane, when perfectly balanced, irrespective of the
motion of external objects, which is termed ‘“‘the fixity of the plane of
rotation.’”’ The second is “‘the composition of rotatory motion; ’”’ or that
when a force is impressed on a body in rotation, it does not show itself
directly, but is compounded with the first motion, so that the rotation takes
an intermediate direction, or the axis shifts its position in space; this being
the cause of the motion of the earth’s axis, giving rise to the precession of
equinoxes, it is called generally a “ precessional motion.” This first princi-
ple is that chiefly referred to in the inventions about to be described, where
the effect depends essentially on the great amount of resistance thus offered
to any angular motion impressed by an extraneous cause on a perfectly-
balanced revolving heavy disk. The mostimportant observations requisite to
be made at sea are those of the altitudes of the heavenly bodies, on which de-
pend both the determination of the latitude, and the correction of time essential
to finding the longitude ; and for this purpose there is a necessity for a well-
defined horizon, which it is often impossible to obtain from the atmosphere in
its lower parts,when the sun or star can be distinctly seen above, and this more
especially at night; yet the safety of the ship may essentially depend on such
an observation. Hence various plans have been resorted to for obtaining an
artificial horizon. Simple reflection from the surface of a liquid can hardly
ever be practicable, on account of the motion of the ship, though it is the usual
substitute on land. The most celebrated attempt to substitute some other
principle was an application of rotatory motion, devised by the late Mr. Trough-
ton, in 1820. It consists in causing a disk, truly balanced on a fixed pivot, to
spin round with great velocity, so as to keep up its motion during the time
required for an observation, known by the name of “‘ Troughton’s top.” The
disk carried a plane reflector on its upper surface; and being a cylinder hol-
lowed out at its lower end, and the point of support within, the centre of gray-
ity is thrown below, so that it is in stable equilibrium when at rest. The
velocity is communicated by a separate train of wheels, from which it can be
instantly detached. Thus, from the principle of jixity of the plane of rotation,
it was expected that the reflecting surface would preserve its level, notwith-

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 173

standing the motion of the ship. The method was, however, found practically
to fail; and the failure has been since traced to another mechanical principle.
The pivot partakes in the irregular motion of the ship. When the disk is not
revolving, this motion is in turn communicated to the disk, and the centre of
gravity being below,— the very circumstance which gives it stability on land,
— causes it to acquire an oscillatory movement. When in rotation this does
not show itself directly, but is compounded with the rotation, and causes a
processional motion, which is fatal to its use as a horizontal reflector. Hence, if
the centre of gravity coincided with the point of support, as would be most
readily done by suspending the revolving disks in gymbals in the manner of
Bonenberger’s machine, this cause of irregularity would be avoided. By
this means it would preserve its original level; but this would not necessa-
rily, or usually, be the true horizontal level. To obtain the true horizontal point
another contrivance has been made by the same inventor, which has been
fully described in the “ Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society,” vol.
Xviii., p. 65, January, 1858. But for other classes of observation on board
ship which involve the use of the telescope, especially those requiring one of
considerable power, the same requisite of invariable stability of direction is
yet more indispensable, but hitherto unattained. One of the most important
desiderata of nautical astronomy has always been the means of observing at
sea the eclipses of Jupiter’s satellites, so frequently recurring, and affording
so simple and direct a means of obtaining the longitude. In general, to pro-
cure stability on ship-board, it seemed an obvious recourse simply to suspend
any object which it was desired to keep steady by cords from a fixed point
in the vessel. But a body thus suspended is like a plumb line: when the
point of support is itself set in motion, it acquires a part of that motion and
becomes a pendulum ; and it oscillates more irregularly and violently from
the accumulation of motions impressed upon it continually by every fresh
motion of the ship. The case is the same as that just considered in Trough-
ton’s top. Nairne’s or Irwin’s “ Marine Chair,” for carrying the observer
and his telescope, was simply an application of this principle. It was tried
on board ship, especially in a voyage to the West Indies, by the late Dr.
Maskelyne: and though somewhat prematurely rewarded by the govern-
ment, was found not to answer; though no one seemed fully aware of the
cause of its failure, till Sir J. Herschel (in the ‘ Admiralty Manual,”’ )
pointed out the principle just stated, and showed that this free suspension
must tend to perpetuate disturbances rather than to destroy them. Thus, to
produce the desired stability for a plane or stand on which the telescope is
to be rested, we must have recourse to the free revolving disk accurately bal-
anced within gymbals, on its centre of gravity. The balancing must be per-
fected by means of adjustable plugs both in the disk and in the gymbal
frames; the pivots of the gymbals must be of perfect workmanship, to turn
with the least possible friction, yet without looseness or displacement. An
immense rotatory velocity must be communicated to the disk by machinery,
of which its suspension must be quite independent, so that the moving
power can be instantaneously withdrawn. All these conditions are fulfilled
in the form of the machine, which, after repeated trials, has been adopted by
Prof. Smyth, exhibited by him at the Paris Exhibition, 1855, and success-
fully tried on board Mr. Stephenson’s yacht Titania, on his voyage to Ten-
eriffe, in 1856. The grand principle of fixity in the plane of free rotation, is
that which enables the revolving disk to retain parallelism to its original
plane, however the external plane or pivots supporting the whole be moved.
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174 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

From this principle the revolving disk resists all angular change of position
in directions perpendicular to its plane ; but it offers no resistance to any mo-
tion i that plane. Thus a free revolving disk in gymbals externally turn-
ing on pivots horizontally resting on supports fixed to the deck, will suffice
to preserve the telescope from all deviation due to pitching and rolling. The
addition of another disk, freely revolving in a vertical plane, whose external
pivots turn vertically in a frame attached to the top of the former internal
frame, the upper pivot projecting through it, and carrying a small platform
for the telescope, and the whole, of course, balanced below, — will preserve
the telescope from any lateral deviations of the ship. And the combination
of the two will give a plane retaining its parallelism against all three causes
of disturbances. But under favorable circumstances this last cause of dis-
turbance is but small; so that this addition may be often of little impor-
tance. The invariable platform of this revolving apparatus may then
equally be applied to support either a telescope, or the artificial horizon
before mentioned, whether simply, or in conjunction with the sextant or
reflecting circle. By a mere enlargement of the scale of the machine, the
same stand which carries the telescope might be made to carry the observer
also, which would be a material convenience for any nice observations. But
the essential condition is the preservation of perfect equilibrium about the
centre of motion. Now, if this were secured by proper compensation for
the observer in one position, the slightest change of position on his part
would vitiate that arrangement. The observer, instead of being an extrane-
ous source of disturbance incapable of producing any impression on the bal-
anced and revolving system, now becomes a part of it, and thus impresses
upon it afresh motion arising from every slight change of posture, which
alters the exact position of the centre of gravity of the whole. This effect,
however, would not manifest itself directly; but being compounded with the
rotation, would show itself in a precessional motion, fatal to the stability of
the direction of the telescope. A modified arrangement to meet this contin-
gency has (which after all is not one of great importance practically, though
interesting theoretically) been devised by Prof. Smyth. To complete the
whole, Prof. Smyth has carefully investigated the best form of a train of
wheels for communicating the rotatory motion, and has also considered the
question of the best moving power to be used; which he finds, after many
trials, to be that of water: which is but brought to bear by a peculiarly beau-
tiful and simple form of the turbine. Thus, taking a summary view of the
whole subject: — by direct consequence, from the simplest acknowledged
mechanical principles, the gyroscope, when its equilibrium is slightly dis-
turbed, demonstrates the precession of the equinoxes; explains the boom-
erang; and sustains itself in the air against gravitation. When its equilib-
rium is undisturbed it exhibits to the eye the actual rotation of the earth;
and when restricted to one plane it acts as a magnetic needle without mag-
netism, or spontaneously rotates in parallelism with the earth. To these
remarkable, diversified, and somewhat paradoxial applications, we have
now to add another of far higher utility, — that it gives perfect stability for
the nicest astronomical observations on board a ship pitching and tossing
with every way and gust of wind.

ON A NEW ARTIFICIAL HORIZON.

At a recent meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society, Professor Baden
Powell read a paper by Prof. C. Piazzi Smyth, on the above subject. After

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. bia

adverting to the use of the spirit-level for adjustment of astronomical in-
struments on land, Prof. Smyth observes : — “‘ On shore nothing can be more
convenient than this use of the level; but its adaptation to sea service is not
easy. For, first, on account of the constant movement of the vessel, — never
for the one-thousandth of a second stationary, — we cannot first adjust the
evel and then look at the star, but must see both the star and the level sim-
ultaneously in the field of the telescope. Let us accomplish this before going
into further and residual difficulties. The sextant or angular measurer at sea
is made to allow of two objects being seen at once, the star, and the referring
point at a great or infinite distance, usually the horizon of the sea; but in the
present case the level-bubble is to take place of the horizon. Wemust, there-
fore, 1st, put it at an infinite distance by means of a collimator; 2nd, have
it to be looked at in a horizontal direction; and 3d, have the bubble something
very notable. Here a level is illuminated by artificial light thrown through
it from below; above is a diagonal mirror, and in front a lens, in whose so-
lar focus the bubble is. An eye therefore in front sees the bubble in the hor-
izontal direction, at an infinite distance, and very visibly, because where the
fluid curls up to form the edge of the bubble, it scatters the upward light so
completely that none reaches the eye, and the bubble looks as if it had a
painted black margin. If we place the eye partly in front of the collimator,
and partly off, we may of course see both the level-bubble and something
else; and in sextant observations may, by moving the proper mirror, see a
star and the level-bubble in the field together. To make a practical use of
the level so arranged, we may either have it attached to the frame of the sex-
tant, or have it on a stand in front of the sextant. But in either case the
bubble must be brought to its own fiducial mark at the instant of any obser-
vation. Herein is the first of our practical difficulties ; for if the level be on
a stand, and that on the ship’s deck, the bubble is rolling from end to end of
the tube with every roll of the ship; and if the apparatus be fastened to the
sextant and held by hand, no man has power or tact to hold it level. Some
natural principle must be brought in then to assist man’s hand. And sucha
principle is found in the level-bubble itself, which will always be at the sum-
mit of the are. If, therefore, we can refer our observations, not to the fidu-
cial mark, but to the bubble itself as it moves apparently with the rolling of
the ship, we shall be able to measure altitudes accurately at sea; and herein
are the chief*of my novelties. If we make the radius of curvature of the
level, and the solar focus of the collimator equal, then if the whole is tilted
one degree the bubble viewed in the diagonal mirror runs in the opposite direc-
tion to the same angular extent, by reason of the equality of the level radius,
and the focal length of the collimator, or radius of the sphere on which the
optical picture is formed. The result of these compensations is, that tilt the
case of the level up or down by any quantity within the angular extent of
the level tube, you will always see the bubble in the same true horizontal
direction. ... . . When carrying out the principle in practice, if the level is
of 12 feet radius, a collimator 12 feet long would be an inconvenient append-
age to a sextant; but the focus may then be lengthened virtually by insert-
ing one or more concave lenses with a convex of much shorter focus. Now
put everything together; and for an observation, in place of the ordinary
sextant, use my reflecting circle, the level being attached to the same stand.
Looking into the telescope, you see the star in the upper mirror, which moves
with the circle, and gives the angle moved through on the vernier. The
lower mirror, fixed on the frame of the instrument, shows the bubble of the

176 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

level, along with the star, in the telescope. The observer sees the bubble in
the middle of the field, and the star in its centre. If the stand be tilted bya
small angle, the star ascends or descends in the field, but so also by the same
angle does the peculiar level-bubble. . . . . In other words, though the field
of view, and all fiducial marks of the telescope and the level-tube vary and
err, yet the level-bubble always continues to show the true horizontal direc-
tion; it preserves the same angular distance from the star, and all that we
have to do in making an observation (no matter whether the base be quite
level or not ~ and herein is the difference from the ordinary use of a level on
land), is so to move the upper mirror of the circle as to make the star come
on to the bubble, and then read off the verniers. Once on the bubble, the
star will remain there as long as the support, or ship’s deck, does not roll
through a greater angle than the level-tube comprises, or does not roll ina
quick, jerking manner. For these larger deviations the principle of the sta-
bility of the free revolver must be applied, as elsewhere described. (See
‘Ast. Soc. Notices,’ xvii. 40.) On looking into the collimator, all the trans-
mitted light is blocked out, except the central line. This is to keep the field
dark and appropriate for star observations. The self-adjusting motions of
the bubble then take place along the luminous lane, and laterally an approx-
imate correction is shown by the approach of the bubble to one or the other
side of the said lane.”’ The inventor also adds, with reference to the prac-
tical construction of the level: — “‘ Some practical men would exclaim, on
hearing of a level of one foot radius, that it must be so sluggish as to be good
for nothing; yet it is less sluggish; and the nature of sluggishness in levels
has been much misunderstood, viz., mixed up with amount of motion of the
bubble as depending on length of radius of the tube. Make treacle the fluid
of levels, and they will all be sluggish; long or short radii, ¢. e., after a cer-
ain angular tilt, the bubbles will be moving slowly for a long time before
coming to their new point of rest. Put ether into a tube of long radius: it
moves quickly in the above case from want of sluggish nature, and moves
far, by reason of the long radius. Put ether into a tube of very short radius:
men say, How sluggish, because it does not move far, measured in the linear
way. But they should rather ascertain which bubble comes to its new place
of rest soonest; and if by reason of short radius they cannot easily see
what are one bubble moves through, they can increase the radius optically by
magnifying. Now, by mere optical magnifying, the bubble has no mechan-
ical friction added to its motion; but if the magnifying be by increasing the
radius of the level, the bubble has a greater mechanical task of walking along
so much more in length of glass surface. Hence it may be shown that these
new short-radius levels, viewed through magnifiers, are as accurate, and
quicker in their motions of angle, than the usual ones of long radii looked at
with the naked eye. All fluids have more or less of the sluggishness or
stickiness so greatly developed in treacle: alcohol has less than water; ether
the Germans found to have less than alcohol; and chloroform I have found
to have less than ether, while it has the great advantage (seeing that the end
of the tube must be hermetically sealed with a blow-pipe flame) over both
ether and alcohol, of not being inflammable.” He also mentions that prac-
tically a good range of arc is 5°, and a good radius, 9 feet.

At the close of this communication Prof. Powell presented a detailed
account of the principle of the construction of Prof. Smyth’s new instrument.
To render such a description complete, Prof. P. stated, that it appeared to
him, that a more precise elucidation of the optical principle involved was

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 74

desirable: this may be most distinctly stated as follows: —1. The tube of the
spirit-level being a small are of a circle of considerable radius, within the
limits of this arc, the true horizontal line is the tangent to that point of the
are at which the bubble appears ; and in any successive positions, the change
of inclination is measured by the angle of intersection of the tangents, which
is the same as the arc of the tube traversed by the bubble, or the angle at the
centre. 2. Taking the chord of this arc as the base, a plane mirror inclined
at 45° to it above, gives for the reflected image of the level-tube a similar are
convex towards it. 3. A lens placed in front of the mirror, having its prin-
cipal focal length equal to the distance of the image of the bubble when at
the middle point of the arc, and adjusted to receive centrically the reflected
diverging pencil from the bubble will cause it to emerge in a parallel pencil,
thus placing the image at an infinite distance, and enabling us to view it
through a telescope. 4. In other positions of the bubble (since the convexity
is towards the lens) it will not be accurately in focus; though it will be ap-
proximately so if the focal length be considerable, so that the small differ-
ence in the length of the rays from the middle point, and from the two ex-
tremities, may be neglected. 5. If the base be accurately horizontal, and
consequently the bubble in the middle of the arc to which the index is ad-
justed, the axis of the reflected pencil from its image passing through the
centre of the lens will be accurately horizontal, or the image seen through
the lens gives the true horizontal point; this adjustment is supposed accu-
rately made in the first instance once for all. 6. If the base (the lens and
mirror being firmly attached to it) be inclined either way within the limits of
the arc, any change in the position of the bubble measured on the arc of the
tube will be exactly equal to the change measured on the arc of the reflected
image. 7. If the focal length of the lens be equal to the radius of the are of
the level, and if the distance were accurately the same from the lens to all
points of the reflected arc (as it would be if the image were concave towards
the lens), then for any change of are there would be an exactly equal change
of angle in the rays; and as in the middle position the reflected ray is exactly
horizontal, so in every other position would the reflected rays for those posi-
tions respectively give the true horizontal point. 8. If the radius or focal length
be large and the are small, the conditions will be so approximately fulfilled,
that without sensible error the change of angle will be equal to the change
of arc, or of inclination to the horizon, and consequently the reflected ray
will give the true horizontal point without sensible error at all inclinations
within the limits. Professor C. P. Smyth’s invention becomes of peculiar
value (in combination with his free-revolver stand), since the attainment of
an artificial horizon on board ship has been in vain sought in any applications
of the ordinary spirit-level, of liquid reflecting surfaces, by simple suspension
in equilibrio, or by the rotating plane reflector of Troughton’s top, the failures
of which are demonstrable on mechanical grounds. But the invention may
become of not less importance to observers on land, and especially to scien-
tific travellers, from its portability and exemption from the disturbances in-
ident to liquid reflectors.

ON THE COMPOSITION OF ROTARY MOTION.

At a recent meeting of the Liverpool Philosophical Society, Prof. Hamil-
ton read a paper on the “‘ composition of rotary motion,” of which the fol-
lowing is a résumé: -

The principle of compound rotations, he observed, was discovered by Paul

178 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

Frisi, in 1760. It was discussed in an abstract form by Ponsot in a Mémoire
read before the Academy of Sciences at Paris, and by Poisson, in the Journal
de U’ Ecole Polytechnique. The same author had treated the subject at great
length in his Traité de Mechanique. Professor Airey also had handled it in
a very elegant manner in his “Tract on Precession.”” As the subject was
not capable of being discussed without the use of the higher mathematics, it
had not been alluded to by any of the popular writers on mechanics. The
method of experimentally illustrating compound rotations was accidentally
discovered by Fessel, of Cologne. The instrument which he invented was
called polytrope, or gyroscope. It was modified in form and greatly im-
proved by Plucker, Magnus, Wheatstone, and Foucault. M. Foucault, after
making the beautiful pendulum experiment, which afforded the first positive
demonstration of the earth’s rotation, considered that the gyroscope might
be employed for the same purpose, as it possessed the property of ‘ main-
taining the plane of its rotation unchanged.” In experimenting with this
instrument, Professor Hamilton referred particularly to its alleged properties
of “maintaining the plane of rotation unchanged,” and the “ fixity of the
plane of rotation.”” He remarked upon the loose sense in which these terms
had been employed in descriptions of the gyroscope, and pointed out the
restricted and qualified sense in which they ought to be used. The plane of
rotation was not fixed in an absolute sense. It heid a fixed relation to the
plane of a great circle of the earth, and participated in the earth’s diurnal
motion, which was illustrated by a mathematical diagram. The time of its
making an apparent revolution round a circle at the pole was twenty-four
hours. The time at any other place varied inversely as the sine of the lati-
tude. This was also submitted to a mathematical proof, and the point, in
common with every other embraced in the lecture, rendered beautifully sim-
ple and clear. The gyroscope was then considered as a mechanical com-
pass. Since the free axis of the gyroscope tended to become parallel to any
other axis about which the disk was constrained to revolve, and since it was
constrained to revolve about the axis of the earth, the free axis tended to
become parallel to the axis of the earth. Hence, at any given station, the
four parts of the horizontal ring indicated the cardinal points of the hori-
zon, the extremity of the axis coincided with the celestial pole, and the plane
of the disk with the plane of the celestial equator. And since the elevation
of the pole above the horizon was equal to the latitude of the place, the ele-
vation of the axis above the horizontal plane was equal to the latitude of the
station. The gyroscope was therefore theoretically a mechanical compass,
but practically it was of no value, since friction on the pivots produced a
horizontal motion in one direction or the other, if the ring deviated in the
slightest degree from the true horizontal position. For the same reason the
gyroscope afforded no satisfactory proof of the earth’s diurnal rotation. It
would indeed be a valuable discovery if a method could be devised of mak-
ing it, with certainty, deviate from the truth equally in opposite directions,
and thus, by a mutual destruction of errors, indicate the true north. Myr.
Hamilton then described Professor Elliot’s apparatus for illustrating the pre-
cession of the equinox and the mutation of the earth’s axis.

The Rev. H. H. Higgins put the following question: If the gyroscope
were revolving in a vertical plane, the axis being horizontal, and force were
applied to incline the axis, where did that force go to? Was it expended in
producing an increased friction on the pivot? And if so, would the ultimate
result be to arrest the motion of the disk?

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 179

Some conversation ensued upon the point thus raised, Mr. Hamilton giy-
ing it as his opinion that the effect would be as Mr. Higgins supposed. It
would be, he observed, an interesting question whether the force thus applied
would produce heat. In every instance where action was arrested heat was
developed. M. Foucault arrested the motion of the disk by a magnet, and it
became hot. He ascribed it to a mechanical action in arresting the speed of
the instrument. The test suggested would be an experimentum crucis on the
theory of an arrested mechanical action always giving rise to an equivalent
amount of heat.

Professor Elliot thanked Professor Hamilton for the more than ample
justice he had dealt out to him in noticing his instruments. He begged
leave to make some additional statements regarding his own researches on
the subject, as well as those of others. Professor Hamilton had correctly
described his (Professor Elliot’s) instruments for illustrating, both in regard
to fact and principle, the precession of the equinoxes, the mutation of the
earth’s axis, the retrogradation of the moon’s nodes, the equilibrium of
Saturn’s rings, and the peculiar effect of a magnet upon an iron disk in rota-
tion. He had been led to the construction of the first of these instruments as
long ago as 1835, from the difficulty he experienced, while teaching astrono-
my, in explaining the subject of precession by mere verbal description. He
conceived that the motion of the common spinning-top might be converted
into an exact imitation of those of the earth, by altering the position of the
centre of gravity in reference to the point of support. In the conception of
such an instrument he was not aware at the time that he had been antici-
pated by others; but he now found that the records of the Royal Astronomi-
cal Society contained a short and obscure notice of a similar instrument,
which had previously been constructed by Mr. Atkinson. M. Bohnenber-
ger’s gyroscope had also been previously known on the Continent, and par-
tially in this country, which, among other purposes, exhibited correctly the
precession of the equinoxes; and a member of the society, now present, had,
it appeared, constructed an instrument of the same kind. The effect of a
magnet on a rotating iron disk had been shown to him (Professor Elliot) by
a friend, but almost accidentally, and without reference to its theory or
astronomical application. Its use for that purpose was to exhibit the effect
of one planet in disturbing the plane of another planet’s orbit, in eight dif-
ferent positions of the disturbing body (as described in Newton’s Principia),
in producing a forward or a backward movement of the nodes, or an increase
or diminution of the obliquity or the plane of its orbit to the ecliptic. Pro-
fessor Elliot stated that although his experiment with the iron ring and mag-
net were admited to be an exact imitation of the peculiar motion of Saturn’s
rings, yet the coincidence of the two in regard to principle had been disputed
by some of our best mathematicians. The objection advanced to it by Profes-
sor Thomson, of Glasgow, that the one was, to a certain extent, a constrained,
and the other a perfectly free motion, was certainly a valid objection; but
there were some difficulties attending the subject which required to be
removed by further experiments. He (Professor Elliot) had shown the
greater part of these experiments to the Liverpool Polytechnic Society in
the year 1839. Since that time the subject of rotary motion had become a
fashionable study among mathematicians, having been taken up succes-
sively by Professors Magnus, Wheatstone, Powell, Foucault, Smythe, and
Maxwell. Foucault’s experiment for showing the stability (perfect or par-
tial) of a rotating disk during the earth’s rotation was not new in theory, as

180 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

it had been described more than twenty years before by Mr. Sang, nor was
it in his (Professor Elliot’s) opinion practically successful in showing the
earth’s rotation, since its success depended altogether upon the adjustment
of the apparatus; and the only mode, he believed, of making that very
delicate adjustment was by trying it if it produced the very motion it was
intended to demonstrate. It could be made to show the rotation of the
earth, or not show it, just as it was balanced. Professor Smythe’s apparatus
he had previously described. Professor Maxwell, of Aberdeen, was the last
who had produced anything new on the subject of rotary motion, and in a set
of beautiful experiments and some refined calculations, he had advanced fur-
ther into the subject than any of his predecessors. Professor Maxwell’s prin-
cipal object was to throw light on the theory of Saturn’s ring, for his essay
on which he lately had the high honor of gaining the Adams Prize offered
by St. John’s College, Cambridge, for the best dissertation on that subject.

Professor Maxwell objected to the applicability of his (Professor Elliot’s)
experiment on the iron ring to that of Saturn, but agreed with him in main-
taining that Laplace’s hypothesis of a load on the ring was untenable.

Professor Elliot briefly described two other experiments which he had
himself made in regard to rotation. One of these consisted in magnetizing
the axis of a light rotating disk, carefully depriving the disk of all preces-
sional movement, inclining its axis a little from the vertical line, placing over
its centre an electro-magnet, and then giving to the disk a rapid rotation on
its axis. The axis remained at rest in its oblique position till an electric cur-
rent was passed along the wire of the electro-magnet. As soon as that was
done the axis of the disk began to revolve around the magnet. When the
current was transmitted in the opposite direction, the direction of revolution
immediately changed, producing a singularly close resemblance to that mys-
terious phenomenon, electro-magnetic rotation. The other experiment con-
sisted in taking avery large cylindrical vessel of water, making a small
orifice in the centre of the base, with a straight brass pipe extending a few
inches downward, the outer end of the pipe being closed with a plug, and
the inner end being made perfectly smooth. The vessel was filled with
water, and as soon as that had attained perfect repose the plug was with-
drawn. On this being done, as the level of the water sunk, it gradually
acquired a rotary movement, at first very slow, but becoming more rapid as
the evacuation proceeded, and always in the direction of the earth’s rota-
tion, provided that perfect stillness of the fiuid had been secured. The
rationale of the process was this: That the vessel of water participated in
the earth’s diurnal rotation, its own motions consisting of a revolution round
the earth’s axis, and a slow rotation on its own axis, that the portions near
the circumference had a more rapid motion in rotation than those near the
centre. In approaching the centre they retained their actual velocity, and,
consequently, increased in angular velocity, and in escaping at the central
orifice, produced a vortex in the direction of the earth’s rotation, affording
another experimental proof that such rotation existed,

Mr. Higginson apprehended that when the iron pole of the instrument
was not itself a magnet, the action of the magnet was the same as that pro-
duced by suspending a weight to the equatorial part of the instrument.
When a movable magnet, turned upside down, was supplied, there would be
repulsion. It would act as if the iustrument were made topheavy, so as to
give it a larger and larger eccentricity. Would the fact of the different
position of the centre of gravity make the difference ?

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 181

ON THE VIBRATIONS IN WATER FALLING OVER DAMS.

The continuance of the discussion on this subject has been kept up during
the past year, in the Boston Society of Natural History, and at a recent meet-
ing the following communication respecting experiments made at South
Natick, Mass., by Mr. William Edwards, was presented. The dam at this
place across Charles River, is nine feet high and 200 feet long, and at certain
stages of the water, the vibrations are so powerful as to agitate bodies three-
quarters of a mile distant. During the month of December, 1857, the water
being at its most favorable point for the production of vibratory movement,
Mr. E. undertook a series of experiments by erecting a flashboard, three feet
in length, on the top of the dam; the water was shut off, and a dry entrance
obtained behind the falling sheet. Ample room was found to walk back and
forth. At the place of entrance, the flame of a lamp was unagitated, a fact
unexpected by them, as they had favored the hypothesis of Prof. Snell, and
had supposed that air sufficient to cause the vibrations would have found an
exit at this opening.

Twenty-five or thirty feet from the entrance, the flame was slightly agitated
simultaneously with the vibratory motions. A falling feather descended as
quietly as ina close room. The discharge of a pistol produced no perceptible
effect upon the water, although the report nearly stunned them. It having
been suggested that the vibrations are produced at the bottom of the sheet
and continued upward to the top of the dam, they endeavored to produce
such an effect by placing obstructions at various points, but without success.
Whilst holding the ends of the fingers in the current, two or three inches
from the corner of the timber over which the water breaks, it was evident
that the water passed the fingers in ridges, apparently one-half or three-
quarters of an inch apart. By following with the eye, in their descent, these
ridges or vibrations, it was found that the interval between them increased,
with the velocity of the water, to the extent of fourteen inches. An aperture
in the water, made by the passage of a stone of the size of a hen’s egg, at the
top of the fall, increased in size just in proportion to the increasing distance
of the vibrations, retaining its circular form, and finally expanded to fourteen
inches in diameter. Upon the top of the dam they could see distinctly
through the current to the edge of the timber over which the water breaks,
and they found that the water at this point acquires a tremulous motion, giving
origin to the ridges or vibrations alluded to above, which here follow each other
at intervals not exceeding one quarter of aninch. The sheet of water at the
top of the dam is six inches in thickness; at the bottom two and a half
inches. The ridges are evident on the inside the whole length of the fall, but
upon the outside they do not make their appearance for the space of ten or
twelve inches. They increase in size relatively with the distance.

At a subsequent meeting, Mr. E. stated that he had counted, as nearly as
possible, the number of vibrations, at some distance from the dam, and the
number of the waves, and, although their rapidity made it very difficult to
count them, ranging as they did from 280 to 325 per minute, he found that
they coincided. This fact was rendered still more conclusive by assuming a
position at one end of the dam where the vibrations could be seen, heard,
and felt, all at the same time. Every portion of the timber over which the
water flows, produces vibrations of greater or less distinctness, and, occa-
sionally, the.waves of a certain portion of the dam fall in the wave intervals

16

182 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

of the other end of the dam, and then the vibrations of the earth cease.
Standing in front of the dam, and placing a pole on the bed of the river,
directly under the fall, the pole was violently agitated, although there are two
feet of back-water through which the water must pass before it reaches the
pole. In the falling sheet, the wavelets are concavo-convex, and not double
convex, that is, the internal surface corresponding with an external convex-
ity is coneave.

Prof. W. B. Rogers remarked, that the wave-like divisions of the descend-
ing sheet of water were probably referable to the same general law which
has been shown by Savart and Plateau to obtain in the case of a stream
flowing from an aperture in the bottom or side of a vessel. These philoso-
phers have proved that, at a certain distance from the point of discharge, the
stream, although seemingly continuous, is in reality divided into separate
parts; and Plateau explains this subdivision by the preponderance of trans-
verse cohesive forces in the column, when its length exceeds its thickness by
more than a determinate amount. In this case the sides of the stream are
drawn together at intervals, and the mass is thus broken up in separate sec-
tions, which, by further cohesive action, are moulded into drops. Thus every
such stream, at some distance below the aperture, loses its straight outline,
and assumes the form of a series of enlargements and contractions, which,
at a still greater distance, become visible as a succession of drops.

It is interesting to remark that a regular system of vibrations occurs in the
streams thus affected by wave-like subdivisions, enabling them to produce
strong musical tones, when suffered to strike upon an elastic surface, and to
communicate similar musical vibrations even to the reservoir itself. In this
action we discern somewhat analogous conditions to those of powerful vibra-
tory movements attending the descent of large masses of water over dams.

ON THE MATHEMATICAL THEORY OF SOUND.

In a paper on the above subject read before the British Association, 1858,
by the Rey. 8S. Earnshaw, the author adverted to the circumstance, that the
only impediment to the complete development of the mathematical theory of
sound has hitherto been the difficulty of integrating the partial differential
ee dy\2 d2y__, d2y
LC, ea he rrp cali oar

5 : dy \2
difficulty, it has been usual to assume ( “) = 1. But the author suggested

As an approximative mode of surmounting this

that the legitimacy of that step is by no means evident; and that the true
test of the allowableness of it is a knowledge of the change, which must

A F § 3 12 d21
take place in the constitution of the atmosphere, in order that a = pM 4

may be the exact equation of motion. In this way it will be seen whether

; - ly \2 2
the physical change, represented by assuming ( =) = 1, beof such a mi-
ax

nute character as to be allowable. But the author stated that he had found
the requisite change ‘in the constitution of the atmosphere must be such that
it must ¢ncrease in volume with an increase of pressure, — a constitution the
very opposite of that of the natural atmosphere. From this it was inferred
that the equation which represents the properties of sound does not admit of

5 “dy \2 : 4
the assumption ( a = 1. The reason why this assumption, though ana-

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 183

lytically allowable, is not allowable in the problem of sound is, that in that

assumption quantities are neglected which (in the case of sound) are of the
: : r d2y adn
same order as those which are retained, so that the equation a a

is not an approximation, but is reduced to the form 0 = 0; from which noth-
: dy N2\ ws en
ing can be inferred but that the assumption ( =) = lis not admissible. The

result of this reasoning is, that the equation y = F (x-+ at) + f (4 —at), which
has hitherto been the basis of explanation in Treatises on Sound, has noth-
ing whatever to do with sound, but represents the motion of a wave in an
imaginary elastic medium of a constitution the very opposite of that of the
atmosphere and of all known gaseous media. The mathematical theory of
sound is consequently put back to its differential equations, beyond which
not an inch of ground can be maintained. Till the differential equation is

: = : dy
integrated accurately, without assuming ( = = 1, noadvance can be made,

and science remains without a mathematical theory of sound. The author
then announced that he has succeeded in integrating the differential equation
of sound without approximative assumptions; that he has, in fact, obtained
its exact integral; and in the result has possessed himself of the key to the
various properties of sound. Among several others, it was stated that the
exact integral accounts for the great difficulty which experimenters have
found in obtaining accordant velocities of sounds, — for the sweetness of mu-
sical sounds, — for the rapid decay of violent sounds as they progress, — and
proves that the velocity with which a sound is transmitted through the at-
mosphere depends on the degree of violence with which it was produced,
and not (as in light) on the length of the wave; so that sounds of every pitch
will travel at the same rate, if their genesis do not differ much in violence;
but a violent sound, as the report of fire-arms, will travel sensibly faster than
a gentle sound, such as the human voice. This last property the author
stated to have caused him much trouble, in consequence of its being directly
opposed to the testimony of almost every experimenter. For many affirmed,
as the direct result of their observations, and others assumed, that all sounds
travel at the samerate. Fortunately, it transpired at the meeting that in Capt.
Sir J. Franklin’s Expedition to the North, whilst making experiments on
sound, during which it was necessary to fire a cannon at the word of com-
mand given by an officer, it was found that the persons, stationed at the dis-
tance of some miles to mark the arrival of the report of the gun, always
heard the report of the gun before they heard the command to fire; thus
proving that the sound of the gun’s report had outstripped the sound of the
officer’s voice; and confirming in a remarkable manner the result of the
author’s mathematical investigations.

The Astronomer Royal said, that while he had no doubt whatever of the
general accuracy of the conclusions at which Mr. Earnshaw had arrived, and
while he fully admitted their importance, he could not subscribe to all that
he had said. In his historical sketch of the steps by which we had arrived
at our present knowledge of the subject, he could not admit that the method
of Newton was wrong, the fact being, that it was a strictly correct solution
of one case of what was a very general problem. The method of Newton
was the very basis of all our modern methods; and he looked upon that por-
tion of the second book of the Principia as a monument of the genius of
Mewton, which he was very sorry to see was beginning to be much less

184 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

attended to in our Universities than it deserved. He could not also admit
that so little had been done by the methods heretofore in use: and althouch
he considered a vigorous integration of the equation to be very important, yet
he considered much had been done even by himself by using the method of
successive approximations, similar to that adopted in the Lunar and Plane-
tary Theories. Of this he adduced several examples, such as those in his
article on Waves and Tides in the Encyclopxdia Metropolitana, and the non-
reflection of breaking waves, while at the same time, like the whisper in the
gallery of St. Paul’s, they were conducted along a smooth wall up to which
they moved very obliquely; also bores and quiet tide-waves, and some others.
He also could not subscribe to the objection that assuming the differential
coefficient to be unity required that the air should be so constituted that
pressure in a given direction should be accompanied by a motion of the par-
ticle in the opposite direction, for this frequently happened where the particle
was already in motion. Mr. Earnshaw explained that what he meant to con-
vey was, that the pressure should be the originator or cause of motion in the
opposite direction.

NATURAL DIAPASON.

M. Cagniard de la Tour, a French physicist, has satisfied himself that he
hears the sound Ja of the musical scale sounding within his head when he
agitates it from side to side; and Mr. Jobard has confirmed this observation
in himself, and asserts that any one can verify it, if he will disembarrass his
neck of the cravat and collar, and place himself apart from all noise.

Mr. Jobard thus explains the fact: This natural /a is caused by the contact
of the malleus against the zacus in the ear—a contact easily made by a rapid
movement of the head. Mr. Jobard goes still farther: for according to him,
those persons who, on shaking the head, hear two Ja in perfect unison are
born musicians; they have the voice and ear perfectly correct. But those
that hear /a only in one ear, have an imperfect appreciation of sounds; and
those who perceive two different sounds, the /a and another note, not only do
not love music, but detest and avoid it; and he proposes by this method to
discover among young people those who may become musicians.

Mr. Jobard has still under inquiry, whether the note which is produced in
the head by a quick motion is the same or not in all persons. The question
will be of difficult solution; for the Ja of the opera of Paris is different from
that of the theatre of Strasbourg, Lille, Vienna and London, and that this /a
is becoming more and more elevated, so that in twenty years it will corre-
spond to many more vibrations than now, and be therefore still more acute.

ON THE SONOROUS ACTION OF JETS OF BURNING GAS.

At arecent meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, Prof. Rogers
called attention to the curious phenomena connected with the sonorous
action of jets of burning gas, which have lately been observed by Prof. Tyn-
dall and others.

The production of a musical sound by a small flame of hydrogen gas,
burning within a tube, has long been one of the most familiar of lecture-
room experiments. Prof. Faraday, in one of his earliest investigations,
showed that this musical effect was not confined to hydrogen, but could be
produced with flames of carbonic oxide, common illuminating gas, and

®

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 185

several other gases and vapors. He was, moreover, the first to give a philo-
sophical theory of the sound, by showing that, in the conditions of the
experiment, the flame resolved itself into a series of little explosions, which,
succeeding each other at very small and equal intervals of time, gave rise to
regular, and therefore musical vibrations in the tube. In the recent experi-
ments the further fact has been observed, that the flame, both when singing
and when silent in the tube, is strongly acted on by external sounds, having
a certain musical relation to the tone of the pipe or flame.

In studying experimentally the conditions under which these sounds are
produced, Prof. Rogers had lately ascertained that the usual absence of the
sonorous effect in the case of Jamps or candles burned under the same con-
ditions as the gas, is not due, as might be supposed, to a mechanical inter-
ference of the wick with a vibrating motion. He found that wicks of cotton
thread, and of asbestus, introduced into a jet-pipe of gas, even so as to project
far into the flame, did not prevent its singing, although they impaired the
purity of the musical tone. The difficulty of obtaining continuous musical
sounds from a common flame with a wick, must rather be ascribed to the
nature of the combustible matter, which, requiring a very large supply of
air to produce the explosions, is liable to be extinguished before the musical
sound is developed.

To obtain an ether flame suitable for these experiments, Prof. Rogers uses
a glass tube about eight inches long and one quarter of an inch in diameter,
open below, and drawn somewhat bluntly to a point, with a small aperture
at the top; some loose cotton twine or thread of asbestus being introduced
so as to terminate at or very near the pointed opening, the tube is half filled
with sulphuric ether; the larger end is closed with a tight cork, and the little
ether candle is fixed vertically in the centre of a wooden block. On apply-
ing a light to the apex, the ethereal vapor burns in a steady bluish jet, which
with proper tubes enables us readily to repeat all the experiments on the
singing and the silent flame. This simple apparatus acts freely at ordinary
temperatures, and may be used from time to time for several days without
replenishing.

In regard to the agency of the flame in giving rise to the musical tone,
Prof. Rogers thought it might be compared to that of the reed of various
wind instruments, the vibration of which, by giving motion to the column
of air in the pipe, causes the sound to begin, although the vibrating column,
by its reaction on the reed, controls more or less the rate of its oscillations,
and determines the pitch of the sound produced. A similar reaction between
the aérial column and the flame quickly establishes a synchronous motion
of the two, corresponding to the fundamental note, or to one of the natural
harmonics of the tube.

At a subsequent meeting, Prof. Rogers stated that by employing hollow
circular wicks and using tubes but slightly exceeding them in diameter, he had
been able to produce these musical effects with the flames of sulphuric ether,
common alcohol, and the mixture of the latter with spirits of turpentine,
which is known as burning-fluid. By using an iron tube at a high tempera-
ture he had obtained, though less perfectly, a similar result with the flame of
spermaceti oil.

As the effect in these experiments depends on the access to the flame of a
current of air of definite amount and velocity, and in a proper direction, it is
necessary to adjust the diameter of the wick and size of the flame to the
dimensions of the tube employed, and to hold the tube with its lower edge a

bs

186 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

little below that of the wick. The flame will then be seen to contract, to lose
much of its brilliancy, and, after more or less of a rattling sound, to give
forth a musical tone, which, with a little care, may be rendered quite smooth
and continuous.

These results are readily obtained with the flame of the small circular wick
lamp now in use for burning the mixture of alcohol and turpentine. In this
form of lamp the wick-tubes rise about two inches above the reservoir, and
an internal movable tube is provided, which, being raised or lowered, serves
to vary the depth of the wick and to adjust the flame with great nicety. The
body of the lamp should be removed from its pedestal, and placed on a
ring support, to secure a free current of air upward through the central wick-
‘tube.

A simple way of making the experiment with an alcohol wick, is to enclose
between two glass tubes a strip of cotton cloth or thick paper, so that it may
project a little beyond the upper end of the tubes. When charged with alco-
hol and lighted, it will furnish a hollow circular flame well suited for the
temporary production of the musical effect.

These results favor the conclusion that flames of every kind are capable of
exciting sonorous vibrations, provided the air and combustible vapors. are
brought together in such proportions as to form more or less of an explosive
mixture, and they therefore confirm the explanation of Faraday, which
refers the musical sounds produced in such cases to arapid and uniform suc-
cession of small explosions.

The following experiments illustrate, in a very simple way, the origin and
some of the conditions of these musical vibrations:

(1.) When a jet of burning coal-gas is introduced into the resonant tube
in a position in which it does not sing spontaneously, we may cause it to
commence its musical performance by simply vibrating the jet-pipe rapidly
from side to side. In this experiment the pipe should be covered with soft
buckskin for two or three inches near its upper end, to prevent the sharp
jarring sound caused by its striking the glass. This movement of the jet is
so efficient in bringing on the sonorous state, that it will compel the flame
to sing, even in a tube in which it would not do so spontaneously in any
position in which we could place it. Indeed, it will often excite the musical
vibrations in cases where, from the unsuitable proportions between the tube
and flame, the external sounds used in Tyndal’s experiment entirely fail to
bring on the sonorous state.

Although the singing is induced more promptly when we allow the jet-
pipe in its vibrations to strike the sides of the tube, this action is not at all
necessary ; for we obtain the same result when the pipe is merely shaken to
and fro within such limits as to prevent its touching the glass. The effect
here described can hardly fail, when first observed, to excite surprise, espe-
cially if from previous trials we have found that the flame refuses either to
sing spontaneously or under the action of external sound.

So far as the impulse of the jet-pipe against the sides of the tube is influ-
ential in exciting the sound, we must ascribe its action to the feeble musical
resonance produced by it within the tube, which, although composed of
several sounds, may always be observed to include the fundamental note of
the tube. This action is therefore like that of a unison note sounded by the
voice or an external instrument, or that of any other mechanical agency
giving rise to a vibration of the included column of air. But the other and
far more remarkable effect, the excitement of the musical condition in the

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 187.

flame by simply moving it to and fro without striking the tube, cannot be
thus explained, since the gentle impulse given to the air by the vibrating
pipe produces no audible effect, and would seem quite inadequate to excite in
the column any but the very feeblest vibration. Admitting, however, that
these extremely faint vibrations of the air may contribute somewhat to the
result, it can hardly be doubted that the main influence by which the moyc-
ment of the jet produces the effect in question is by causing so rapid a mix-
ture of the adjoining air with the gas that the latter, before being inflamed,
is brought into a condition to produce those small explosions, which, by
their quick succession, give origin to the sound. The effect of motion in
bringing about this explosive condition of the flame is well exemplified by
the following experiment:

(2.) Fastening a jet-pipe, some ten inches in length into the end of the
flexible tube through which the gas is supplied, and holding it erect by a
point a little below the insertion so that we can readily cause it to vibrate,
we ignite the gas and adjust it to form a slender flame about an inch long.
If now the flame be moved from side to side at a moderately rapid rate, it
will assume, according to a well-known visual law, the appearance of a con-
tinuous arch of whitish light, retaining at the extremities the whole height of
the stationary flame, but growing narrower from either side towards the
middle. In these conditions the flame is entirely noiseless. As we gradually
increase the speed of the vibrations, the arch, at a certain stage, suddenly
breaks in the middle, where a faint bluish flame takes the place of the usual
whitish light, and at the same instant a sharp noise is heard, due to the inflam-
mation of the explosive mixture at this part of the vibration. It is hardly
necessary to say that as the vibration is quickest at the midway point, com-
ing to a pause at each end of the arch, the gas becomes more largely mixed
with air at the middle than towards the extremities of the motion, and is,
therefore, at this point earliest reduced to the state of an explosive mixture.

As we increase the velocity of the vibrations, the sonorous part of the arch
extends towards the ends, until the path of the flame presents the aspect of
a narrow, bluish band, irregularly serrated at the top, and flanked at the ex-
tremities by a tall flame of the usual whitish color. As might be expected,
when the jet is revolved rapidly in a circle, the white light entirely disap-
pears, and the ring of bluish flame which results gives forth a continuous
but not distinctly musical sound. When made in a dark room these simple
experiments were found to be unexpectedly interesting and beautiful.

(3.) As in the above cases the action is mainly traceable to the more rapid
mingling of atmospheric air with the flame, it is natural to conclude that a
like effect would be produced by passing a current of air upwards through
the tube, and on trial this anticipation was strikingly verified. In order that
the current may be evenly distributed, it is convenient to employ an argand
burner, having the supply-pipe at the side, and the central opening entirely
free, so that the jet-pipe may rise through the centre, and the burner be
adjusted to the proper distance below the flame and the bottom of the glass
tube. The air conveyed to the argand burner through a flexible pipe, may
be supplied either from the lungs of the operator or from an adjacent gas-
ometer. In most cases the action of the current is more easily managed
when the apertures from which it flows are some two or three inches below
the bottom of the resonant glass tube.

With this arrangement, and a proper graduation of the current of air
impelled into the tube, we can cause the flame to sing when the other meth-

188 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

ods above described have failed to produce any effect. When the flame is
not far from the position in which it would spontaneously sing, the lightest
breathing through the argand pipe is sufjicient to bring it to the sounding state, and
to maintain a clear, smooth tone. Even when the flame is large and other-
wise not readily susceptible of the sonorous action, a stronger current of air
applied nearer to the bottom of the resonant tube will rarely fail to bring on
the musical vibrations. It should be mentioned that these effects can be
produced in a simpler, but less satisfactory manner, by using, instead of the
argand burner, to conduct the current, a common glass tube, bent suitably,
and held near the jet-pipe below the opening of the resonant tube.

The sound familiarly observed when a flame of any kind is blown upon,
and especially when the air is forced into or through the flame, in the case
of the jet of a blow-pipe, was long ago referred by Faraday to the combus-
tion of an explosive mixture formed by the air and burning matter. The
sound produced by a blazing fire of wood or bituminous coal, as contrasted
with the silence of a flameless mass of ignited anthracite, is an obvious illus-
tration of the same principle. But the experiments above described show
the operation of this law under conditions which enable us more satisfacto-
rily to mark the origin of the sound and the gradations by which it accom-
panies the formation of the explosive mixture.

(4.) The intermitting character of the combustion in a singing flame has
been beautifully shown by Prof. Tyndal, by causing the light of the flame
to fall upon a revolving mirror, from which it is reflected so as to form a
series of images on a distant screen. A similar resolution of the flame into
successive explosions is more simply exhibited by moving it rapidly to and
fro, or better still, by giving it a steady revolving motion within the tube. In
using the former method, the jet-pipe may be attached to the common gas
stand by a short piece of flexible hose, and passed through a ring so placed
as to restrict the vibrations to a range less than the diameter of the tube. A
sufficiently regular movement may then be given by the hand. If, now, we
adjust the flame in the tube, so that it will not begin to sing for some time
after the vibration has commenced, or until the tube is further lowered, we
observe at first merely the continuous band of light due to the permanence
of the visual impression; but, as soon as the singing commences, this band
becomes waved or serrated at the top, and with a proper velocity divides
into nearly separate columns of flame, with obscure spaces between.

The effect is, however, far more striking when the flame is made to revolve at
a uniform rate in the tube. In this case, so long as it remains silent, it pre-
sents the appearance of a hollow cylinder or short tube of whitish light; but
the moment the singing begins, the cylinder assumes a toothed form on the
top, resembling a brilliant crown, and divides itself into a number of narrow
luminous columns, separated by bands nearly or quite deprived of light. It is
hardly necessary to say that the obscure spaces mark the moments in the
rotation when the explosions occur, and the bright ones the successive inter-
vals between them. With a given rate of rotation, as might be expected,
the number of these subdivisions is greater in a short tube than in a long one,
and is greater when the tube is yielding one of its harmonic notes than when
giving its fundamental sound. In the same tube the number of subdivisions
diminishes as we increase the velocity of rotation, a less number of vibra-
tions or explosions in this case corresponding to one revolution of the jet.

(5.) To render the effect visible at a distance, it is, of course, necessary to
use a large tube and flame. It is, however, beautifully distinct when the

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 189

tube is some six fect long, by one and a half inches in diameter, and the
flame three quarters of an inch in height. The mechanism employed to
give rotation to the jet consists of a grooved wheel connected by a band with
a small pulley. Into the latter the supply-pipe enters from below by a
smooth gas-light joint, which allows the pulley freely to revolve. The jet-
pipe, secured to the middle of the upper face of the pulley, tapers to the
extremity, and rising to the height of six or eight inches, is elbowed near
the top, so as to give the flame, when revolving, an orbit of nearly an inch in
diameter. When the experiment is in progress, the appearance of the hori-
zontal portion of the jet-pipe affords incidentally a very pretty proof of the’
intermittence of the singing flame. As each successive explosion makes
this part strongly visible, it assumes the aspect of a number of brilliant spokes
corresponding to the subdivisions of the crown of flame; and if, to vary this
effect, we blacken the horizontal part of the pipe, and fasten near its outer
end, or where it resumes a vertical direction,.a brilliant bead of glass or
metal, we are presented with a circle of starry points, each of which, by a
proper adjustment of the motion, appears to be at rest.

(6.) The following proof of the intermitting nature of the singing flame,
suggested by the effects just described, is at once so simple, and so readily seen
at a distance, as perhaps to merit a place among useful lecture-room illustra-
tions. In this experiment the jet-pipe bearing the flame is held at rest in the
tube, and the required effect is produced by receiving the light on a circular
disk of thick pasteboard or of metal, some six inches in diameter, supported
near the tube on a horizontal axis, around which it may be revolved by the
impulse of the hand. The face of the disk next the tube, colored of a dead
black with paint or a covering of cloth, should have a narrow strip of white
paper fastened upon it in a radial direction, or a small circular bit of the
same placed near the edge. If both faces are used alternately, we may affix
the white bar to one and the dot to the other.

On bringing the six feet tube down over the flame, and giving rapid mo-
tion to the disk,we remark that so long as the flame continues silent, the bar
or dot is quite invisible; but, as soon as the sound commences, the black
disk becomes diversified by a series of whitish images of one or other of these
objects arranged at equal intervals around the central point. It is scarcely
necessary to say, that the number of these images, as well as their apparent
motion or rest, will depend on the time of rotation, as compared with the
intervals of the explosions of the flame. Should it happen that the period of
one revolution of the wheel is precisely that of a certain number of the
explosions, neither more nor less, or that of any multiple or sub-multiple of
this number, the images of the bar or dot will continue in each successive
rotation to present themselves at the same points; but, should this relation
not subsist, these images will be seen to shift their places on the disk,— some-
times appearing to advance, and at others to retreat.

EXPERIMENTS ON THE QUALITY OF SOUND.

The Cosmos (Paris), December 25, 1857, describes a very curious apparatus,
devised by M. Scott, by means of which some very interesting experiments
were made in reference to the different qualities of sounds, and the cause of
these differences. The apparatus consists of a tube spreading out widely at
one extremity like a trumpet, and closed at the other end by a thin stretched
membrane, to the middle of which is attached a very light pencil. The tube

190 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

concentrates the sounds which enter by its base, and the vibrations of the
membrane thus produced are written by the pencil upon a paper coated with
lamp-black, which is uniformly passed under the pencil by clock-work. The
traces thus produced may be copied and preserved (magnified if necessary)
by photography.

When the common accord was sounded on different instruments, the
figures formed were very different both in form and dimensions, according
as wind instruments, stringed instruments, or the human voice were used.
The same differences were seen when the record of singing was compared
with that of unmusical noises. M. Scott established this curious fact, that
the series of vibrations formed by the sound of an instrument or voice was
more regular, even, and consequently more nearly isochromous, in propor-
tion as it is more pure and agreeable to the ear. In shrill cries, and harsh
sounds of instruments, the waves of condensation are irregular, unequal,
and not isochromous. In one experiment, it was shown that, in the impure
sounds of the voice, two, and sometimes three, secondary sets of vibrations
could be detected, combined with the principal.

THE AIR-BALANCE: A NEW FORM OF BAROMETER FOR WEIGHING
ATMOSPHERIC FLUCTUATIONS. BY J. B. JAMES, M. D.

Reflections upon the action of a barometer said to have been in use for
some time in the observatories of Liverpool and Rome, which has that por-
tion of the tube not immediately immersed balanced upon a lever, has sug-
gested an arrangement, which, it is believed, is new, and by which minute
changes in the pressure of the atmosphere may be weighed with great
accuracy. Let the barometer tube be fixed over a platform, with its lower
end freely exposed; let the platform also support a balance, one arm of
which, being placed directly under the lower end of the tube, supports the
reservoir containing the surplus mercury; in this the lower end of the tube
is immersed in the usual manner. If, now, the other arm of the balance be
weighed to counterpoise the reservoir and the mercury not supported by the
atmosphere, the alteration which change of atmospheric pressure renders
necessary in the counterpoise, indicates the change of pressure which has
occurred.

Several circumstances require attention, besides delicacy in the balance
and accuracy in the weights, to secure accuracy in the results. ist. The
tube must be of uniform capacity throughout its length, excepting so much as
is immersed in the mercury; varying capacity in the different portions of the
tube will be productive of error by the alterations which change of tempera-
ture produces, even if the vacuum chamber be uniform. 2d. An alteration
of either the temperature of the mercury or the atmospheric pressure, will
require a readjustment at each successive observation, by elevating or de-
pressing the support of the balance or the tube in such manner as to cause
the immersion of the tube in the mercury to the same point to which the
first adjustment was made; the immersion of more or less of the tube will
cause an error in the result. For this purpose two balances may be used;
upon one the tube may be balanced in the manner first alluded to, by which
the point of immersion is determined, the reservoir-balance being fixed in
its normal position for that purpose. The tube-balance being now fixed, the
other is freed, and brought to the same position by weights; thus the mercury
need not be seen inany part of the operation.» This adjustment would prob-

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 108.

ably be facilitated if a short piece of iron or platinum tube of small diam-
eter were attached, which would displace less mercury, and prevent, to some
extent, a fluctuation of the column of mercury caused by the motion of the
balance. 3d. If very great accuracy is desired, it may be requisite that the
arms of the balance be symmetrical and bear equal and similar surfaces, so
that change of temperature or atmospheric pressure, the accumulation of
dust, oxidation of mercury, etc., may affect both sides equally. Variation
of temperature will cause an alteration in the diameter of the tube, and be
productive of a small error, for which no remedy is suggested.

This instrument, it is obvious, may be so adjusted as to indicate the pres-
sure of the atmosphere in pounds and its parts on the square inch of surface.
But, as it will often be desirable to compare observations made by it with
those of other instruments, it will generally be required that it express the
height of the column of mercury ; to this end the instrument may be adjusted
to a pressure equal, say, to thirty inches of mercury at a temperature of 32°
Fahr. If, now, a tube has been used having a capacity of 1000 grs. of mer-
cury at 32° F. for an inch of its length, which would have a diameter of
about ‘6 of an inch, each grain will represent the thousandth part of an inch;
and if a correction has been made for the capillarity of the tube, all its indi-
cations, at whatever temperature, will represent the height of the column
at 32° F., and require correction only for the altered diameter of the tube.

A rude instrument has been constructed on the principle here indicated.
A barometer tube having a capacity of 100 grs. to the inch, or a diameter of
"18 inch, was suspended over the dish of a U.S. Post-office balance, upon
a peg, by turning which the tube was adjusted to the surface of the mer-
cury in the reservoir; and this rested upon the dish. Its operation was
such as to justify the foregoing conclusions. Of course a scale may be
attached, which will show, in the usual manner, the height of the column. —
Silliman’s Journal.

MODE OF PREPARING LIQUIDS OF GIVEN SPECIFIC GRAVITY,
WITHOUT CALCULATION OR PREVIOUS TRIALS.

In the laboratory and in the arts, we are often required to prepare a definite
mixture of two liquids, such as suiphuric acid and water, alcohol and water,
etc. One of two modes is generally employed. 1st. Given the quantity and
specific gravity of one of the liquids, the quantity of the other liquid is
calculated. This mode is not always practicable, requires time, and for
alcoholic liquids especially, the concentration or mixture gives rise to diffi-
culties frequently insurmountable; or secondly, areometers are floated in the
liquors; but this means, which is very practicable and very much used, pre-
sents great difficulties in manufacture, owing to the various temperature of
the mixtures.

A densimeter of a new form, constructed by M. Spacowsky, of St. Peters-
burg, allows the preparation of a liquid mixture with great ease and pre-
cision, and without a thermometer. The apparatus consists of a vessel or
areometer of platina. This areometer is closed above by a very thin partition
or metallic plate, such as that employed in the aneroid barometers, and
yielding to the fullest pressure. At its lower end the areometer is terminated
by a tube furnished with a stop-cock. It is suspended by a platina wire from
one arm of a delicate balance, and equilibriated by a weight suspended also
by a platina wire from the other arm.. The equilibrium thus established will

192 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

evidently be destroyed if the areometer be filled with any liquid, but will be
restored if the arcometer and the counter-balancing weight be plunged in
a liquid of the same specific gravity as that which it contains; and, as the
thin partition allows the liquid contained to expand in accordance with the
temperature to which it may be subjected, a very simple calculation will
show that the reestablishment of the equilibrium is independent of the tem-
perature. As, moreover, the metal of which the instrument is made, is very
thin, and a good conductor of heat, the equilibrium of temperature will soon
be established between the interior and exterior liquid.

Now, to reproduce in any quantity a liquid of given specific gravity: fill
the areometer with the given liquid, and plunge it and the equilibriating
weight into the heavier of the liquids to be mixed, and add the other until
the equilibrium is restored. The liquids will be rigorously of the same
specific gravity.

ZETHESIOMETER.

Considerable interest has been excited by an instrument, which it is pro-
posed to call an zethesiometer, exhibited at a recent meeting of the Harveian
Society, London, by Dr. Sieveking. It is constructed for the purpose of
measuring the comparative sensibility of different parts of the surface, and
consists of a rod of bell-metal, graduated into inches and tenths of an inch,
upon which two movable points slide. The distance at which a person is
able to distinguish the points as two separate impressions is atest of the sen-
sibility of a given part. Thus, a person in health is able to recognize two
points at the tips of the fingers which are less than one-tenth of an inch
apart; in paralytic conditions this space would widen in proportions to the
amount of insensibility; and the instrument, by measuring this space, be-
comes a physical test of considerable accuracy of the existence and extent
of paralysis of sensation. Dr. Sieveking stated that the ordinary mode of
determining the amount of sensation in such cases, by pinching or pricking
the patient, did not afford sufficiently satisfactory results; but that he found
the instrument which he exhibited useful as an aid to the physical diagnosis
of some nervous affections, and determining by actual measurement the prog-
ress of the disease. Generally speaking, the purposes of diagnosis would
be met by comparing the two corresponding points of the two sides of the
body ; but where an absolute standard of comparison was required, Webster’s
table, showing the sensibility of different parts of the body, and given in
Miiller’s Physiology, would afford this. — Med. Times and Gaz.

SOLAR ECLIPSE OF MARCH, 1858.

M. Quetelet, at Brussels, carefully observed two compensating pendulums,
in comparison with a chronometer, during the eclipse. The object was to see
whether their vibrations were slower, as Professor Zantedeschi thought would
be the case. The two pendulums were arranged so as to vibrate, the one par-
allel, the other perpendicular to the meridian. The one parallel to the meri-
dian showed no change, but the other showed a loss of more than a second
and a quarter per hour, during the eclipse. The record of observations made
several times a day for several days, both before and after the eclipse, show
that this was no accidental coincidence; but many more observations will be
necessary to establish the connection of effect and cause between it and the
eclipse.

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 193

WIND OF A SHOT.

The following extract from an Indian letter confirms the doubts entertained
as to deaths attributed to the “ wind of a shot”: — “ Brigadier Russell is also
about to leave the army, under the advice of a medical board. Never, per-
haps, in all the chances of war, has there been such an escape as his. A can-
non ball cut the gold watch-chain at the back of his neck as cleanly as if it
had been a pair of nippers, and did him no further injury, except inflicting
a shock to his nervous system.” — Medical Times and Gazette.

SOLAR REFRACTION.

Professor Thomson has applied the term “solar refraction ”’ to characterize
an effect deduced theoretically from the dynamical theory of heat, which, if
proved to exist, will result in important consequences to every department of
astronomy; for it at once infers the necessity of the existence of a medium
pervading space of similar constitution to our own atmosphere, and under-
going, by necessity, a condensation in the neighborhood of the sun. Hence,
also, there cannot but arise a refraction of objects beyond the sun, when this
body crosses their line of direction. When Professor Piazzi Smith tested
this “solar refraction’ by the observation of stars transiting the meridian

_ near the sun, the results, as far as they could be deduced, showed the exist-

ence of this “solar refraction,” and, with it, of a resisting medium filling
space, and forming a material connection still between the sun and all the
planets.

_ PROF. FORBES ON SOME PROPERTIES OF ICE NEAR ITS MELTING-

POINT.

Prof. Forbes has communicated to the Royal Society of Edinburgh the
results of some experiments made by him on the properties of ice near its
melting-point, with particular reference to those of Mr. Faraday, published
in the Athencwum for June, 1850, to which attention has been more lately called
by Dr. Tyndall and Mr. Huxley, in relation to the phenomena of glaciers.
The substance of Prof. Forbes’s statement is as follows:

“Mr. Faraday’s chief fact, to which the term ‘regelation’ has been more
lately applied, is this: that pieces of ice, in a medium above 32°, when closely
applied, freeze together, and flannel adheres apparently by congelation to ice
under the same circumstances.

“1. These observations I have confirmed. But I have also found that
metals become frozen to ice when they are surrounded by it, or when they
are otherwise prevented from transmitting heat too abundantly. Thus, a pile
of shillings being laid on a piece of ice in a warm room, the lowest shilling,
after becoming sunk in the ice, was found firmly attached to it.

“2. Mere contact, without pressure, is sufficient to produce these effects.
Two slabs of ice, having their corresponding surfaces ground tolerably flat,
were suspended in an inhabited room upon a horizontal glass rod passing
through two holes in the plates of ice, so that the plane of the plates was
vertical. Contact of the even surfaces was obtained by means of two very
weak pieces of watch-spring. In an hour and a half the cohesion was so

o7

194 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

complete, that, when violently broken in pieces, many portions of the plates
(which had each a surface of 20 or more square inches) continued united. In
fact, it appeared as complete as in another experiment where similar surfaces
were pressed together by weights. I conclude that the effect of pressure in
assisting ‘regelation’ is principally or solely due to the larger surfaces of
contact obtained by the moulding of the surfaces to one another.

“3. Masses of strong ice, which had already for a iong time been floating
in unfrozen water-casks, or kept for days in a thawing state, being rapidly
pounded, showed a temperature of 0°°3 Fahr. below the true freezing-point,
shown by delicate thermometers (both of mercury and alcohol), carefully
tested by long immersion in a considerable mass of pounded ice or snow ina
thawing state.

“4. Water being carefully frozen into a cylinder several inches long, with
the bulb of a thermometer in its axis, and the cylinder being then gradually
thawed, or allowed to lie for a considerable time in pounded ice at a thawing
temperature, showed also a temperature decidedly inferior to 32°, not less, I
think, than 0°°35 Fahr.

“T think that the preceding results are all explicable on the one admission,
that Person’s view of the gradual liquefaction of ice is correct (Comptes Ren-
dus, 1850, vol. xxx. p. 526), or that ice gradually absorbs latent heat from a
point very sensibly lower than the zero of the centigrade scale.

““T. This explains the permanent lower temperature of the interior of ice,
and the formation, when ice is immersed in water, of a sort of plastic ice, or
viscid water, having a most rapid variation of temperature.

“TI. Such a state of temperature, though it is in one sense permanent, is
so by compensation of effects. Bodies of different temperatures cannot con-
tinue so without interaction. The water must give off heat to the ice, but it
spends it in an insignificant thaw at the surface, which therefore wastes, even
though the water be what is called ice-cold, or having the temperature of a body
of water inclosed in a cavity of ice.

““This waste has yet to be proved; but I have little doubt of it; and it is
confirmed by the wasting action of superficial streams on the ice of glaciers,
though other circumstances may also contribute to this effect.

“TIT. The theory explains ‘regelation.” For when a plane surface of ice
immersed in water is brought up to nearly physical contact with another
plane surface, there will be a double film of ‘ viscid water’ isolated between
two ice surfaces colder than itself. Solong asthe surfaces immersed in water
were kept apart, the films of water investing them were kept in a liquid or
semi-liquid state by the heat communicated to them by the perfect water be-
yond. That is now removed, and the film in question has ice colder than itself
on both sides. Part of the sensible heat it possesses is given to the neigh-
boring strata which have less heat than itself, and the intercepted film of
water in the transition state becomes more or less perfect ice.

“Even if the second surface be not of ice, provided it be a bad conductor,
the effect is practically the same. For the film of water is robbed of its heat
on one hand by the colder ice, and the other badly-conducting surface cannot
afford warmth enough to keep the water liquid.

“This effect is well seen by the instant freezing of a piece of ice to a
worsted glove even when on awarm hand. But metals may act so, provided
they are prevented from conveying heat by surrounding them with ice. Thus,
as has been shown, metals adhere to melting ice.”

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 195

NEW METHOD OF INCREASING THE DURABILITY OF ENGRAVED
COPPER PLATES.

At a recent meeting of the London Society of Arts, Mr. F. Joubert gave an
account of a new method of rendering engraved copper plates capable of
producing a greatly increased number of impressions, which consists of
covering the printing surface with a very thin and uniform coating or film
ofiron. This is effected as follows:— At the positive pole of a galvanic
battery a plate of iron is placed, and immersed in-a proper iron solution, and
a copper plate being placed at the opposite pole, and likewise immersed, if
the solution be properly saturated, a deposit of iron, bright and perfectly
smooth, is thrown upon the copper plate. This coating may be removed
and renewed as often as is found necessary, and thus it is stated that 12,000
impressions have been produced from one copper plate.

ON THE REFINEMENT OF MECHANICAL AND ARTISTIC WORK.

The editor of the London Literary Gazette, having recently charged Ruskin,
the well-known art-critic, with extravagant hyperbole, in using in one of his
lectures the following expression: ‘‘ Turner’s pencil did not move over the
thousandth of an inch without meaning,” the lecturer defends himself in the
following reply:

So far from being an hyperbole, it is much within the truth, being
merely a mathematical accurate description of fairly good execution in either
drawing or engraving. It is only necessary to measure a piece of any ordi-
narily good work to ascertain this. Take, for instance, Finden’s engraving
at the 180th page of Rogers’s poems —in which the face of the figure, from
the chin to the top of the brow, occupies just a quarter of an inch, and the
space between the upper lip and chin as nearly as possible qe of an inch.
The whole mouth occupies one-third of this space, say =}5 of an inch, and
within that space both the lips and the much more difficult inner corner of
the mouth are perfectly drawn and rounded, with quite successful and sufii-
ciently subtle expression. Any artist will assure you that, in order to draw
a mouth as well as this, there must be more than twenty gradations of shade
in the touches; that is to say, in this case, gradations changing, with mean-
ing, within less than the thousandth of an inch.

But this is mere child’s play compared to the refinement of any first-rate
mechanical work— much more of brush or pencil drawing by a master’s
hand. In order at once to furnish you with authoritative evidence on this
point, I wrote to Mr. Kingsley, tutor of Sidney-Sussex College, a friend to
whom I always have recourse when I want to be precisely right in any
matter; for his great knowledge both of mathematics and of natural science
is Joined, not only with singular powers of delicate experimental manipula-
tion, but with a keen sensitiveness to beauty in art. His answer, in its final
statement respecting Turner’s work, is amazing even to me, and will, I
should think, be more so to your readers. Observe the successions of meas-
ured and tested refinement. Here is No. 1:

“The finest mechanical work that I know which is not optical is that
done by Nobert in the way of ruling lines. I have a series ruled by him
on glass, giving actual scales from -000024 and -000016 of an inch, perfectly
correct to these places of decimals*, and he has executed others as fine

* That is to say, accurate in measures estimated in millionthks of inches.

196 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

as ‘000012, though I do not know how far he could repeat these last with
accuracy.”

This is No. 1 of precision. Mr. Kingsley proceeds to No. 2:

“But this is rude work compared to the accuracy necessary for the con-
struction of the object-glass of a microscope such as Rosse turns out.”

Iam sorry to omit the explanation which follows of the ten lenses com-
posing such a glass, “‘ each of which must be exact in radius and in surface,
and all have their axes coincident; ”’ but it would not be intelligible without
the figure by which it is illustrated, so I pass to Mr. Kingsley’s No. 3:

“T am tolerably familiar,” he proceeds, “ with the actual grinding and
polishing of lenses and specula, and have produced by my own hand some
by no means bad optical work, and I have copied no small amount of Tur-
ner’s work, and [ still look with awe at the combined delicacy and precision
of his hand; it beats optical work out of sight. In optical work, as in refined
drawing, the hand goes beyond the eye,* and one has to depend upon the
feel; and when one has once learned what a delicate affair touch is, one gets
a horror of all coarse work, and is ready to forgive any amount of feebleness
sooner than that boldness which is akin to impudence. In optics the dis-
tinction is easily seen when the work is put to trial; but here too, as in
drawing, it requires an educated eye to tell the difference when the work is
only moderately bad; but with ‘bold’ work nothing can be seen but distor-
tion and fog, and I heartily wish the same result would follow the same kind
of handling in drawing; but here, the boldness cheats the unlearned by
looking like the precision of the true man. It is very strange how much
better our ears are than our eyes in this country: if an ignorant man were
to be ‘bold’ with a violin, he would not get many admirers, though his
boldness was far below that of ninety-nine out of a hundred drawings one
sees.”

The words which I have italicised in the above extract are those which
were surprising to me. I knew that Turner’s was as refined as any optical
work, but had no idea of its going beyond it. Mr. Kingsley’s word “awe,”
occurring just before, is, however, as I have often felt, precisely the right
one. When once we begin at all to understand the work of any truly great
executor, such as that of the three great Venetians (Tintoret, Titian, and
Veronese), Coreggio, or Turner, the awe of it is something greater than can
be felt from the most stupendous natural scenery. For the creation of such
a system as a high human intelligence endowed with its ineffably perfect
instruments of eye and hand, is a far more appalling manifestation of In-
finite Power, than the making either of seas or mountains.

NEW THEOREMS AND TABLES FOR THE CALCULATION OF EARTH-
WORK.

An interesting mathematical investigation of some problems in the calcu-
lation of earthwork, together with tables adapted to such calculations, has
been recently communicated to the Pottsville (Pa.) Scientific Association,

* In case any of your readers should question the use, in drawing, of work too
fine for the touches to be individually seen, I quote a sentence from my ‘ Elements
of Drawing.” ‘‘All fine coloring, like fine drawing, is delicate; so delicate, that if
at last you see the color you are putting on, you are putting on toomuch. You
ought to feel a change wrought in the general tone by touches which are individu-
ally too pale to be seen.”

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 197

by Mr. Warner. The communication presents a theoretical discussion, with
practical illustrations of the method known to engineers, as the method of
transverse ground slopes, which treats the surface of the ground asa plane,
the position of which is given, in respect to the roadbed or formation level,
by the centre height at each end of the work, and the transverse slope of the
ground. The tables may also be used in calculating the solidity under a
warped surface.

Mr. Warner’s formule admit of various transformations and applications.
We shall notice briefly some which pertain to those cases of the method of
transverse slopes, wherein the cross section of the work is a quadrilateral
fizure, and the side slopes alike. To find the solidity, it is necessary to find
an expression for the area of the cross section at any point, which is eran
by the traces of the two side planes, and the traces of the roadbed and
ground surface. If the traces of the side planes be prolonged to meet, and
the point of their intersection assumed as the pole to which the polar equa-
tions of the roadbed and ground-plane traces are referred, then the area
sought may be derived from a known formula for the area included between
two radii vectores and two lines given by their polar equations. This being
done, the solidity between two given cross sections may be found. For this
solidity Mr. Warner gives the following formula:

Let EZ denote the length of the work perpendicular tothe parallel end sec-
tions, B the width of base, o and + the inclinations of the side and transverse
slopes respectively to the base or horizon. Let also S denote the sum of the
end heights measured from the intersection of the side slopes, and D the dif-
ference of these heights; then the solidity will be

tan ©
ee

pul ston? tan” +B" tan” se zs)

tan“ — tan” Y
If Band D be both = 0, the solid in question becomes a triangular prism

whose end height is 4 S, and whose solidity is
Es? tan ¢
ere Se a a i ac el a as ane al

tan” o — tan” Dh

If, in formula 1, the square root of the quantity within the parenthesis be

1
denoted by S, the solidity expressed by that formula may be put under the
1,
LS? tane

tan2 o— tan? y

dS, a dae nate ail oleh aac decade, aaa nS

Cola

form

which, by its similarity with 2, shows that Ss is the end height of a triangu-
lar prism, whose solidity is equal to that of the work. We may also consider
the solidity of the work as made up of the solidities of two or more prisms,
with similar bases, and of equal length.

Hence it is evident that tables containing the solidities of such prisms may
be employed in the computation of earthwork. Of this description were
some of Mr. Warner’s tables, adapted to several of the most usual side
slopes. They may also be used by finding the whole content included
between the side slopes and the surface, and deducting therefrom the redun-
dant prism lying above or below the roadbed. This process has been par-
tially developed by previous writers.

Other tables exhibited by Mr. Warner, based on the same general forniives
and adapted to logarithmic giao were directly applicable to any one
of thirteen different side slopes, combined with any one of forty diivcrent

iis

198 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

transverse slopes, and with end heights whose sum does not exceed 100 feet.
Both sets of tables embrace directly all ordinary widths of roadbed, and are
extended by proper formule to side hill work, or work of triangular cross
sections.

1

The quantity S of formula 3 may be found by construction, and then
employed to enter the table of prisms. The operation and advantages of
this process were shown by the solution of practical examples.

Mr. Warner further gave some rules for the computation by centre and
side heights. This part of the subject, he said, had been more fully discussed
than the method of transverse slopes,— several American writers haying
treated it with ability, especially Colonel Ellwood Morris.

Under such circumstances, it was prudent to say little concerning the
value of one’s own work. He would, however, remark, that he had exhibited
nothing which did not appear to him as original, at least in its whole scope;
and that, as far as his rules were applicable, he had given practical proof of
their expedition and accuracy. In regard to the method of transverse slopes,
he would observe, that he had as yet met with no other treatment of it as
full and satisfactory to him as his own; but, independently of what belonged
to the theory, the labor of computation had been great,— having engaged
his attention, at intervals, for several years.

CHEMICAL SCIENCE.

THOUGHTS ON THE PROGRESS OF CHEMICAL SCIENCE.

THE following is an abstract of an address delivered by Sir John Herschel,
on assuming the chair of the chemical section of the British Association, at
its last meeting, 1858. After briefly alluding to the rapid progress of chem-
istry in his own time, he desired “to put in a word of reclamation against
the system of notation into which chemists, who for the most part are not
algebraists, have fallen, in expresing their atomic formulx. These formulz
have been gradually taking on a character more and more repulsive to the
algebraical eye. There is a principle which I think ought to be borne in
mind in framing the conventional notations as well as nomenclatures of
every science, at every new step in its progress, —viz., that as sciences do
not stand alone, but exist in mutual relations to each other — as it is for their
common interest that there should exist among them a system of free com-
munication on their frontier points —the language they use and the signs
they employ should be framed in such a way as at least not to contradict each
other. As the atomic formule used by the chemist are not merely symbolic
of the mode in which atoms are grouped, but are intended also to express
numerical relations, indicative of the aggregate weights of the several atoms
in each group, and the several groups in each compound, it is distressing to
the algebraist to find that he cannot interpret a chemical formula (I mean in
its numerical application) according to the received rules of arithmetical
computation. In a paper which I published a long time ago on the Hypo-
sulphites, I was particularly careful to use a mode of notation which, while
perfectly clear in its chemical sense, and fully expressing the relations of the
groupings I allude to, accommodated itself at the same time perfectly well to
numerical computation — no symbol being in any case juxtaposed, or in any
way inter-combined with one another, so as to violate the strict algebraical
meaning of the formula. This system seemed for a while likely to be gener-
ally adopted; but it has been more and more departed from, and I think with
a manifest corresponding departure from intelligibility. The time is, perhaps,
not so very far distant, when, from a knowledge of the family to which a chem-
ical element belongs, and its order in that family, we may be able to predict
with confidence the system of groups into which it is capable of entering,
and the part it will play in the combination. A great step in this direction
seems to me to have been lately made by Prof. Cooke, of the United States
(in a memoir which forms part of the 5th volume of the Memoirs of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences), to extend and carry out the clas-

200 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

sification of chemical elements into families of the kind I allude to, in a sys-
tem of grouping, in which the first idea, or rather the first germ of the idea,
may be traced to a remark made by M. Dumas, in one of his reports to this
Association, and which is founded on the principle of arranging them ina
series, in each of which the atomic weight of the elements it comprises are
found among the terms of an arithmetical progression, the common differ-
ence of which in the several series are 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, and 9 times the atomic
weizht of hydrogen respectively. So arranged, they form six groups, which
are fairly entitled to be considered natural families, each group having com-
mon properties in the highest degree characteristic; and what is more remark-
able, the initial member in each group possessing in every case the character-
istic property of the group in its most eminent degree, while the others ex-
hibit that property in a less and less degree, according to their rank in the
progression, or according to the increased numerical value of the atomic
equivalent. Generally speaking, I am a little slow to give full eredence to
numerical generalizations of this sort, because we are apt to find their authors
cither taking some liberties with the numbers themselves, or demanding a
wider margin of error in the application of their principles, than the precision
of the experimental data renders it possible to accord ; so that the result is more
or less wanting in that close appliance to nature which makes all the differ-
ence between a loose analogy and a physical law. But in this instance it cer-
tainly does appear that the groups so arising not only do correspond remark-
ably well in their theoretical numbers with those which the best authorities
assign to their elements, but that it really would be difficult to distinguish the
clements themselves into more distinctly characteristic classes by a consider-
ation of their qualities alone, without reference to their atomic numbers.
When we find, for instance, that the principle affords us such family groups
as oxygen, fluorine, chlorine, bromine, and iodine, self-arranged in that very
order; or again, nitrogen, phosphorus, arsenic, antimony, or bismuth; when
we find that it packs together in one group all the more active and soluble
electro-positive elements, hydrogen, lithium, sodium, and potassium, and in
another the more inert and less soluble ones, calcium, strontium, barium, and
lead, and that without outraging any other system of relations, — it certainly
does seem that we have here something very like a valid generalization: and
I shall be very glad to learn, in the course of any discussions which may arise
on such matters as may be brought before us in the regular conduct of our
business, from those more competent to judge than myself, whether I have
been forming an overweening estimate of the value and importance of such
generalizations. I will only add on this point, in reference to what fell from
our excellent President in his address to the assembled Association last night,
that this kind of speculation, followed out, would seem to me likely to termi-
nate in a point very far from that which would regard all the members of
each of these family groups as allotropes of one fundamental one; inasmuch
as the common difference of the several, progressions which their atomic
weights go to make up, are neither equal to, nor in all cases commensurate
with, the first terms of these progressions. For instance, in the chlorine
group, the first term being 8, the common difference is 9. Something very
different from allotropism is surely suggested by such a relation. It would
rather seem to point to a dilution of energy of one primary element by the
super-addition of dose after dose of some other modifying element; and this
the more strikingly, since we find oxygen standing at the head of very dis--
tinct groups having very striking correspondences in some respects, and

CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 201

very striking differences in others. But all these speculations take for
granted a principle, with which I must confess I think chemists have
allowed themselves to be far too easily satisfied, viz., that all the atomic
numbers are multiples of that of hydrogen. Not until these numbers are
determined with a precision approaching that of the elements of the plan-
etary orbits, —a precision which can leave no possible question of a tenth
or a hundredth of a per cent., and in the presence of which such errors
as are at present regarded as tolerable in the atomic numbers of even the
best determined elements shall be considered utterly inadmissible, — I think,
can this question be settled; and when such gigantic consequences — so
entire a system of nature is to be based on a principle — nothing short of such
evidence ought, I think, to be held conclusive, however seductive the theory
may appear. I do not think such precision unattainable, and I think I per-
ceive a way in which it might be attained, but one that would involve an ex-
penditure of time, labor, and money, such as no private individual could
bestow on it. Ifthe phenomena of chemistry are ever destined to be reduced
under the dominion of mathematical analysis, it will, no doubt, be by a very
circuitous and intricate route, and in which at present we see no glimpse of
light. We should, therefore, be all the more carefully on the watch in mak-
ing the most of those.classes of facts which seem to place us, not indeed
within view of daylight, but at what seems an opening that may possibly
lead to it. Such are those in which the agency of light is concerned in mod-
ifying or subverting the ordinary affinities of material elements, those to
which the name of actino-chemistry has been affixed. Hitherto the more
attractive applications of photography have had too much the effect of dis-
tracting the attention from the purely chemical question which it raises; but
the more we consider them in the abstract, the more strongly they force
themselves on our notice: and [look forward to their occupying a much
larger space in the domain of chemical inquiry than is the case at present.
That light consists in the undulations of an ethereal medium, or at all events
agrees better in the characters of its phenomena with such undulations, than
with any other kind of motion which it has yet been possible to imagine, is
a proposition on which I suppose the minds of physicists are pretty well made
up. The recent researches of Prof. Thomson and Mr. Joule, moreover, have
gone a great way towards bringing into vogue, if not yet fully unto accepta-
tion, the doctrine of a more or less analogous conception of heat. When we
consider now the marked influence which the different calorific states of
bodies have on their affinities —the change of crystalline form effected in
some by a change in temperature — the aliotropic states taken on by some on
exposure to heat — or the heat given out by others on their restoration from
the allotropic to the ordinary form (for though I am aware that Mr. Gore
considers his electro-deposited antimony to be a compound, I cannot help
fancying that at all events the state in which the antimony exists in it is an
allotropic one), — when, I say, we consider these facts in which heat is con-
cerned, and compare them with the facts of photography, and with the
ozonization of oxygen by the chemical rays of the electric spark, and with
the striking alterations in the chemical habitudes of bodies pointed out by
Draper, Hunt, and Becquerel; and when, again, we find these carried so far
that, as in the experiments of Bunsen and Roscoe, we find the amount of
chemical action numerically measuring the quantity of light absorbed — it
seems hardly possible not to indulge a hope that the pursuit of these strange
phenomena may by degrees conduct us to a mechanical theory of chemical

202 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

action itself. Even should this hope remain unrealized, the field itself is too
wide to remain unexplored; and, to say nothing of discovery, the use of
photography merely as a chemical test may prove very valuable, as I have
myself quite recently experienced, in the evidence it has afforded me of the
presence in certain solutions of a peculiar metal having many of the charac-
ters of arsenic, but differing from it in others, and strikingly contrasted with
it in its powerful photographic qualities, which are of singular intensity, sur-
passing iodine, and almost equalling bromine. There is another class of |
phenomena which, though usually considered as belonging peculiarly to the
domain of general physics, and so out of our department, seems to me to
want some attention in a chemical point of view. It is that of capillary
attraction. The coéfficient of capillarity differs very remarkably in different
liquids, and no doubt also in their contacts with different solids, a fact which
can hardly be separated from the idea of some community of nature between
the capillary force and those of elective attraction. I hardly dare to hint at
the existence of some slight misgiving I have always felt as to the validity
of the received statical theory of capillary action, which carries with it the
authority of such names as those of Laplace and Poisson. Any discussion
of this point would be matter for another Section of this Association; and
if I here touch upon it, it is only to observe, that my impression of the requi-
siteness of a force so far allied to chemical affinity as to be capable of saturation,
rests on other grounds besides that of the mere diversity of action above
alluded to. But I must remember that you are not met here to listen to
generalities, of whatever nature, but that we have plenty of real and spe-
cial business before us.

EQUIVALENTS OF THE ELEMENTS.

The following is a résumé of results of recent researches on the aboye
subject, recently communicated to the French Academy, by M. Dumas:

Among the simple bodies or elements studied by him, twenty-two have
equivalents that are multiples of hydrogen by a whole number, viz. :

O 8, N 14 | Bi 2 r'C 6) Li a | Ca 56
Ss 16. |2eh 81 | Fl 19 | Si 14|Na 23 | Sn 59
Se 40 | As Tyas 80| Mo 48] Ca 20
Te 64 | Sb 122 12 127 | Aw 92'| Fe 28

Seven have equivalents which are multiples of half an equivalent of
hydrogen.
Cl 35°5 | Mn 27°5 | Ni 29:5 | Pb 103-5
Mg 125|Ba 68-5 | Co 29-5
Three have equivalents which are multiples of one-fourth of an equivalent
of hydrogen.
Al 18°75 Sr 48-75 Zn 82-75

Among the comparisons that may be made there are the following:

76 || Sb | 1221

Lia | ie Saba eae

cia | Ph 3l | AS
Fr |o 19 2 Aah

CI 85:5 | Br

It is seen that on adding 108 to the number for nitrogen we have the num-
ber for antimony (14+ 108= 122); and adding it to the number for fluorine,
we have the number for iodine (19 + 108 = 127.

So dso on adding sixty-one to the equivalent of nitrogen we obtain that of

CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 293

arsenic (14-61 = 75); and the same to thatof fluorine, gives that of bromine
(19-+61 =89).

In a word, if the numbers be arranged on two parallel lines, the ordinates
of one series lengthened by five, become the ordinates of the other, with the
single exception of phosphorus and chlorine, which are separated by 4°5
instead of 5. These facts teach the propriety of arranging the metals in
series, that shall show a double parallelism; for such a classification brings
out to view the various analogies existing among them. In fact, when
arranged by natural families, each of the elements is in proximity to two
others, belonging to two related families; and these related families occupy
the two lines next to that containing the metal selected for comparison.
Finally, each metal is surrounded in such a table by four others, which are
united to it by analogies of different kinds and more or less close.— Corre-
spondence of Silliman’s Journal.

From a report of Dumas’ paper in the Comptes Rendus, the following
additional details are derived.

In order to exhibit the numerical relations between the equivalents of the
different elements, the author, after referring to the previous investigations
of Professsor Cooke, takes up, in the first place, the examination of certain
groups and series presented by organic chemistry. If we consider the homolo-
gous series C2H3, CsHs, CeH7, etc., we remark at once that there is a common
point of departure for and a common difference between the equivalents of
the successive terms. The formula a-+nd represents the generation of all
these radicals, a being the equivalent of the first, and d the difference be-
tween the first and second term. The author remarks, that if we did not
know the law of progression, we might easily be led to think that the ratio
between the numbers 141 and 281, 127 and 253, 113 and 225, is the simple
ratio of 1 : 2, especially as chemistry can hardly decide with absolute cer-
tainty whether an element has, for example, the equivalent 225 or 226. The
formula deduced from the simple progression above mentioned would not
account for the generation of the elements, as Professor Cooke supposed.
But the organic radicals are not always produced by addition, but sometimes
by substitution, as we see in the compound ammoniums. We may have, for
instance, the following ammoniums:

a+d a+2d a+3d a+4d
a-+d/ a+d+da/ a+2d+d a+3d+d/
a+2u/ atd+2d! a+2d+2uU/
a+ 3d/ a+td+3d/
atd+d/+d/+d’",

where a represents ammonia NH4, and d, d’, etc. represent the equivalent of
hydrocarbons of the series Cy Hn.

In the next place, there are certain radicals in organic chemistry where the
fundamental molecule itself changes, as well as the bodies added to or sub-
stituted init. Thus, tin and ethyl form six molecular groups, possessing all
the properties of organic radicals. If we represent tin by a, and ethyl by /@,
we have for the six species of stannethyl the formulas

a+d/ 2a+c/ 4a+d
2a + 34/ 4a + 3d’
4a+5d/

(na-+ nd’) being the general formula. With these premises the author pro-
cecds to compare the equivalents of the clements. The elements F, Cl, Be,

20 1 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

I, do not form a single progression. The relation between their equivalents
is, however, exhibited by the scheme a, a+d, a+2d+d/, 2a+2d+2d, or
in numbers, :

Fluorine,...... Sgodde bosic elds dicta Majette artes 19
Chierine}s,<¢aevis ish ed picasa aks. sees. 2 19-+- 16°5 = 35°5

TEE OMIRSs 54 2a <hsiasits ante sara mole nidaw de is atidgace'h 19-+-33 + 28 = 80
BOAO asc tis an aictpaoie§ seises as PAP .+. 88-33 -+ 56 = 127.

Nitrogen, phosphorus, arsenic, antimony and bismuth, form another natural
group; and for their equivalents we have the scheme, a, a+d,a+d-+d,a+d
+ 2d, and a+d- 4d’, or in numbers,

WNitropen;... 36% vesdeveeveenee iene outa coovseds 4

Phosphorus, «0:55. 0: Saas ain aa Bayi oasis c OS 14-+17 =31
ATSENICs ose hp swe atentvie ga ds Sabie Waewpes « Hele 14+17+44=75
PERT ONDY gcc a'e nsanoashies sadam aes wigs ee ee -« Mes 14+17-+88=119
PISBTEEN, 5 <2 ster ayn misicieeeo ns sinjer bie sicpiien aaauss tye 14 +-17 +176 = 207.

The author gives similar series for carbon, boron, silicon, and zirconium, as
well as for tin, titanium and tantalum, which we omit. For oxygen, sulphur,
selenium and tellurium, we have either of the series a, 2a, 5a, 84, or a, a+d,
a+4d,a+7d. Analogy points out the latter as preferable, and we have in
numbers,

ORV SOS: dae dei5ste 3 rida dete ha aid sivbantetinews 20
MIME dv. sin dloprsiencrs wetiwions vwael vic x eames ade 8+8=16
DOPEDIHEA Ks. pus dind omalee eieicakelp Meteia Saks) “ialnisis ain 8+ 382= 40
PORTED, 5 miao maxes: sieeohayemetiaie OE Re 8 +56 = 64.

A common difference of 8 also connects Mg, Ca, Si, Ba, Pb; thus we have

NE a en ORaIA cys wos raatas cei xia) oerepyaniaw onloainadin’s a 12

OP ihiehGa dan sos: geoeres coe tie oes eeieerec 12+8 = 20

DS OTM ULNA ea fesorsistcpiicxsce(olel ckaisis ieusisjauasoreteloe/ens eh dolis 12+ 32 = 44
ES UTTER rots vor siohleve isla teva avers aisreceis elercrercssstexsinl® sreieve . 12+ 56 = 68
MUCH, ictereetsts «+. sro che HABA shins SEMESe ier 3 24 + 80 = 104.

Lithium, sodium and potassium, belong to a similar series, with a common
difference of 16.

I DTN Ba atoAy Shoo: BachBocadoas solomon andncce 7
SGT ee chore tasaoyoranerarece eisieess S10) 01 Siawcvelsiecue sas ieiere 7+ 16 = 23
FPOUASSIEIM, ajereie stein «1 eros nralate/ersietctale(cts/d/eiaie nets 7+ 32=89.

Molybdenum, tungsten, chromium, and vanadium form a similar series, of
which the common difference is 22; the progression being 26, 48, 70, 92.
The author considers his results as favorable to the idea of Dr. Prout, who
supposed the equivalents of all the elements multiples, by a whole number,
of that of hydrogen. In the case, however, of chlorine, and perhaps of
some other elements, the unit of reference is less than the equivalent of
hydrogen, and is probably 0°5. In all the series the first member determines
the chemical character of all the other terms. These considerations, the
author remarks, will have more weight when he presents the study of a
natural family of which hydrogen is the first term, and exhibits the connec-
tion between the physical properties of them and the position which each
occupies in the series of which it forms a member.

CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 20a

ON THE PRODUCTION OF ORGANIC BODIES WITHOUT THE AGENCY
OF VITALITY.

The following is an abstract of a lecture on this most interesting subject,
recently read before the Royal Institution of Great Britain, by Prof. E. Frank-
land:

The earlier researches of chemists brought them into contact with two
classes of bodies, distinguished from each other by well-marked and obvious
peculiarities. One of them was met with in the inanimate or mineral king-
dom, the various materials of which were distinguished by their comparative
stability or resistance to change, and by the facility with which the greater
number of them could be artificially produced from the elementary bodies
composing them. The other class of bodies was found exclusively in the
animate portion of creation, or was directly derived from the productions of
the organs of plants and of animals; these compounds were distinguished
by their proneness to undergo change, and by the impossibility of producing
them by artificial means. By no processes then known to chemists could the
elements composing these latter bodies be made to unite so as to produce
compounds, either identical with or analogous to the substances generated
by the organs of plants and of animals. These substances were conse-
quently, from their origin, termed organic bodies, or organic compounds. They
were regarded as dependent for their origin upon the influence of that aggre-
gate of conditions sometimes called the vital force; and it was generally
believed that we should never succeed in producing these bodies artificially,
until we could form and endow with vitality the organs from which they
were derived. Such was the state of knowledge and opinion until the year
1828, when Wohler succeeded in artificially producing urea, a body which
had, up to that time, been known only as a product of the animal organism.*
This discovery was followed, many years later, by the artificial formation of
acetic acid, which was produced by Kolbe from a mixture of protochloride
of carbon, water, and chlorine exposed to sunlight; the chloracetic acid thus
obtained being afterwards converted into acetic acid by an amalgam of po-
tassium. The subsequent production of methyl, by the same chemist, from
acetic acid, added one of the organic radicals to the list of compounds produ-
cible from theirelements. Although little further progress was made for sev-
eral years in this department of chemical research, yet the artificial produc-
tion of urea and acetic acid, together with their derivatives, completely
broke down the barrier between so-called “organic” and “inorganic”
bodies; and although the name “organic ”’ was still retained for the class of
bodies to which it had previously been assigned, it was now obviously no
longer strictly applicable. The recent ingenious researches of M. Berthelot
have greatly extended this branch of chemical inquiry, and have in a most
important degree increased the number of bodies capable of artificial forma-
tion. The production of chloride of methyl. and the members of the ole-
fiant gas family up to amylene (Cio Hio) furnish us with the whole series of
alcohols and their derivatives, from amylic alcohol downwards. Phenylic
alcohol and napthaline, both artificially produced by Berthelot, yield a host
of interesting bodies; whilst phenylcarbamic acid enables us to step from
the phenylic to the salicylic group, since, when treated with hyponitrous

* The artificial formation of urea from cyanate of ammonia was exhibited under
the influence of polarized electric light.

13

206 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

acid, it yields salicylic acid. Lastly, M. Berthelot has succeeded in artifi-
cially forming glycerine, the basis of animal and vegetable oils and fats, and
also in forming grape sugar; the latter, however, is obtained by the contact
of glycerine with putrifying animal matter, and consequently cannot be said
to be produced altogether without the agency of vitality,—although the
putrifying organic matter contributes none of its constituents to the new
compound, and does not undergo any appreciable change in weight or ap-
pearance during the process. These substances yield such a numerous class
of derivatives that upwards of 700 distinct organic compounds can now be
produced from their elements without the agency of vitality. The processes
employed for the artificial production of these bodies, though deeply interest-
ing, present, with one or two exceptions, little or no analogy to the natural
mode by which organic compounds are formed in the tissues of plants; but
the speaker endeavored to show that a close attention to the nature of the
inorganic materials assimilated by the vegetable kingdom, and their relations
to the more important organic compounds derived from plants, leads to the
belief, that such compounds can be successfully produced by processes
strictly analogous to those employed by nature. He contended that the
constitution of the so-called organo-metallic bodies, in which the production
of complex organic compounds from inorganic ones, by the replacement of
elements by organic groups, can be so clearly traced, afforded a valuable
clue to the formation of organic bodies in general, and led directly to the
conclusion, that, if the organic compounds of the metals be formed upon the
model of the oxides of the respective metals, the organic compounds of car-
bon (that is, all organic compounds) are formed upon the model of the
oxides of carbon. It has long been known that, with slight and unimpor-
tant exceptions, the only materials employed by nature in the construction
of the most complex organic compounds, are carbonic acid, water, ammo-
nia, and nitric acid. The fact that a vast number of organic compounds are
cast in the molecular mould of water, has been proved by the ingenious
researches of Williamson and Gerhardt; whilst the wonderful fertility of the
ammonia model has been amply demonstrated by the labors of Hofman and
Wurtz. It would also not be difficult to prove the claim of nitric acid to be
considered as a third model, upon which a number of other organic com-
pounds are built up; but it was necessary to confine attention on the present
occasion to the consideration of carbonic acid only, as a model upon which
a very large number of organic bodies are formed. Guided by the constitu-
tion above referred to, of the organo-metallic bodies, and bearing in mind
the replacability of the oxygen in water and binoxide of nitrogen, and the
chlorine in terchloride of phosphorus, by organic radicals, Professor Kolbe
and the speaker were led to the following hypothesis regarding the constitu-
tion of several important classes of organic compounds.

1. The replacement of one atom of oxygen in carbonic acid, by hydrogen
or its homologues, produces an organic acid, either of the fatty or of the
aromatic series, thus: 7

Carbonic Acid. Acetic Acid. Benzoic Acid.
O (C, C)o H
O - 29 3) : ( 2 5)
2 O 2 O 2 O
O O oO

2. The like replacement of two atoms of oxygen in carbonic acid, produces
either a ketone or an aldehyde, thus:

CHEMICAL SCIENCE. S07

Carbonic Acid Acetone. Aldehyde. Oil of Bitter Aimoiuids.
O (C2 Hs) os ge? H5
‘ O (C2 H3)
C2 0 C2 O C2 O C2 O
O O O O

3. The like replacement of three atoms of oxygen in carbonic acid pro-
duces an ether, thus:

Carbonic Acid Vinic Ether.
O C2 H3
C2 : C2 es
O O

4. The like replacement of all the atoms of oxygen in carbonic acid pro-
duces a radical, a hydride of a radical, or a double radical, thus:

Hydride of Methyl.

Carbonic Acid. Ethyl. (Fire damp.) Methyl-thyl.
O Co Hg = C2 i
O H
C2 O C2 Ei C2 H C2 H
O C4 H5 H Ce H3

The authors of this hypothesis now attempted to verify it by direct exper-
iment. They endeavored to avail themselves of the powerful affinities of
zincethyl, in order to effect the substitution of oxygen in carbonic acid, and
sulphur in bisulphide of carbon, by ethyl; these attempts were, however, at
best only partially successful; the reagent, the zincethyl, was not suffi-
ciently powerful to rival the action of plants in the decomposition of car-
bonic acid; and its effects upon bisulphide of carbon resulted in the produc-
tion of a number of organic bodies containing sulphur; and although one of
these appeared to have the formula of sulphropropionic acid (Cg Hs 83+
18), yet its complete separation and purification presented such difficulties
that it would have been hazardous to rely upon it as a proof of the correct-
ness of their hypothesis. In short, the verification of these views was not
permitted to their authors, but was reserved for Mr. Wanklyn, who, in his
newly-discovered sodium and potassium compounds of the organic radicals,
came into possession of reagents, which enabled him at once to effect
the desired substitutions. His memoir on the production of propionic acid
by the ,action of sodium-ethyl upon carbonic acid,* which has just been
communicated to the Chemical Society, proves the first proposition of a hy-
pothesis, which considerably simplifies our views of the molecular struc-
ture of organic bodies, and which, if proved to be throughout correct, can-
not fail to enable us greatly to increase the number of organic compounds
capable of being procured from their elements without the intervention of
vitality. The speaker then referred to the following list of important
organic bodies, selected from the large number above spoken of, as being
capable of artificial formation from their elements:

Name. Formula.
Oxalic Acid ere eesees eee C8 Feet eeereees Spaieleislayipa dic erejoreO2 OF. EE O)2
Hydrocyanic Acid..... njeletelalecinisisss/<icichajelohts¢ ayaiefaatuisy tsyuens C2 N, H

* This conversion of carbonic acid into propionic acid was experimentally dem.
onstrated, and the remarkable properties of sodium-ethyl and potassium-ethyl
were also exhibited.

208 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

Name. Formula.
Light Carburetted Hydrogen......... seis ngiaeiusleme ». C2 H4
WORE sc ore eiteasie me ee Tia og ePhic atbiaye. nue sian aie d eWeak wis C2 N2 H4 O2
Wormic Acid CACO Of AMES) -) boca cisice ons seeds eek. = C2 1 Os, HOS
SCHIGPOIGEM, cca cdesass ase cicles sss on'0 sens “eget ade C2 H Clz
PCC AGI pono «pide apis neresisic 8:92 BE Range ey cp mer, OG Ta eH
PAN COMO Tomer iris olsreieletelowielalateieieieh eorere tale econ cteni cies sia -.. C4 H50, H O.
BBTEIVO TS = cys Eke, w wis Syste sleeve are leis arose a Gictolete Sis Wletarelui Siatesele eles (C4 H5 O)2
Olefiant- Gass. wees... 00s Seeks Sele aie ee Soa fo C4 H4.
PESO AINE Seo gone God OnGa IDG 2I0OoaG, Sooondanor C4 Hs O, C4 H3 Os.
(Ona g GROSS * ARAS AS cose geno cannon nonce g dao lo Tos (C6 H5 S)e.
Onl Of Niustand ane cm serves cisicie sis. arelarailefelesoiasivaleteisisasley< Ce H5 8, C2N S.
Glycerine. ....¥.0- ssotooseassere Agnosansebeeact .....C6 Hg O6.
Botyric AIA... cece code cngsceuses-ecvacesenye --».C8 H7 03, H O.
Pine Apple flavor (Butyric Ether)......... Bora cis 3p C8 H7 Os, C4 Hs O.
Succinic AG ONE et ore ee Cs H4 O6, 2H O.
Valertatie Acid. (on. -5 aa0e-e - A ar soeccrsccesee O10 H9 O03, H O.
Pear flavor (Acetate Of Aimy) )iiiccc scloe +0000 oden dete C4 H3 O3, Cio O11 O.
Apple flavor (Valerianate of Amy])........s0000 ses C10 H9 O3, Cio Hu O.
ye Go a eet ie eat oop Ci2 Hig O1.
CRESS EE si iainicn'e stemmed eis sane h ama eate ke Ciz Hi2 O12.
Carriere wo G Aaah egoeons... or acsoes aialeveie cola eetalrelecome Ciz H11 03, H O.
ISOM ZOO, shear caine | se sien aecoiets ais eueress eikls Orareiereiatoie inv Feisisle Clo oekG
INitrobenzole. 3.2 [0s F. 0s elie Biletirak 2 POSE ies OEE Ciz2 Hs N O04.
PATTIE WAS IRO RIS Pulte Leb ly dawSianlaieee aeinciotias tata N (C12 H5) He.
Phenyl Alcohol (Creosote)........+.cseees ita peta eheie C12 H5 O, HO.
Bicrie vA cid yes ase dehias aiaiiats ahi stress ails, deayatiowins Ciz2 He (N 04)3 O, HO.
Saligulie ADiG... siganaane oapae cineadinng's'aina ye deasans, C14, Hs 05, H O.
Salicylate of Methyl (Oil of Wintergreen)..........- C14 H5 05, C2 H3 O.
IN ADEN ALING | cre iescie siaisiis ais camnas aueuneraieie Siniavasiaaiiealsiss sie isha eta:

The artificial formation of urea, lactic acid, and caproic acid, is interesting
in connection with certain functions of the animaleconomy. Pine-apple oil,
pear oil, and apple oil, are instances of the artificial production of the deli-
cate flavors of fruit, whilst oil of wintergreen and nitrobenzole are like
examples of the formation of esteemed perfumes. But of all the bodies
hitherto thus produced, alcohol, glycerine, and sugar, are undoubtedly the
most deeply interesting, owing to the part they take in the nutrition of ani-
mals; they prove to us the possibility of producing, without vegetation or
any vital intervention, an important part of the food of man. Should the
chemist also succeed in forming artificially the nitrogenous constituents of
food, without which life cannot be maintained, it would then be possible for
a man, placed upon a barren rock, and furnished with the necessary appara-
tus and inorganic materials, to support life entirely without either animal or
vegetable food. No one of these nitrogenous constituents has however yet
been artificially produced, and the absence of all clue to their rational con-
stitution forms at present a formidable barrier to their non-vital formation.
It would be difficult to conclude a subject like the present without any notice
of the considerations which naturally suggest themselves, regarding the
possibility of economically replacing natural processes by artificial ones in
the formation of organic compounds. At present, the possibility of doing
this only attains to probability in the case of rare and exceptional products
of animal and vegetable life. Thus valerianic acid, which, for a long time
was extracted from the root of the Valeriana officinalis, could now probably
be more cheaply prepared from its elements; but a still cheaper source of

-e

CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 209

this acid has been in the meantime discovered, viz., the oxidation of amylic
alcohol, a waste product formed in the manufacture of spirit of wine, and
obtainable at such a moderate cost as to prevent, in an economical point of
view, the successful production either of amylic alcohol or valerianic acid
by any artificial and exclusively non-vital processes at present known. It
is also highly probable, that if we could produce artificially such bodies as
quinine and the rare alkaloids, or alizarine and similar powerful and valuable
organic coloring matters, we should be able to compete with organic life in
the formation of these bodies; nevertheless, the discovery of the processes
of artificial formation would doubtless be preceded by a knowledge of
methods, by which such rare bodies could be produced from more abundant,
and consequently cheaper, forms of vegetable or animal matter; and it is
therefore exceedingly improbable that any purely non-vital process will be
successfully, and at the same time economically employed for the manufac-
ture even of such rare and valuable vital products. Such being the econom-
ical bearings of the case with regard to the rare and exceptional educts of
vitality, when we turn to consider the great staple products of the animal
and vegetable kingdoms, the hope of rivalling natural processes becomes
faint indeed. By no processes at present known could we produce sugar,
- glycerine, or alcohol from their elements, at one hundred times their present
cost, as obtained through the agency of vitality. But, although our present
prospects of rivalling vital processes in the economical production of staple
organic compounds, such as those constituting the food of man, are so
exceedingly slight, yet it would be rash to pronounce their ultimate realiza-
tion impossible. It must be remembered that this branch of chemistry is as
yet in its merest infancy, and that it has hitherto attracted the attention of
few minds; and further, that many analogous substitutions of artificial for
natural processes have been achieved. Thus, under certain circumstances,
we find it less economical to propel our ships by the force of the wind, and
our carriages by animal power, than to employ steam power for these pur-
poses. We do not find it desirable to wait for the bleaching of our calicoes
by the sun’s rays; and even the grinding of corn is no longer entirely confined
to wind and water power. In such cases, where contemporaneous natural
agencies have been superseded, we have almost invariably drawn upon that
grand store of force collected by the plants of bygone ages, and conserved
in our coal fields. It is the solar heat of a past epoch that furnishes the
power which we now utilize in our steam-engines. One important element
in cheap production is time, and it is precisely in regard to this element,
that we economically supersede, in the above instances, the contemporary
resources of Nature. Now time is also an important element in the natural
production of food; and although it is true that the amount of labor required
for the production of a given weight of food is not considerable, yet it is
nevertheless true that this weight requires a whole year for its production.
By the vital process of producing food we can only have one harvest in each
year. But if we were able to form that food from its elements without vital
agency, there would be nothing to prevent us from obtaining a harvest every
week; and thus we might, in the production of food, supersede the present
vital agencies of nature, as we have already done in other cases, by laying
under contribution the accumulated forces of past ages, which would thus
enable us to obtain in a small manufactory, and in a few days, effects which
can be realized from present natural agencies, only when they are exerted
upon vast areas of land, and through considerable periods of time.

1e*

210 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

GRIFFIN’S THEORY OF CHEMICAL RADICALS.

Mr. Griffin, the well-known chemical writer of England, has published,
during the past year, a new chemical theory of radicals, upon the elaboration
of which, he states, he has spent thirty years of his life. The following is
a general abstract of its principal points.

“ Every salt is composed of two radicals, simple and compound, oxidized
or not oxidized.

““ Every element can act asa radical except oxygen. Oxygen never acts as
a simple radical, nor forms part of a compound radical. Some of the
metallic elements form two radicals, which differ in weight and properties.

“Compound radicals consist of (1) carbon and hydrogen, or (2) carbon and
nitrogen, or (3) combinations of other elements with the foregoing.

“The quantity of an element which constitutes a radical is an atom, or as
much as forms a single volume of gas.

“The quantity of a compound which constitutes a radical is as much as
forms a single volume of gas. When the compound is not gaseous, the
radical quantity is as much as is equivalent to a single volume of hydrogen
or chlorine.

“Every gaseous salt measures two volumes, which is the measure of its
two radicals. When salts contain oxygen, that element adds to their weight,
but not to the measure of their gas.

“Though a compound radical, that measures one volume in the state of
gas, still measures one volume when combined with one or more atoms of
oxygen, the oxygen is not to be considered as a constituent part of the radi-
cal, but only as an addition to it.

* * * * * * *

“‘ Since all gaseous salts that contain two radicals form two volumes of gas,
whether the radicals are simple or compound, oxidized or not oxidized, it is
assumed that every compound radical, if isolated and brought into the
gaseous state, would measure one volume.

* * * * * * *

“Salts combine with one another, so as to form double, triple, quadruple,

and other forms of compound salts.”

ON THE DETERMINATION OF THE VALUE OF PRECIPITATES.

M. Mené, of France, has communicated to the Academy a new mode of
determining the numerical value of precipitates in chemical analysis. The
common practice, when proportional solutions cannot be made, is to drive
off the water with which the precipitate is impregnated by calcination, sand-
baths, or other contrivances which take much time. M. Mené simply
washes his precipitate by decantation, and then introduces it into a gradu-
ated phial, which he afterwards weighs. The precipitate is then taken out,
and the phial, filled with water to the same degree, is again weighed; when
the difference of the two results gives the exact weight of the precipitate.

ARTIFICIAL PRODUCTION OF GEMS AND OTHER MINERALS.

The late M. Ebelman suggested the ingenious method of producing the
gems of the corundum family (sapphire, ruby, hyacinth, etc.,) by fusing the
alumina with an excess of boracic acid, and then suffering the solvent to

CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 211

evaporate gradually at a high heat constantly maintained. The process
is doubtless applicable to all minerals which are formed by the union of
their components at a high heat; but, although successful in practice, it
gave only microscopic crystals, and the other occupations and subsequent
death of the distinguished experimenter prevented him from prosecuting the
subject. Prof. Sainte-Claire Deville, in conjunction with Captain Caron, has
recently presented to the Academy of Sciences, at Paris, a new mode of
operating, by which, it appears, fine crystals of practical size may he ob-
tained. This method, which was probably suggested to the Professor dur-
ing his investigations on aluminum, consists (when the Corundum minerals
are sought) in establishing the reaction at a high heat between the fluoride
of aluminum and boracic acid. The fluoride is introduced into a black-lead
crucible, and above it is adjusted a small cupel containing the boracic acid;
the crucible is then tightly covered and protected from the action of the
air, and heated to a white heat for an hour. The two vapors decompose
each other, giving rise to alumina (Corundum), and the fluoride of Boron.
The crystals are rhombohedric with the faces of the regular hexagonal
prism: they have but one axis, and are negative, and possess all the optical
and crystallographic properties of natural Corundums, as well as their hard-
ness. The crystals produced were sometimes more than a centimetre (0-4
inch) long, and very broad, but are wanting in thickness.

When the materials are used pure, the resulting crystals are of course col-
orless; but by adding a little of the fluoride of chromium to the fluoride of
aluminum, the colored gems, the ruby, the sapphire, or oriental emerald
may be produced, the colors depending solely upon the proportions of the
chrome used, which, in all cases, must be very small (except in the green
gem, M. Damour having detected twenty-five per cent. of oxide of chrome
in ouvarowite). The colors produced are identical with those found in
nature, and the gems retain their perfect transparency. In some cases
rubies and sapphires were produced alongside of each other. The zircons
and other analogous minerals were produced in a similar way. Chryso-
beryl, with its characteristic crystallization, was produced by mixed fluo-
rides of aluminum and giucinum treated as above; zahnite, from the fluo-
rides of aluminum and zinc; staurotide by substituting silica for the boracie
acid, or by heating alumina to a high temperature in a current of gascous
fluoride of silicium. But all the silicates thus prepared are very basic,
containing a very small portion of silica. Rutile was obtained by the
decomposition of a fusible titonate, especially titanate of protoxide of tin
by silica.

“In making these experiments we often obtained in solution in the tin, a
brilliant substance, crystallizing in large metallic plates, separable from the
tin by hydro-chloric acid, which scarcely attacks them. This curious mate-
rial is an alloy of equal number of equivalents of iron and tin. This appear-
ance and chemical properties give it considerable interest.”

These researches are valuable not only from their applicability to the arts,
—in which the artificial production of the hard minerals will greatly add to
our facilities, —but also by their important bearing on the theory of the
formation of gems and the production of minerals in nature.

ON THE FUSION OF MOLYBDENUM.

Debray finds that pure metallic molybdenum completely withstands the
temperature at which platinum, quartz, etc., become liquid. The metal

212 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

melts in a crucible of carbon before the oxyhydrogen blowpipe at a temper-
ature at which rhodium fuses; but the fused mass contains 4°5 per cent. of
carbon. It has a silvery lustre, and scratches glass and topaz with ease.
Tungsten appears to be even less fusible. — Comptes Rendus, xlvi, 1098

ON THE PREPARATION OF CALCIUM.

Liés Bodart and Gobin have communicated to the Academy of Sciences a
note on the preparation of calcium, which is of much interest. The author
found it impossible to obtain the metal by the action of sodium upon chlorid
of calcium at a high temperature, but the reduction succeeds extremely well
when the iodid is employed instead of the chlorid. The iodid of calcium
was obtained by the action of iodhydric acid upon white marble, evaporating
the solution and fusing the salt out of contact of air. As thus prepared it
resembles chJorid of magnesium. Equal equivalents of sodium and iodid of
calcium are to be mixed and gradually heated in a covered iron crucible to
a strong red but not to a white-red heat. After an hour the crucible is to be
removed from the fire and allowed to cool. In this manner the author
obtained a button of calcium weighing about three grammes, by employing
four grammes of sodium. The metal was pale yellow with a reddish reflec-
tion, and proved, on analysis, to be pure. The authors promise more ample
details with respect to the properties of calcium, as well as a notice of their
results in reducing barium and strontium by a similar process. — Comptes
Rendus, xvii, 23.

NEW FACTS RESPECTING ALUMINUM.

It has generally been stated that aluminum could resist the highest tem-
perature without absorbing oxygen; but we now learn, that if the temperature
be raised from a white to a welding heat, aluminum will burn with great in-
tensity until a stratum of alumina is formed upon its surface sufficiently
thick to exclude the atmosphere. As regards alloys, that made with iron is
not malleable, but will crystallize. An alloy of 100 parts of aluminum and
3 of nickel is more fusible and harder than the pure metal. Bismuth forms
with aluminum in the proportion of one to three, an alloy which is very fusi-
ble, but also very subject to oxidation when in a state of fusion. If two
equivalents of aluminum and one of oxide of lead be exposed to a white
heat, a violent detonation ensues, the crucible breaks into pieces, and even
the doors of the furnace are driven to a distance. Similar effects occur with
oxide of copper, or the sulphates of potash or soda. Aluminum is now much
used for jewelry, especially bracelets, pins, and combs; in cabinet-making,
it is excellent for inlaid work; its lightness renders it extremely convenient
for pencil-holders, thimbles, seals, small statues, medallions, vases, and the
like; for spectacles, as it does not blacken the skin like silver. But one of its
most useful applications consists in using it for reflectors of gas-lamps, since
it resists the effects of sulphurous emanations, which silver and brass do not.

Mr. Gerhard, of London, has recently patented a simple and economic pro-
cess for obtaining the metal, whereby it is produced at a considerably less
expense than by the means heretofore practised. In this process hydrogen ~
gas combines in an oven with the fluoride of aluminum, and forms hydro-
fluoric acid, which acid is taken up by iron, and is thereby converted into
fluoride of iron, whilst the resulting aluminum thus obtained remains in the
metallic state in the bottom of trays containing the fluoride.

|

CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 213

Dr. McAdam, in a communication to the British Association, 1858, stated
that in striking medals from aluminum, he had noticed a peculiar gray ap-
pearance on their surface, which it was supposed arose from the uncleanness
of the die. Close examination, however, showed that this was not the case.
Some of these medals were subjected to the action of hydrochloric acid and
nitric acid separately, without producing much effect on their surfaces.
When some of them were put in a solution of caustic potash they were acted
on very violently, hydrogen being evolved, and the surface of the metal be-
coming beautifully frosted. This phenomenon of an alkali comporting itself
to a metal as acids do, was worthy the attention of chemists. After alumi-
num has been frosted in this manner, it does not become tarnished on expo-
sure to the action of the air.

ON THE MANUFACTURE OF STEEL.

The following paper, read before the Society of Arts, London, by Mr. C.
Binks, on the manufacture of steel, is one of the most practical and valuable
contributions to science made during the past year. Although of great
length, its importance seems to warrant a publication in the pages of the
present volume:

The existing and generally received theory of the formation and the
alleged actual composition of steel have ever appeared to have in them
points that are not quite satisfactory. But it is probably owing to the fact
that chemistry, throughout the whole range, is so replete with instances in
which extraordinary effects or phenomena follow from insignificant causes,
or from causes apparently inadequate to produce them, that this instance of
the alleged composition of steel has been allowed hitherto to pass unques-
tioned generally.

The magical effects (as seen in its assumption of properties so singular
and distinctive) of the addition to pure iron of some apparently insignificant
proportion of carbon, is a conspicuous instance of this kind of chemical
anomaly. That simple combination is, and has ever been alleged to be, the
sole cause of the conversion of iron into steel. Carbon has been the only
tangible or apparent element brought in contact with the iron in the act of
its conversion; and after analysis of stecl has detected in it, or assigned to it
as essential, the existence of iron and carbononly. Therefore has this expla-
nation ever been generally accepted without misgivings; and, solely to this
simple combination, has ever been, and still is, attributed the conversion
and consequent assumption by the iron, when it becomes steel, of properties
so distinctive and peculiar. Still the broad distinctions that exist in their
mechanical or physical properties between steel on the one hand and mallea-
ble iron, or cast-iron, on the other, would seem to leave room for great doubt
that the cause of these distinctions is due solely to the absence in the one,
and to presence in the other, of the element carbon, or to the merely
minute differences in the relative proportions of that element that are found
in steel and in cast-iron. Yet everywhere is this the received formula of the
composition of steel: namely, that it consists solely of about ninety-nine
parts of pure iron combined with one part of carbon; and any other mat-
ters that, in extremely minute proportions, analysis may have, from time to
time, or occasionally, detected in it, have been considered as foreign and
accidental only, and as being in no way essential to, but rather as interfering
with, its true chemical composition and character. In this light, for exam-

914 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY,

ple, have been looked upon the minute proportions of manganese founa nm
some descriptions of steel, and also the appearance of nitrogen developed
during analytical operations. The former (howsoever its presence may be
considered to modify some mechanical property of the steel) has never been
deemed essential to its chemical composition when the steel is in its normal or
pure state; whilst the latter has ever been held (when recognized or detected
at all) as the result of some merely mechanical adherence of that element to
the metal, or to have been derived from the reagents present on analysis.
The same reasoning has applied to some other (so-called) foreign or acci-
dentally present matters; and steel has, consequently, ever since the doc-
trines of modern chemistry began to be applied in reasoning upon it, been
looked upon as simply a compound of iron and of carbon, and as such, and
such only, it would appear to be held to be even up to the present hour.

The same chemical doctrine of composition has always influenced, and
still continues to influence, the selection of materials to be used as reagents
in the formation of steel, or for the conversion of iron into steel. Hence, to
effect this conversion, it has ever been deemed needful only to bring heated
iron in contact with carbon, or with some carbon compound, in order that
the iron shall take up the one per cent. or thereabouts, considered as essen-
tial to-steel; and hence, also, the selection of charcoal as this reagent prin-
cipally; and whenever other reagents may have been taken and used as
aids or substitutes — leather shavings, for example — this selection also has
always been made on the same general principle that it was the carbon alone
that was to be absorbed by the metal. It will be seen, however, that, not-
withstanding this guiding idea of the steel-makers, either accident alone, or
some theory of the quality of the carbon in these specially selected materials,
has undesignedly led to the employment of the very elements along with the
carbon that the production or the chemical composition of steel demands,
and which other elements existing theory would have either altogether
rejected, or certainly never have especially sought for.

Bearing in mind the broad facts as seen in the distinctive physical proper-
ties of steel and of iron, and the unsatisfactory character of the carbon-per-
centage explanation of these remarkable distinctions, is it not possible that
a careful examination of the daily operations used to produce steel may
exhibit the existence of some other phenomena, or the action of some other:
elements playing as important a part, either in the operations or in the ulti-
mate composition of the steel, as that hitherto supposed to be fulfilled by
carbon alone?

Before proceeding with my examination of already known facts, under
which iron is converted into steel, or steel converted into iron, or before
instituting any special line of research for developing new facts upon which
to reason as to the actual conditions and results, mechanical or chemical, of
conversion, it is needful to define what steel really is, physically; that is,
what distinguishing properties it possesses, which, taken independently of
its chemical composition, shall constitute an easy and incontrovertible test;
or, in other words, shall enable us clearly to distinguish steel proper from iron
compounds, or alloys of iron with other metals, or mixtures of iron with
non-metallic elements, which in some respects resemble but are not real steel.

Steel is contradistinguished from all other compounds by its capability of
receiving different degrees of hardness, and a degree of hardness compara-
tively superior to any other metal; by its elasticity under certain kinds of
treatment, its capability of receiving a fine and a peculiar polish, by its devel-

CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 215

opment of certain different colors under different degrees of heat, and by the
permanency of the action upon it of induced magnetism. It is distinguished
from pure iron by the complete absence in the latter of any one, or degrees
of any one of the properties just enumerated. But there are compounds of
iron that exhibit some, but not the whole of the special properties of steel.
The outer coating of common cast-iron when “ chilled,’’? or when the casting
has been made in sand, is often as hard and as untouchable by the file as
the best tempered steel itself. There exist, also, alloys of iron (as of iron
with manganese and other metals) such as those that were investigated by
Stoddart and Faraday, that in the property of hardness alone are scarcely
inferior to the finest steel. But in none of these special compounds are
there associated the whole of the peculiar physical properties, the collection
or series of which distinguish steel from any other substance. The peculiar
effects in modifying its normal properties of an admixture with steel, or
with pure iron, of phosphorus, sulphur, silicium, etc., are pretty well under-
stood; but it is the varieties of steel, the results of admixtures with steel
proper, of non-converted iron, in various proportions, that constitute the
real difficulties of discrimination, and for these there exists no special test.
Place in the hands of an experienced steel-worker (a filemaker, a razor, a
watch-spring, a needle, or a surgical-instrument maker, for example), a
piece of rough, black, and unworked steel, — part of a bar of cast-steel, for
instance, —and ask him what metal it is. He will not judge of it by its
specific gravity, nor by application to it of nitric acid, or of any other chem-
ical test, but will proceed most probably as follows: — He will balance it on
his hand, and, tapping it with a hammer, will bring out his “ring,” as he
calls it, the peculiar intonation of which, when steel, as compared with the
tone of iron, is, to his practised ear, a specific and infallible test of kind, and
almost exactly of quality. He will next make it red hot, and try how it
“draws;”’ that is, by repeated blows, will elongate the bar, watching as he
proceeds the texture of the metal, its adhesiveness, its flexibility, its indis-
position to scale, and the character of the marks inflicted upon it by his
hammer. When it is good steel upon which he is working, the sharp-edged,
well-defined impressions of his hammer’s face (so finely developed, indeed,
as to reproduce even the grindstone lines that are left on the face of a recent-
ly-ground hammer), but when it is with iron or bad steel that he is work-
ing, then the shapeless and ill-defined impressions that result give to his prac-
tised eye all the information he seeks for as to the real quality of the metal
he is handling. Next he will try the temper of his forged specimen — heat
it to some known degree, and, after dipping it in cold water, test its degree
of hardness by the file. Still, further, in proof, he will next fracture the
forged and tempered specimen, and, through its grain, find another evidence
of its character. If the fracture be a clean one, close-grained, compact and
silvery, it is steel; if ragged, fibrous, and leaden-hued, it is iron: or it will
be one or other of these, with such intermediate gradations as correspond to
all the differences in quality that lie between these two extremes. Next he
may polish its surface, and, gradually heating the specimen, he will, as the
temperature rises, watch that peculiar arrangement of colors, that, in their
special brilliancy, are peculiar to real steel alone: the assumption, first, of
various shades of yellow, deepening, as the heat increases, almost into
brown, then successively into greenish blue, with pure blue, and into purple
—upon which there follows another kind of change —a disruption of the
constitution of the metal, to which is due those play of colors and the oxida-

216 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

tion of the surface. Finally, as the ne plus ultra of his testings, he will pro-
ceed, probably, to forge out of his specimen a turning-tool, or preferably a
cold-chisel, and then with the latter, cutting for awhile at a piece of cold
cast-iron, will at once pronounce upon the kind and the quality of the metal,
and the exact purposes to which it is best applicable. Now, from the nature
of the case, the chemist must imitate or select from these practices of the
handicraftsmen (for there exists no special test); and the file test, after
tempering, together with the color test under high and different tempera-
tures, affords sufficiently accurate tests for most of the purposes of the labo-
ratory.

The searcher for information among the steel-makers and steel-workers
‘vill speedily find abundance of instructive and suggestive facts, the careful
study of any one of which may possibly give him the clue he seeks for.
Let him, for example, in the first instance, carefully examine the phenomena
involved in the very old practice of using ferrocyanide of potassium as an
agent of conversion. It is well known that the application of this compound
to heated iron instantaneously converts that portion of the metal that is
brought into actual contact with it into steel; and that under a continued
contact, the entire mass, as well as merely the surface of any piece of iron,
equally undergoes this transmutation. Thus, this agent is used to improve
‘the quality of inferior steel, that is, more completely to effect the conversion
of iron into steel; is also sometimes resorted to to renew or to restore the
steel quality of steel tools—for example, of chisels, the repeated heatings
and forgings of which have decomposed the steel externally, or to a greater
or less depth reconverted it into common iron. It is used more especially to
~ase-harden iron; that is, to give to iron an external coating of steel, or to
Improve soft steel by its more complete or perfect conversion superficially.
This ferrocyanide of potassium is a carbon compound, containing, in its
anhydrous form, ne oxygen; and, doubtless, it would be on some theory of
its carbon-giving agency, that its application (could we possibly trace the
origin of it) to iron was first made. But, besides carbon, it contains also
xron, nitrogen, and potassium. Its formula is, Kz, Fe Cys (or 3 NC).

Now, the specific action of this reagent, or the cause of its producing this
singular effect—the instantaneous conversion, at the points of contact, of
iron into steel— might, a priori, be held to be due to one or other of the fol-
lowing kinds of reactions.

1. To the reduction of some portion of the carbon of the reagent, and its
being taken up by the hot metal with the usual result of such a combination,
us viewed on the old theory of what steel is.

2. To a deposition upon the surface of the hot metal of a thin film of the
pure iron, combined in some peculiar proportion or manner with the pure
carbon, both of which exist in this reagent itself.

3. To some peculiar action of the potassium present in the reaction; or,

4. To some peculiar action of the nitrogen of the reagent, or of that ele-
went and its associated carbon existing there in the form of cyanogen.

For merely preliminary trials or indications, let there be selected some
teady method of determining which of these elements, or combination of
them, plays this part of conversion; and for this purpose, let there be taken
as the test the formation or the nonformation upon the surface of soft iron
of a case-hardened surface, or of a superficial coating of steel as the result
of an application to the iron of one or other of the following reigents; the
relative hardness of the surface being determined by the file test; and after

CHEMICAL SCIENCE. pay

tempering by dipping the hot metal in water in the usual manner, and
this, together with the color test,—that is, the development of the series of
colors under different degrees of heat peculiar to steel,— being taken as the
test of its formation.

Let the kind of iron that is selected be the best, and, commercially, the
purest malleable iron, such as would be chosen for conversion into the best
steel.

The manner in which the writer proceeded in these trials was as follows:
Little bars of this iron were made red hot in a porcelain tube, and then the
reigent washed over or sprinkled upon its clean surface, or the gaseous or
volatile matter (when such was used) was passed through the tube hold-
ing the red-hot bars. When the charcoal experiment was made, freshly
made and pulverized boxwood charcoal was selected, which was made red
hot to expel all adhering azotized or other gaseous matter; then quickly
transferred to the tube, the rod of iron imbedded in it, and the two ends of
the tube closed. When, to this last arrangement, atmospheric air was
added, the ends of the tube, placed horizontally, were left open, and
the air, by diffusion, or by a quiet interfusion, found its way into and
within the body of the charcoal, and, of course, into contact with the
heated iron,

It is needless to point out that this line of experimenting is calculated to
obtain, and aims at obtaining, only very broad indications of reactions and
effects; for the iron used is only approximately and not absolutely pure.
But the indications of the special action of each reaction on its application
to the iron, are so marked and distinctive, and develop themselves so broadly
under the above system of testing, that this method of detecting the re-
actions, though not absolutely unqualified in its accuracy, is sufficiently
tangible for its intended purpose, and lies within reach of every one. It
will be seen how, in following up this investigation, for these comparatively
rude methods there are substituted others aiming at greater precision. The
temperature under which the following several reagents were applied to the
iron was that of a full red heat, or that usually employed in case-hardening,
or in the cementation process of conversion. Let any experimentalist pro-
ceed in this manner to apply to heated iron the following special reagents
and he will find:

1. That heated iron exposed to the action of pure carbon, and kept out of
reach of contact with any other element, is not converted into steel. A
small rod of the malleable iron packed in boxwood charcoal in the closed
porcelain tube, and kept at a full red heat for twelve hours, did not, after
being tempered, show a hard steel surface; nor did it exhibit the play, under
high and different degrees of heat, peculiar to real steel colors. It still
remained malleable iron.

2. But that when atmospheric air is admitted to such an arrangement in
such quantity only as still to keep the carbon in excess, then, in the first
instance, the surface of the iron, and, finally (if the time of contact be long
enough), the whole of the iron, is converted into steel.

3. That the application to the iron of gaseous nitrogen does not produce
steel.

4. That neither does the application of carbonic oxide give steel.

5. That the application to the iron of a hydro-carbon (as when olefiant gas
is passed through the tube, or when the red-hot rod is dipped into oil con-
taining no nitrogen) does not produce steel.

19

218 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

6. But that the application of olefiant gas mixed with ammonia, or the
application of gaseous cyanogen, produces steel, as does also the dipping of
the hot metal into a nitrogenized oil or fat.

7. That the application of ferrocyanide of potassium (as has been so long
known) gives steel.

8. And that equally with the ferrocy anide does the application of the
simple cyanide of potassium result in the production of steel; therefore, it is
not to the iron contained in the ferrocyanide that the steel-making property
of the latter salt is due.

9. That potash applied to the hot iron, or keeping the hot iron in contact
with the vapor of potassium, does not yield steel.

10. That with iron of the kind that has so far been referred to and used
(i. e., commercially pure wrought iron, containing no material proportion of
carbon), the application to it of ammonia, or of nitrate of ammonia, fails to
produce steel.

11. But that the application of ammonia, or its muriate, to iron containing
a considerable proportion of carbon, results in its conversion into steel.

These results tabulated, and the composition of the reagents expressed in
formulz, will better exhibit the inevitable deductions to which they lead.

(1.) Fe-++C (in excess), every other element excluded..........40- Leaves iron.
(2.) Fe-+C (in excess)-++ (atmospheric air)...........0-. Ama SESIGOC Gives steel.
(8.) Fe-++ N (gaseous nitrogen)......-....- aiid someon eos... Leaves iron.
(4.) Fe -+C O (gaseous carbonic oxide)... ...... aise wate te eevee eee Leaves iron.
(5.) Fe-++ H4 C4 (olefiant gas)........ceceecseee ciaeie's oisle's c Wale Sele stele a Cees Minne
(6.) Fe -+ H4 C4 (in excess) —N H3 (ammonia). bis duslbis delaislememiegere «Gavesmpteel:
(7.) Fe-+- N C2, (cyanogen)... ....ccccssccccacesevccecee cewewd aks weakovesesteck
(8.) Fe-+ Ka, Fe Cys (ferrocyanide of potassium) ................Gives steel.
(9.) Fe+ K, Cy (cyanide of emulate Wess etndeccseec sieisiiaue a0. ¥e ches (Seel.
(10.) Fe+ KO (potash). . sjaoauis ioietatave alc wislninlate.<loisialeretals' wi sivinisieiokereis Leaves iron.
(11.) Fe+ K (potassium). al cialalelars:sloivis(ateleisisicisierciersiescis AAR AROS Leaves iron.
(12.) Fe-+- NHs (Gumaioniay,. 2 Beatisiorsieisie evererniesinicien eleiclerierele sieeiereia’s .«.. Leaves iron.
(18.) Fe-+ NH3 Cl (sal ammoniac)......... Sapo ielw jared vests a « santas Leaves iron.
Fe+C
(14.) 95 OB HT NHS (AMMONIA). 0.6... see eeeeeeeeesseeesevereceereesGives steel.
Fe+C
(15.) 95 5 + NHs (sal Sea OUIAgy. SENT Re DC aaa eaicleee nate were cere Gives steel.

Now, out of a consideration of these preliminary and merely guiding
trials, besides the other deductions they lead to, as those have been already
Stated, there is made apparent one significant fact, namely, the invariable
cooperation, so far as these trials extend, of both nitrogen and of carbon in
the production of steel; but these codperating in some manner yet to be
defined and ascertained. It still remains to be determined if this coOperation
of nitrogen be a necessity in steel-making; or, if the apparent invariableness
of its presence and cooperation will, on a more extended examination, be
borne out by the evidence of every other process; and if so, is it that the
nitrogen conjointly with the carbon, forms some combination with the iron,
and remains there? Or, that the nitrogen acts merely as an intermediate
agent, and that it still remains a chemical fact that steel is merely iron com-
bined with carbon only, though nitrogen plays an essential part in effecting
that combination.

But whatsoever may be the functions in steel-making that are exercised by
nitrogen —if its office be functional at all, and its presence be not a mere

CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 219

coincidence in every case — the fact of its invariable co€xistence with carbon,
wherever steel is produced, is incontrovertible.

We have it on the old ordinary cementation-boxes, which, filled with char-
coal and the imbedded iron, are closed, but not hermetically sealed, and still
sufficiently open to the inevitable permeation, through the excess of carbon,
of atmospheric air, yielding, by its oxgen, carbonic oxide, and to the steel,
nitrogen. We have it still more especially and obviously when, in this
cementation process, there is superadded to the charcoal some horn or
leather shavings, or animal charcoal, along, sometimes, with an alkali—a
very old but not a generally used modification. We have it when the iron
for conversion is exposed in close vessels to the action of coal-gas, but in
which coal-gas, to a greater or less extent, there is always present either
cyanogen or ammmonia, or both. We have it also on all the multifarious
expedients of the steel-workers and steel tool-makers, resorted to to give
increased hardness to the metal; that is, to effect its most complete conver-
sion into steel; as, when the file-maker coats his file, before tempering it,
with a composition of cow-dung or with pig-flour—two favorite specifics,
and both highly azotized substances, which he thinks useful merely for pro-
tecting the sharp angles of his cuttings from the action of the fire, but which
act, in reality, as well in more completely steelifying his finished work. We
have it in the use, in so many cases, of horn shavings, of horn dust, of
leather shavings, and of other animal, and consequently azotized, matters of
various kinds, in the use of other vegetable substances (besides that just
mentioned) containing large proportions of gluten, and consequently of
nitrogen; in the use of the ammoniacal salts, to say nothing of the prus-
siates, the recognition of the potency and of the great value of which for
stecl-making in bulk, as well as for merely hardening it superficially, as
heretofore, is now becoming general.

We have a conspicuous instance of the effect of the presence of this ele-
ment in a well-known fact, that, whilst the dipping of the hot metal into
olive-oil fails, the use of beef suet (an azotized fat) succeeds in giving to the
iron a coating of steel.

It was the presence (but, to him, the unconscious one) of this same element
that gave to the celebrated expedient of Mr. Heath its chief potency, in
improving the quality of inferior steel, and not solely to any purifying or
alloying action (if any) of his manganese; for latterly Mr. Heath used coal-
tar, placed in contact with the steel, to reduce his manganese oxide; and
this coal-tar is a highly nitrogenized as well as a carbonized compound. In
short, in whatever practice the various and continual trials of the steel
artisan may result, in his searchings after the best hardening agents (and
he resorts to the most extraordinary things), that practice will be found
invariably, when successful, to involve the employment of some maitcrial in
which nitrogen is an essential element.

A review of the above facts and phenomena is provokingly suggestive that
the existing theory of the composition of steel is a wrong one. And the first
suspicion is that this nitrogen element does actually enter into and exist in
that compound; and that not to errors in analysis, but to misconceptions
when nitrogen was found in steel, or to the influence of preconceived
notions, are to be attributed the fact of this element exercising any kind of
agency in steel-making, having hitherto been overlooked; or that its pres-
ence, when found, has either been disputed, or attempted to be accounted
for on other grounds than that of chemical combination.

220 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

The attention of the chemical world was first prominently called to the
fact of the existence of nitrogen in iron and steel by Professor Schafhiautl, a
translation of whose paper appears in the Philosophical Magazine for 1840.
Now, about this period there had arisen some of those new methods in
analysis for finding the quantity of nitrogen, that, added to subsequent dis-
coveries in the same direction, have given so happy an impulse to analytical
chemistry. The method of Dumas —of Schafhautl himself—of Will and
Warrentrap, and of Lassigne, were about this time brought into notice; and
Schafhautl, without appearing to have in his mind any theory as to the part
played by nitrogen on the composition of steel as distinguished from iron,
but knowing that nitrogen was ever present in the manufacture of iron,
would appear to have tried his hand at its analytical detection. His results
are given with a broadness and an absence of specific details that suggested
a repetition of them by the next investigator, Professor R. Marchand, whose
essay will be found in the Chemical Gazette for 1850; the latter chemist apply-
ing, with considerable ingenuity, the resources of a still more advanced
chemistry in refutation of some of the results of the former. To give a still
greater zest to the investigations, it had just been discovered by Wohler that
those beautiful copper-colored cubic crystals, found in the slags of the blast-
furnaces, which we had been accustomed to call titanium, were none other
than a mixture of a cyanide and of a nitruet of that metal—a fact suggest-
ive enough that in iron too there might, not improbably, be discovered
some analogous combinations with nitrogen. Schafhautl gives as_ his
results that malleable cast-iron contains 0°532 of nitrogen, close-grained
cast-iron 0°927, coarse-grained cast-iron 0°740, white pig-iron 1°200, and in
Beinhauer’s razors 0°532 of nitrogen. Marchand asserts that these propor-
tions are too high, but admits the invariable presence of nitrogen in cast-
iron, and its equally invariable absence in malleable iron. Speaking of that
method under which the existence of the nitrogen is proved by the forma-
tion of Prussian blue, he says that “‘ with steel powder (as compared with
cast-iron) it was still more striking, and with soft iron it was never appar-
ent.” But it is to be observed that it is with cast-iron chiefly, and not with
steel, that Marchand operated; still he detects in this cast-iron the invariable
presence of nitrogen, and in pure iron its invariable absence, Neither of
these chemists speculated as to the meaning or the effect of the presence of
the nitrogen in steel; wherever, in the exercise of their manipulatory skill, it
is found, the fact is left without comment or consideration. Had the com-
parisons been made with pure steel, as with pure iron, there can be no doubt
that Marchand would have recognized those marked distinctions which it is
the object of the writer to point out.

Now, suspecting less from such evidences or suggestions of these than
from the facts to be observed on conversion (such as that of the singular
influence of cyanogen compounds), the substantial and invariable existence
of nitrogen in steel, the writer proceeded to arrive at that point as follows:
The best malleable iron on the one hand, and by way of comparison with this,
the same kind of iron fully converted by the usual process, were taken on
trial; the steel was dissolved in very dilute and pure hydrochloric acid; and
after many trials, it was found best to place the bar of steel or iron in single
voltaic arrangement with platinum, and to effect the solution in the cold with
the usual precaution of expelling air from the water employed. In this
way, slowly, the steel was dissolved, and the carbonaceous flocculent matter
that was left, collected, carefully dried, and analyzed. The iron was treated

CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 221

in the same manner, and the comparatively very small proportion of carbon-
aceous residue given by it also examined. And these were compared with
the residue also obtained from cast-iron. If the acid be strong, and heat be
used, and the voltaic arrangement be not used, the results are very different.
Gaseous nitrogen, in very minute quantity, is given off along with the hy-
drogen, some muriate of ammonia is formed in the solution, and but little
nitrogen left in the residue. ‘

Effecting the combustion of each of these residues by aid of the soda lime
process, in the usual manner, the following results were obtained: —1. The
residue of the malleable iron contained no nitrogen whatever. 2. That from
the cast-iron always showed the presence of nitrogen, but in very minute
and invariable quantities; an average of results would seem to confirm the
analysis of Marchand. 3. In the steel residue there was invariably detected
a considerable quantity of nitrogen.

The analysis of this carbonaceous residue gave — C= 0°63, N= 0°24; im-
purities, 0°13 = 100. The direct analysis of this sample of steel, using the
soda lime process, gave, in 100 parts of steel, C= 0°68, N= 0°19; that is,
that any 100 parts of steel contained about one-fifth per cent. of nitrogen
associated with about three times its weight of carbon. The proportion of
nitrozen in the residue was greater than in the steel itself —a result proved
afterwards to be due to the absorption of nitrogen or formation of ammonia
in the act of drying the residue. The direct analysis of the sample of iron
gave no nitrogen whatever — that of the cast-iron only a trace. This steel
contains, therefore, about one-fifth per cent. of nitrogen, and by other trials
good steel always gives about this quantity, but inferior steel much less. It
is obvious that the residue is an azotized carbon, out of which fact arises
some important considerations. But confining these, for the present, to the
cases_of the malleable iron and the steel, it would appear that the difference
in chemical composition between these two is not Jess remarkable than the
difference between their respective physical properties; but in what precise
manner these two elements produce these differences, or the form in which
they exist together in the steel, we can only as yet conjecture theoretically.

When malleable iron is placed in a crucible along with some of this azo-
tized carbon, the intractability as to fusion of the metal is soon overcome,
and it melts at a white heat, and cast-steel is the product.

When there is prepared a mixed precipitate of oxide of iron and of oxide
of manganese, and this is reduced to the metallic state by passing over it, at
a high temperature, hydrogen gas — that is, in the usual manner, made into
spongy iron, plus manganese; this, placed in a covered crucible, readily
melts, and gives an exceedingly hard alloy, but one that does not, possess all
the properties of real steel.

But when with spongy iron itself there is mixed some ferrocyanide of man-
ganese, and then it is exposed to a full heat in a covered crucible, then the
button that is produced has all the properties of steel.

The same follows on substituting ferrocyanide of iron, or any of the achy-
drous alkaline ferrocyanides.

The addition in the hot and closed crucible of bitartrate of potash to the
pure iron does not give steel; but the addition of the double salt of tartrate
of potash and ammonia (which is a kind of improvised mode of making
cyanogen), gives a button of steel.

Another series of instructive facts, in proof and in illustration of these

19*

2292 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

redactions, is obtained through the use of the voltaic battery — to heat the
iron whilst it is exposed to the action of the atmosphere of certain gaseous
or volatile matters.

Let the malleable iron, upon which to operate for conversion, or proof of
non-conversion, be drawn into rods of about one-fourth of an inch in diame-
ter (at each end), but drawn out between these — that is, in the middle, into
a thin wire tapering gradually towards the thin ends. Fix such a rod in the
centre of a glass tube or globe, so shaped and contrived that gaseous mat-
ters can be passed into and through it; connect the obtruding thick ends of
the rods with the opposite poles of a voltaic battery — powerful enough in
its action to raise the thinner portion of the rod to a red or white heat ad
libitum, whilst the thicker ends never become so hot as to interfere with the
means used to keep them in their position. Fill the tube successively with
the following gases, and watch the results:

Gaseous cyanogen, after a few hours, gives rise to the formation of steel
in those portions of the rod that have been fully heated, and this is accom-
panied by a deposition of carbon upon the face of the metal.

Gaseous ammonia per se does not give steel, but produces a curious disin-
tegration of the face of the hottest portion of the rod.

Olefiant gas per se does not give steel, but gives a deposition of carbon on
the hotter portions of the wire. But olefiant gas mixed with ammonia or
with nitrogen, does give steel, and.so on.

But without further multiplying examples (and this mode of experiment-
ing admits of a great variety), and without attempting at this time to inquire
into some of the complicated phenomena they present, one result is ever
apparent, namely, the invariable coOperation of both nitrogen and carbon
wherever the result is the production of steel.

The conclusions that, to the writer, appear to be warranted by the pre-
vious evidences, are:

That the substances whose application to pure iron convert it into steel,
all contain nitrogen and carbon, or nitrogen has access to the iron during
the operation.

That carbon alone, added or applied to pure iron, does not convert it into
steel.

That nitrogen alone, so added or applied, does not produce steel; but that —

It is essential that both nitrogen and carbon should be present, and that
no case can be adduced of conversion in which both these elements are not
present and in contact with the iron.

That nitrogen as well as carbon exists substantially in steel after its con-
version; and such presence is the real cause of the distinctively physical
properties of steel and of iron, in which latter these elements do not exist.

That presumptively, but not demonstratively, the form of combination is
not that of cyanogen (though that compound plays an important part in
conversion), but is that of a triple alloy of iron, carbon, and nitrogen.

But that experimental research is yet required to determine the relative
proportion of elements when their union gives pure steel.

What in the chemical history of nitrogen is there that is incompatible
with its substantial existence in steel—in some form analogous to other
combinations we know it to assume under similar conditions with other
metals? Is it under a temperature as high as that needed to melt steel that
it combines with carbon to form cyanogen, and then with potassium to

CHEMICAL SCIENCE, 238

form cyanide of potassium, and under this combination it is permanent so
long as kept out of contact with decomposing agents, as with oxygen and
the elements of water, etc.

In the presence of our atmosphere, with its affluence in nitrogen, why
should we ever ascribe to that element some merely negative attributes, or
properties serving only to control or modify the more vivid action of some
other element? Why dwell only on its ozotic action, or on its assumed mere
modifying action among the phenomena of animal or of vegetable life? An
element existing everywhere, touching everything, penetrating, permeating,
and by diffusion intermingling itself with every gaseous body it comes in
contact with, might be supposed 4 priori to exercise other functions (and
many) besides the merely negative ones usually assigned to it. And, among
other speculations that naturally arise out of these questions, is it quite im-
possible that the play of colors peculiar to heated steel, the assumption, for
example, of the pure blue and the purple, may not, in reality, be due to
some phase of development of some of the forms of ferrocyanide of iron?

We possess another evidence of the use of nitrogen, from another and
unexpected quarter. It is on record, as a practice of the Indian “ Wootz”
steel-maker, that, along with his iron or imperfect steel in his melting cruci-
ble, he places, as his carbon-giving material, the wood of the Cassia auri-
culata, and covers the whole earth with the leaves of the Convolvolus laurifolia,
both vegetable productions, rich in azotized matters. These, placed in his
closed crucible, will give an azotized carbon in contact with the metal. And
what may have been the origin of this far-back practice of the East — this,
to us, apparently empirical handicraft of some Indian artificer? Has it
originally been the fruition of some mere accident, or of some induction or
deduction — or is it a relic of some state of civilization and of science supe-
rior to those of the West? The Sheffield artisan seeks, even up to the
present day, that which the Indian artificer had found out ages ago.

But howsoever all this may be, whether the nitrogen exist as an essential
constituent in steel, or its office be one of agency only, the practical applica-
tions for manufacturing purposes that flow out of the above collection of
facts, are in no way affected by the tenability or the contrary of any theory
of combination. The fact of the important part, in the conversion of iron
into steel, that is played by nitrogen and carbon conjoined, and particularly,
when in the form of cyanogen compounds, is incontestible, howsoever may
be explained their mode of action.

It is the experience of the writer, in his examinations of iron that is de-
ficient in malleability, that this deficiency is due as well, and even more
frequently, to the presence in such iron of unreduced oxide disseminated
throughout the mass, as to the presence and action of sulphur, phosphorus,
and other matters to which this deficiency is most generally attributed. This
fact seems also to have attracted the attention of Mr. Bessemer, who alludes
to it in one of his recent specifications. Now, the reducing action in metal-
lurgic operations of alkaline cyanogen compounds is well known, and hence
is suggested the possibility of employing them as well to remove from
impure iron the sulphur, phosphorus, and silicium, as to effect the complete
reduction to the metallic state of any oxide of iron disseminated through
the ores. But these alkaline cyanogen compounds, ferrocyanide of potas-
sium for example, when added to molten, impure iron, whilst exercising
extraordinary purifying effects, leave the metal finally in the condition of
steel. Here, then, is another problem, how to take advantage of these

924 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

peculiar reactions, in order to produce, ad libitum, either stecl or malleable
iron; in other words, how best, after steel is produced, to effect its recon-
version into iron.

It is impossible, within the limits of this paper, fully to discuss these
reactions, or even such, for example, as those between that admirable con-
verting agent, the ferrocyanide of manganese and iron, or those between
iron containing a large quantity of carbon, when such iron is converted into
stecl, on the application to it of muriate of ammonia.

The value of combinations of carbon and nitrogen in steel-making being
acknowledged, then, of all such combinations or of elements containing
these, it is undoubtedly to the use of the cyanogen compounds that we
should resort for all manufacturing purposes; and the time seems not very
far distant when these compounds will become some of the most readily
obtained and cheapest of chemically-manufactured products.

The operations of the blast-furnace suggest methods for the production of
those compounds that are of the highest practical value. There are at play
here all the elements for the production of cyanogen of certain cyanides,
and thence of other compounds, and the requisite conditions can be super-
added for securing these for commercial purposes. That cyanogen was
formed in certain zones of the furnace, was proved by Bunsen and Playfair.
Dr. Clark, of Aberdeen, many years ago, examined a saline product that
was found to ooze out of the tuyere-holes of a blast-furnace in Scotland,
and discovered it to be cyanide of potassium. In several places on the Con-
tinent, as at Mariazoll, in Styria, for example, we are told by Gmelin, that
this product is so abundant as to be sold, commercially, for galvanic gilding
purposes. It is, of course, the product of cyanogen, when combined with
the accumulated proportion of potash contained in the flux lime-stone. But
why not specially add the alkaline element, and combine in the furnace
simultaneously the peculiar reducing and converting actions of these com-
pounds with their special manufacture for other and equally valuable indus-
trial applications of them that are springing up? And this is undoubtedly
one of the most important of the directions that the iron manufacture of
this country will in future be found to take.

PREPARATION OF FERRUM REDUCTUM.

Hr. Zangerle recommends igniting a mixture of five parts protoxalate of
iron with six parts anhydrous ferrocyanide of potassium and one and three-
quarter parts anhydrous carbonate of potash. The ignition is maintained
until the evolution of gas from the melted mass ceases. This, when cold, is
thoroughly washed with pure water, and the residue dried. The product
appears as a dark-gray powder, consisting of metallic iron, so finely divided
that, when touched with a lighted match, the whole mass burns gradually.

NEW LIGHT ON THE BESSEMER PROCESS.

Since the public experiments, with the so-called Bessemer’s process, on
refining iron and producing steel, most practical iron manufacturers have
believed that nothing of any value could come of it. All agreed that the
product was not malleable iron — that it was red-short, and had no weld.
The discovery, therefore, has taken the character of an interesting phenome-
non, having little or no commercial value. It might have been regarded,

CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 225

perhaps, as the germ from which some really successful process was yet to
spring, to revolutionize at once the iron manufacture of the world. It has
been, however, all along suspected by many thinking men, that the inherent
impurities of the ores operated upon, and of the fuel, were the cause of the
want of success, which the philosophical and simple nature of the new pro-
cess so fully promised. That the air-boiling effectually decarbonized the
iron, and that to any required degree, was clearly established; and, according
to all our knowledge of the constitution of iron, the product therefore should
have been a malleable bloom, or at least, a steel ingot. If the product was
neither of these, what was it? Calling it refined iron, did not answer the
question; for, beyond the commercial application of that term, steel itself is
merely iron in a certain stage of refinement.

While public attention was subsiding in Europe and the United States, and
Mr. Bessemer was being left to disappointment, a Swedish iron-master, who
had examined the process, ordered the requisite apparatus to be sent to his
works at Edsken, and, after considerable delay in experimenting, has, within
a recent period, succeeded in establishing the manufacture of good steel, on
a practical scale, by the Bessemer process; and, in short, devotes his whole
establishment to this one process. This steel has been made into engineers’
tools, boiler-plates, and cutlery; and the improvement must now be regarded
as an accomplished commercial fact, which can no longer admit of question
of theoretical grounds.

Mr. Goransson, the Swedish iron-master in question, states that he has
carried out Bessemer’s invention to the fullest extent, without ever having
had recourse to any one of the numerous plans which have been patented
by others, under the idea of improving the original simple process. The
converting vessel is erected near the tap-hole of the blast-furnace, so that
about one ton of fluid pig-iron can be run into the apparatus at a time.
The pressure of the blast is from seven to eight pounds to the square inch;
and when continued for six or seven minutes, the whole charge is converted
into steel. The fluid steel is discharged into a loam-lined ladle, where it is
well stirred, and considerable carbonic oxide disengaged and inflamed.
After a short interval of repose, which is probably necessary for the steel to
condense from the aérated condition in which it leaves the converting vessel,
it is run off from the bottom of the ladle, in a vertical stream, into the ingot
moulds.

The whole time occupied, from the moment the fluid pig-iron leaves the fur-
nace until it is cast into the mould, does not exceed twelve minutes. The loss
in weight, including the impurities thrown off, does not exceed fifteen per
cent., which is only about one-half the waste incurred in the manufacture of
bar-iron by the old system in Sweden. By this improvement Mr. Goransson
states, in a letter to the London Hngineer, that more than one thousand tons
annually of cast-steel can be made with the same quantity of fuel as is now
required for making five hundred tons of bar-iron. He says: ‘‘So com-
pletely have we accomplished the object, that we now make several tons of
large ingots of cast-steel, in succession, without a single mishap or failure of
any kind. The steel can be made either hard, medium, or soft, at pleasure.
It draws under the hammer perfectly sound and free from cracks or faults of
any kind, and has the property of welding in a most remarkable degree.”

226 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

ON SOME POINTS OF CHEMICAL INTEREST CONNECTED WITH THE
. BESSEMER PROCESS.

The following abstract of a communication, presented to the American
Academy by Dr. A. A. Hayes, on the above subject, embraces many points
of interest.

It is well known that Mr. Bessemer has based his improvements on the
startling novelty of making crude iron nearly pure, without the aid of fire,
from carbonaceous matter. In considering the ordinary mode of refining
crude iron, the final operations being performed on crude pig, or on partially
refined pig-iron, we have, as one of the conditions of success, the application
of an intense heat, and the presence of more or less atmospheric oxygen, nec-
essary to maintain the required degree of fluidity in the mass of iron, and to
burn out the carbon and other impurities present. As the iron loses its car-
bon and other extraneous substances, it becomes less fusible, and the work-
man, stirring the mass as it begins to lose its fluidity, gathers into rough
masses the aggregated particles, which are always spherical in general
form. From the masses, which are very porous and unequal, a bar of
regular form is obtained by the usual means of pressing, or hammering and
rolling.

“There is in this process strictly a segregation of particles of pure iron
from the crude mass, which, under the agitation of stirring, unite to form
rounded aggregations; and the heat of the furnace being increased, the
separation of pure iron continues, until the melted impurities alone remain.
The change of crude to pure iron is accompanied by the production in part of
the impurities which remain; they are not educts. Aside from the loss of
carbon in the form of carbonic oxide, the phosphorus and sulphur, — which
my experiments have proved are always united to the metallic bases of the
earths or alkalis, — with these bases, burn into oxidized products; while the
silicium and a portion of the iron, also oxidized, form the melted slag, or
cinder, as an additional foreign matter. To the loss of impurities we must
also add the weight of iron burned in forming secondary products; so that,
if the operations were performed on crude iron containing ninety-two per
cent. of pure iron no more than eighty-two per cent. of malleable iron will be
obtained. By the method of Bessemer, crude iron in a melted state is
exposed, in a nearly closed receptacle, to jets of air forced into and under the
fluid; and it is alleged that such an excess of heat is produced in the process,
‘that the metal continues to boil even after the blast has ceased.’ The
direct statement is made, that ‘air, dividing into globules, and diffusing
itself among the particles of fluid iron, and thus coming in contact at
numerous points with the carbon contained in the crude iron, and producing
thereby a vivid combustion,’ and the same action is implied in other parts
of Mr. Bessemer’s patent-specification,

““ Now, it is well known to chemists, that the combustion of the carbon of
erude iron cannot take place under the conditions. This carbon exists in gray
iron in the allotropic state of graphite, and is not combustible even alone,
when exposed highly heated to a current of atmospheric air. We burn it in
the laboratory by the application of oxygen in some condensed state only.
The proper chemical explanation of this point is a very simple one. Iron,
which is a highly combustible body at ordinary temperatures, has its attrac-
tion for oxygen enormously increased by the heat of fluidity, and in combin-

CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 2207

ing with this element, the heat disengaged is ample for carrying the tem-
perature of the mass still higher. A portion of oxide of iron being formed,
the mechanical motion imparted by the jets of air favors the contact of the
oxide with the carbon, which then burns with the condensed oxygen of the oxide
of iron. The products of this combustion, arising from the mingling of
oxide of iron and graphitic carbon and pure graphite, are two, — pure iron,
and carbonic oxide; the former uniting with the mass, the latter escaping
as gas, and burning in the atmosphere, or even with any oxide of iron it
meets with in the mass. A moment's consideration of the operation shows
that the combustion of the iron at the first stage leads to the separation of
the carbon as carbonic oxide, and a reduction of the oxide formed to pure
iron. Silicium, phosphorus, cyanogen, and sulphur, the bases of the alka-
line earths, and interposed slags, are oxidized, and removed as fusible com-
pounds in the same way, while the pure iron assumes the crystallized state. The
combustion of the iron raises the temperature of the acting bodies far above
the initial point, while the reduction of the oxide of iron formed diminishes
in a corresponding degree this temperature. Were the conditions of the
experiment such that the oxide formed from the iron burned was equivalent
to converting the carbon into carbonic oxide only, at the moment the oxide
of iron became pure iron, then no increase of temperature would be noted,
and the cooling influences of the surrounding medium would cool the acting
bodies below the initial temperature. Hence, it is essential that more than
an equivalent of iron should be burned, and a loss of this substance must
take place, so that the operation of purification by the new process is carried
on by substituting tron as fuel for carbon consumed in the ordinary process.
Assuming six pounds of carbon to exist in a sample of crude iron containing
ninety-two pounds of pure iron in one hundred pounds, then twenty-eight
pounds of iron must be burned to oxide, and the six pounds of carbon will
exactly reproduce the twenty-eight pounds of iron, leaving ninety-four
parts of iron deprived of carbon. But the practical result differs from this
statement, inasmuch as a positive loss of at least ten pounds of iron occurs;
and in explaining the increased elevation of temperature, we neglect that
portion of the iron which, having been burned and again reduced, adds to
the mass, and keep in view the effect of the combustion of ten pounds of
iron lost in the operation at the high temperature attained. Accurately,
some addition to the temperature is made by the combustion of other bodies
present besides carbonic oxide, but there are also sources of expenditure ;
leaving as useful effect the amount of heat generated by ten pounds of iron
burned, from every one hundred pounds of melted iron taken.

“T believe this combustion, going on momentarily with the reduction of
the oxide, is sufficient to afford the excess of heat required to maintain the
temperature of the mass of iron above the initial temperature for the short
time of thirty or forty minutes, during which the conversion takes place ina
nearly closed vessel.

“The other point in this connection is the condition of the pure iron at
the moment of its conversion. As this is the most important to a correct
conception of the practical bearing of the method, it was deemed necessary
to describe briefly the ordinary mode of puddling iron, and reference is now
made to that part where it is stated, that, as the iron becomes pure, it is less
fusible.

“Tm ordinary, this less fusible part is ‘gathered,’ and forms ‘ puddle-
balls;’ if not thus removed, and time sufficient were allowed, the whole

928 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

charge would become consolidated, and could not be removed. In the new
method the jets of air agitate or ‘boil’ the fluid iron, and yet this solidifica-
tion does not proceed, and it has been assumed that the acting temperature
is so high that the pure iron becomes fluid. No evidence has been pre-
sented to sustain this assumption, and it has been shown above, that there
is no source of heat present adequate to cause such fluidity. All the speci-
mens of a suite illustrating the manufacture, prepared under the eye of Mr.
Bessemer, show that such heat of fluidity is unnecessary.

“‘These specimens prove that the molten mass of pure iron is not a liquid
iron, but a semi-fluid, composed of crystals of pure iron, which, in accord-
ance with the laws of crystallization, have withdrawn from the fluid, merely
wet by the fluid iron present, and rendered pultaceous by the carbonic oxide
gas entangled. This physical condition of the iron is represented by parti-
cles of hail mixed with a small proportion of water, or more exactly by the
mixture of crystals of sugar and concentrated syrup, as it is filled into the
forms; such a mass will flow and take sharp impressions in the moulds,
while its texture, on cooling, is highly crystalline and porous. Although the
iron in this state is as pure, chemically, as any bar-iron, its mechanical state
does not assimilate it to malleable iron, and the ingots rarely present the
compactness of cast-iron of the coarser qualities. A careful examination
of the specimens suggests the conclusion, that much of the character of
fluidity is also due to the presence of the engaged carbonic oxide, which,
like any gas disengaging from a dough-like semi-solid, causes it to flow.

“This mechanical constitution of the pure iron removes the difficulty
which every iron-master must have conceived to exist in the descriptions of
the new method heretofore published, and it will be seen that the effects pro-
duced in the old and new process are strikingly similar; while the fuel in
the one case is iron, in the other the ordinary coke or coal. In removing
the iron from the furnace, the puddler depends on forming a rude porous
aggregate, while Mr. Bessemer, by a refined mechanical agitation, converts
the whole into a semi-solid, crystalline mass, full of gas-bubbles, which flows
from an inverted vessel, and takes the form of the moulds.”

ON THE COMPOSITION AND PREPARATION OF BRONZE POWDERS.

Hr. Konig has made some experiments, with the view of ascertaining the
mode of preparing bronze powder, which is generally kept secret. The
specimens he examined were those known commercially as —

1. Pale yellow. 2. Yellow. 3. Reddish-yellow. 4. Orange. 5. Copper-
red. “6. Vidlefi * '7.-Green? "8: White:

The bronze powders, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 7, were found to consist of copper
and zinc, with traces of iron. 3, 4,6, and 7, contained a small amount of
oxidized copper, the surface of the particles being covered with suboxide of
copper. This is shown by the action of acids; for when the powder was
covered with dilute sulphuric or hydrochloric acid, the color immediately
disappears, owing to the solution of the thin layer of suboxide, and the
proper color of the alloy appears. The amount of oxygen could not be
estimated in any of these bronzes, but it did not amount to one thousandth.
The bronze powder called white, contains zine and tin. The bronzes 3—7
were also found to contain a minute quantity of fat, which, on dissolving
the powder in dilute acid, separated upon the surface of the liquid in the
form of a thin film.

CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 229

The quantitative analysis of the alloys gave the following per-centage
results :

| Copper. | Zine. Iron. | Tin. Remarks,
1. Pale yellow....... | 82.83 | 16.69 | 016 | —
24 YeWOwieias &: sieisines 84.50 15.30 0.07 _ Fine golden-yellow.
. Brass-yellow, with
3. ae 90.00 260 | 0.20 of { es ame dao
The color of clean
A 93 V1. a en ei 98.93 0.73 0.08 = } conver that has been
heated.
Copper-color, with
5. Copper-red........ 99.90 — trace — { z ne fic tie® puiples
BV tolet bo. teak. 2 98.22 0.50 0.30 trace Purple-violet.
(eC a ce: See eee 2 84.32 15.02 0.03 trace | Bright bluish-green.
Buy Wailea « abrsiet eZ 2.800) 9O:6G11/ R648 idee cee «eo wate

land lead-gray.

These results show that bronzes of the most different colors possess nearly
the same composition. The action of acid shows likewise that their color is
owing to different degrees of oxidation. It appears therefore probable, that
in the preparation of bronze powder, a certain alloy is used for all, and that
the colors are produced by heating to different temperatures. This Hr.
Konig found to be the case. In his experiments with the above-named
powders, No. 1, when heated, presented successively all the prismatic colors,
and acquired a fine dark violet. Most of the other bronzes presented the
same character, and when the heat was maintained, lastly became black,
from complete oxidation.

Hr. Konig is of opinion that the fat in these bronze powders originates
from the use of fat in their preparation, for the purpose of insuring uniform
temperatures. Tallow or fat oils would not answer for this purpose, since
they would, in course of time, cause an oxidation of the copper. Wax, and
especially paraffine, appear better adapted for this purpose. He states that
0.5 per cent. of either substance, mixed with the bronze powder in a shallow
pan, is sufficient.

The mechanical subdivision of the alloy is affected by rolling and ham-
mering, as in the preparation of goldleaf, and then grinding the leaves of
metal, with water, between stones.

Hr. Konig has endeavored to prepare these bronzes in the wet way, by
reducing the metal; but has not succeeded in obtaining any satisfactory
results. The only substance of this kind which he was able to prepare in
the wet way, is that called “iron black,” which is used for coating gypsum
figures, in order to give an appearance similar to gray cast-iron. This consists
of very finely divided antimony precipitated from solution by means of zine.

ON TWO NEW METALS IN SWEDISH MAGNETIC IRON ORE.

Professor Ullgren, in a recent communication to Liebig’s Annalen, states
that he believes he has detected in a magnetic iron ore from near Asker-
sund, Sweden, two metals — one of an electro-negative, and the other of an
electro-positive nature — both possessing properties which justify the assump-
tion that they have not hitherto been known. The ore in question, when
added to good ores in smelting, is said to cause a high degree of deterioration
in the iron obtained.

20

230 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY

The electro-negative metal has the following properties: —it is thrown
down, with a brown color, by sulphuretted hydrogen from an acid solution,
and the precipitate is soluble with a brown color in ammonia and sulphuret of
ammonium. Its solution in nitro-muriatic acid, when slowly evaporated,
deposits a solid body of a brownish-yellow color. Before the blowpipe, this
gives colorless globules, with salt of phosphorus, and furnishes no metal with
soda upon charcoal.

The properties of the electro-positive metal are as follow: From a solu-
tion of iron, mixed with a sufficient quantity of acetate of soda, it is thrown
down by a sulphuretted hydrogen, together with iron and a small amount of
zine which is contained in the ore. After the precipitate has been partially
dried upon the filter, iron and zine may be removed by dilute muriatic acid,
and afterwards nitric acid. The residue, calcined with access of air, and
afterwards fused with carbonate of soda, yields a grayish-yellow substance,
which, when calcined in hydrogen -gas, furnishes a black powder, which
burns in the air to a grayish-yellow body. The black powder obtained by
reduction with hydrogen gas, is dissolved with extreme difficulty by nitric
acid, but more readly nitro-muriatic acid; in this solution alkalies form a
yellowish-brown, flocculent precipitate — ferrocyanide of potassium a blue or
green one. Before the blowpipe, it gives a colorless globule, with salt of
phosphorus; this becomes opalescent in the inner flame, and when a large
quantity is present, gray. It is not in the least attracted by the magnet.

IODINE IN ATMOSPHERIC WATERS.

M. Marchant, in the Comptes Rendus, No. 17, 1858, publishes the details of
a great number of analyses, which seem to prove beyond a doubt that
iodine and bromine (traces) “ are constantly and normally present in atmos-
pheric waters.”

A NEW METHOD FOR DETECTING THE PRESENCE OF IODINE AND
BROMINE IN MINERAL WATERS.

The following paper, by M. M. Henri and Humbert, is copied from the
Comptes Rendus:

The mineral water, or the residue from its evaporation, more or less con-
centrated, is treated with an acid solution of nitrate of silver. The pre-
cipitate which takes place ought to contain, in the state of silver salts, all
the chlorine, bromine, and iodine which was in the water. The precipitate
is washed and carefully dried, and in this state it is mixed intimately with a
small quantity of cyanide of silver, then introduced into a tube, at one of
the extremities of which it is fixed between two small plugs of wadding or
flax. A current of chlorine gas, perfectly dry, is made to pass over the
mixture, whilst the corresponding part of the tube is gently heated. The
iodine, bromine, and cyanogen are displaced, and, combining together, con-
dense in the coldest part of the tube in beautiful white and crystalline rings
of iodine and bromide of cyanogen. The tube is afterwards closed at both
its extremities, and reserved for testing.

The iodide and bromide of cyanogen possess physical and chemical prop-
erties which prevent their being confounded with other compounds. The
iodide sublimes at a temperature of 113°, and the bromide at a temperature
of 59° Fahrenheit. This difference in their volatility permits of their being
mechanically separated; by plunging the tube containing these compounds

CHEMICAL SCIENCE. Zou

into water of 86° the bromide alone gains the upper part of the tube, care
having been taken to keep it conveniently cool.

We do not insist upon the chemical composition of these combinations;
it suffices us to say that it is easy to determine with certainty their nature in
obtaining with them the principal reactions which characterize iodine and
bromine. Proper care should be taken in preparing the chlorine for this
process, that the substances should be pure, and, above all, contain neither
iodine, nor bromine; besides this precaution, after having mixed the cyanide
of silver with the other silver salts, the whole should be heated for some
time, and if there are no traces of iodide or bromide of cyanogen, the pro-
cess is proceeded with in the ordinary way.

IMPROVED METHOD OF PURIFYING WATER.

The following plan of purifying water has recently been patented by
Henry Medlock, of England, the specification reading as follows:

I suspend, in a tank or reservoir containing the water to be purified, by
means of iron rods passing across it, iron wire, of about one-sixteenth of
an inch in diameter, loosely packed in bundles or coils, and in the proportion
of about one pound weight of such wire to every one hundred gallons of
water. I allow the water to remain in contact with the iron wire from
twenty-four to forty-eight hours, according to the rapidity with which the
precipitation of organic matter occasioned by such contact takes place, and
I then pass the water through any kind of filtering medium now in use
which is capable of retaining the precipitate formed. For the filtration of
water in large bulk, I have found the ordinary sand-filter sufficient. The
effect of the contact of the water with the solid bodies above described,
when the water contains nitrogen in any form, is to decompose or oxidize the
organic matter and the ammonia contained in the water, whereby a certain
part of the organic matter and ammonia is converted into nitrous or nitric
acids, or both of them, by which the rest of the organic matter is rendered
insoluble. The nitrous and nitric acids finally combine with the iron, or with
some of the inorganic bases, if any, contained in the water, and the organic
matter rendered insoluble is precipitated, together with some part of the
inorganic matter, if any, contained in the water.

FILTRATION THROUGH SAND.

Experiments by Mr. H. M. Witt, at the Chelsea waterworks (England), have
proved that by simple filtration of water through sand, soluble salts, as well
as suspended matters, are separated. Out of 65°527 of solid residue dissolved
and suspended, 24°237 were separated, including 7°559 of soluble salts (1°820
of these chlorid of sodium). From water containing 55°60 of solid residue,
32°75 were thus separated, 3°404 of which were dissolved salts. Hence mere
percolation through sandy strata for long periods may separate dissolved
saline ingredients from waters. Mr. Witt applies the factsto explain the
occurrence of fresh-water springs on coral islands, that ebb with the tide.
But here Mr. Darwin’s exp!anation seems most reasonable, — that the fresh
waters are from the rains; and that, being detained upon the coral rock, and
at the same time being lighter than the salt water of the ocean, the setting
in of the tides pushes the fresh waters before thei. — Silliman’s Journal.

232 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

PERMANGANATE OF POTASH AS A DEODORIZER.

Dr. Girwood, in a communication to the London Lancet, highly recom-
mends permanganate of potash as a powerful deodorant, and also as an
escharotic and stimulant when applied to sores, ulcers, etc. Dr. G. says:

A teaspoonful of the substance powdered, added to a tablespoonful or two
of water, just enough to moisten it well, and sufficient to cover the surface
of a flat dish —a dinner-plate for example, being used for the purpose—
giving a broad surface for the absorption, and this plate placed under the
bed, or anywhere most convenient in the sick-chamber, all odor disappears:
and it has an advantage above those in general use in the sick-chamber,
that it has no odor of its own. Vinegar and chlorine and nitrous acid gas
are often of themselves a nuisance; whilst destroying one odor they create
another: but the permanganic acid has none. It only destroys; it does not
create. I have employed the solution successfully in my stables, and in
other places engendering odors. It does not require frequent change. Has
it lost its original beautiful purple color? Has it become black and slimy?
If so, renew it; but not till then.

USE OF WOOD CHARCOAL IN SEWERS.

The last report of the Commissioners of the London sewers contains the
following testimony respecting the value of wood charcoal as a deodorizer:

“We have,” says the Report, “in common wood charcoal a powerful
means of destroying the foul gases of sewers. How it is to be applied, is a
question of but little embarrassment. Ventilate the sewers as you will,
either by the open gratings in the streets, or by the rain-water pipes of the
houses, or by the pillars of the gas-lamps, or by tubes carried up at the
landlord’s expense from the drains of every house, or by special shafts in
the public streets — in fact, let the gases go out of the sewers how they will
and where they will, you have but to place a small box containing a few
penniesworth of charcoal in the course of the draught, and the purification
of the air will be complete. As far as we know, the strength and the endu-
rance of this power are almost unlimited; so that, when once the air-filter
has been set up, it will last continuously for years. Its action, also, upon the
draught, is not particularly injurious. The temperature of the sewers, and
the agencies which are now at work in circulating the air and ventilating
them, will be sufficient to keep up a current of foul air through the filters;
and if these were multiplied to a large extent, the friction of the gases upon
the charcoal would be reduced to an insignificant amount ”

EXTEMPORANEOUS PREPARATION OF CHLORINE AS A
DISINFECTANT.

The chloride of lime, usually employed as a means of disengaging chlo-
rine, has, besides its price, the inconvenience of being rather rapidly ex-
hausted. M. Lambossy substitutes for it a cheap and simple preparation,
consisting of common salt, red lead, sulphuric acid, and cold water. The red
lead is mixed with the salt, and introduced into a bottle full of water. The
sulphuric acid is added gradually, and shaken at intervals. By this process
sulphate of lead is formed and precipitated, and sulphate of soda and chlo-

CHEMICAL SCIENCE, 250

rine remain dissolved in the water. The chlorine, which gives the liquid a
yellow color, is disengaged as soon as the bottle is opened. To produce a
more rapid disengagement, the liquid is poured into flat plates, so as to offer
a large surface for evaporation.

ON COLORS OBTAINED FROM COAL-TAR PRODUCTS.

The following paper was recently read before the London Society of Arts,
by Mr. Grace Calvert:

In November 1854, in a paper read to this society, I stated that, ere long,
besides carbo-azotic acid,some valuable dyeing substances would be pre-
pared from coal-tar. This expectation has now been fulfilled. Messrs.
Perkins & Church have obtained several blue coloring substances from the
alkaloids of coal-tar, and one from napthaline, named by them Nitroso-
phenyline and Nitroso-naphthyline, ete.

Mr. Perkins has lately taken a patent for the commercial application of
some of these beautiful purple-blue colors, which he has succeeded in fix-
ing on silk, a sample of which I have the pleasure to lay before you. This
fine color, which rivals the delicate and admired color of orchil, has this
great advantage over it, that it is not destroyed by light; Mr. Perkins has,
therefore, solved one of the problems of the art of dyeing, viz., the produc-
tion of a fast color similar to the fugitive one of orchil. Mr. Perkins’s pro-
cess consists in dissolving in water the sulphates of aniline, of cuminine, and
of toluidine, and adding a quantity of bichromate of potash sufficient to
neutralize the sulphuric acid in these sulphates. The whole is left to stand
for twelve hours, when a brown substance is precipitated, which is washed
with coal-tar naptha, and then dissolved in methylated spirits. This solu-
tion, with the addition of a little tartaric oxalic acid, forms the dyeing
liquor of Mr. Perkins.

Mr. Charles Lowe and myself have lately been fortunate enough to obtain
from coal-tar products having a most extraordinary dyeing power, and
yielding colors nearly as beautiful as safflower-pinks and cochineal-crim-
sons; and what increases the interest of this coal-tar product is, that, by the
process we have discovered, we can obtain with it, on a piece of calico mor-
danted for madder colors, all the various colors and shades given by this
valuable root — violet, purple, chocolate, pink, and red. The only thing
which prevented us from introducing into the market the crown-red, inodor-
ous product which we prepare, has been, that it is as yet too expensive to
compete with this extraordinary color-giving root; but we intend pursuing
our researches in the hope of employing it as a substitute for safflower or
cochineal, two coloring matters, the price of whichis sufficiently high to
induce us to continue our investigations. We may add, that our imitation of
safflower stands soap and light, whilst saffower colors do not.

I shall now draw the attention of the meeting to the preparation, dye-
ing, and printing of a magnificent crimson color, called murexide, obtained
from guano, a substance which, until lately, has been entirely imported
for agricultural purposes. The interesting application of this color to calico-
printing has been, like many valuable chemical discoveries, progressive, and
has only been brought to successful commercial application by successive
discoveries, made by various persons.

Prout was the first chemist to remark that if the feces of serpents were
heated with nitric acid, and a little ammonia added, a beautiful purple color

20*

234 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

was produced. He named it purpurate of ammonia. This substance, when.
dry, has the appearance of a dark-red powder, soluble in water, to which it
communicates a magnificent red color. This solution not only gives a pre-
cipitate with metallic salts, but, when evaporated, yields beautiful crystals,
having the irridescent appearance of the wings of cantharides.

This discovery has also been useful to medical men, by enabling them to
distinguish the uric acid calculi.

Messrs. Liebig and Wohler had also investigated the subject, and succeeded
in obtaining from the uric acid contained in the feces of serpents this sub-
stance, which they called murexide, and a new class of organic substances,
the knowledge of which has much facilitated the application of murexide to
dyeing and printing. Mr. Saac was the first to apply the products of uric
acid to the dyeing of fabrics; his process consisted in dipping woollen fab-
rics, prepared with a salt of tin, into a weak solution of alloxan, a pro-
duct discovered by Liebig and Wohler, in heating urea with nitric acid. The
fabic so prepared was then dried, and when submitted to heat, a fine crimson
was generated, the intensity of which was increased by the fumes of ammo-
nia. But, owing to the difficulty of obtaining a color of uniform shade,
Mr. Saac’s process required improvements, and these have been effected by
Mr. Schlumberger.

The process followed by Messrs. Saac and Schlumberger, could not be
applied to silk or cotton fabrics. The method of dyeing silk with murexide
was discovered by M. de Pouilly, who adopted the following processes, viz.,
dipping the silk in a concentrated solution of bichloride of mercury mixed
with murexide, squeezing the silk well, and hanging in the air, when a mag-
nificent crimson insoluble compound is fixed on the silk. This effect is pro-
duced from the fact, that, when solutions of bichloride of mercury and
murexide are mixed together, an insoluble compound is only formed after
the lapse of an hour or two.

The process for dyeing cotton is due to Messrs. Lauth and Schlumberger,
and consists in producing on cotton a purpurate of lead by mordanting with
nitrate of lead, passing into an alkali, and then dyeing in a solution of
murexide; in order to give full brilliancy to the color, it is lastly passed
through a weak solution of bichloride of mercury. This process was fur-
ther improved by Messrs. Dolfus, Meig & Co., in France, and Mr. Lightfoot,
in Lancashire, by printing murexide with an excess of nitrate of lead, and
subjecting the cloth so printed to the action of ammoniacal fumes, or passing
through a solution of caustic soda mixed with sal ammoniac. In order to
render this substance more generally useful, it remained to find a method
for obtaining fast colors with it on mixed fabrics, such as mousseline de
laine, and this has also been effected by Mr. Schlumberger. The cloth is
first prepared by uniting binoxide of tin with the wool. This object is
attained by using a salt, known to calico-printers as pink salt, the double
chloride of ammonium and tin, and then printing on the prepared fabric
the following mixture:

1 part of murexide.
6 parts of nitrate of lead.
2 parts of nitrate of soda.

The pieces are then allowed to age for two or three days, when, to fix the
purpurate of lead on the cotton, and the purpurate of ammonia on the wool,

CHEMICAL SCIENCE. Fao

it is necessary to pass the cloth into a bath of bichloride of mercury, com-
posed as follows:

Waren OE? 2) © S00 padlons.
Bichloride of Mercury, - 6 pounds.
Acetate of Soda, . . BDst Huse

Acetic Acid, . F » 2 quarts.

Until recently, all the green colors produced on fabrics were the results of
blue and yellow mixed together; but of late public attention has been
drawn to a green matter discovered by the Chinese, and fixed by them on
cotton. It has been ascertained that they prepare it, by a long and tedious
process, from two plants called Pa-bi-lo-za (Rhamnus chlorophorus) and
Hom-bi-lo-za (Rhamnus utilis), and sell it in small square cakes, under the
name of Luh-kaou, or Luh-chaou. The first commercial importation of
this color, new to us, is quite recent, as the first public sale of it in England
took place during the present year (1858), under the name of China-
green indigo. No sooner had a foreign green substance been brought to
our notice, than in Europe we had succeeded in obtaining also a green dye-
ing substance from the plants which surround us; and Mr. Schlumberger
has been fortunate enough to fix on woollen fabrics the green chlorophylle,
or coloring matter of leaves and grass. This discovery will, in time, prove
of great service to dyers and calico-printers. Mr. Schlumberger’s process
consists in boiling 60 Ibs. of grass with 25 gallons of water. This operation
is repeated, and the grass then treated with 25 gallons of soda lye, with
addition of 2 to 4 lbs. of Mercer’s dung substitute (phosphate of soda and
lime). Boil half an hour, and then add excess of hydrochloric acid; a
green precipitate falls, which is separated by filtration. The precipitate is
dissolved in very dilute soda lye, adding a little of the substitute, and the
silk or wool to be dyed is dipped in until, the desired shade is obtained.
Stannate of soda is the only mordant which gives any beneficial result.

ROSOLIC ACID.

At a recent meeting of the London Chemical Society, Dr. Hugo Miiller
read a paper “On Rosolic Acid.” Since the discovery of this body by
Runge, no mention has been made of its reoccurrence, while even its existence
has been called in question. The author met with it accidentally, as a result
of the slow action of caustic lime upon the crude carbolic acid of coal-tar.
After long exposure to the air, the mass assumed a red color, and when
acted upon by water, yielded a solution of crude rosolate of lime, having a
fine red color. From this salt rosolic acid was obtained and purified. Its
empirical formula was found to be C4¢ H2 Os. It is a very feeble acid, unit-
ing only with caustic alkalies and earths. ~The solutions of these compounds
are of a most magnificent crimson color, but are very unstable. The car-
bonic acid of the air liberates the rosolic acid, which is eventually destroyed
by continued exposure to air and light.

IMPROVEMENT IN THE MANUFACTURE OF COAL OILS.

An invention recently patented in England, relates to a method of dis-
tilling coal, shale, and bituminous substances, whereby a pure oil, suitable
for illumination and other purposes, is obtained at the first distillation.

It has long been known that many varieties of coal, shale, and bituminous

236 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

substances were capable of affording oil and oily matters, when subjected to
dry distillation at a low temperature; but in general the oil obtained at the
first distillation comes over in a crude, coarse condition, totally unfit for use.
Several processes have been invented for purifying this crude oil, and some
of them are attended with great success; but nearly all of them are expen-
sive. They involve the use of large quantities of sulphuric and other acids,
Salts, repeated distillations, heatings, boilings, agitations, decantations, and
other labors. The bituminous substances before referred to, yield, on distil-
lation at a low temperature, a gas, which, if passed through a worm or other
suitable refrigerator, condenses into what is known as crude oil, requiring
purification, as described.

The present invention consists in straining the gas which produces the oil,
by passing it through a stratum or strata of sand, or other suitable medium,
so that, when condensed, it forms a clear and valuable oil, ready for imme-
diate use. This result is obtained by the following process, viz.: The coal,
shale, or whatever bituminous substance is to be distilled, is broken up into
very small pieces, and deposited upon the bottom of the retort. Upon the
coal is thrown a quantity of common sand, about four times greater in
weight than the weight of coal. The sand should be made to cover the coal
evenly, so that the gas in escaping from the coal will pass through the sand.
A condensing tube leads from the upper part of the retort to the refrigerating
worm. The retort, thus prepared, is submitted to a low fire, the heat of
which is very gradually and carefully increased, until the coal and sand hay-
ing reached a temperature of about 212° Fahr., the moisture contained in the
coal and sand begins to rise into the condensing tube in the form of steam,
and on passing into the worm, is condensed into water, and escapes: the
water thus brought over is loaded with black carbonaceous impurities. The
same temperature being continued, the condensed water gradually becomes
clearer, and the oil begins to form: both oil and water escaping together
from the worm, the oil rising to the surface in the receiving vessel. The oil,
as it thus exudes, is beautifully clear and pure, and when burned in an
argand lamp, with a deflecting button over the wick, gives a most brilliant
light, totally free from smoke, As the distillation proceeds, the quantity of
water that comes over lessens. The temperature before named should be
steadily maintained until no more pure oil is produced. With some varieties
of bituminous substances, however, the oil ceases to come over before it has
all been exhausted from the material, although exposed to the above heat
for a time, as described; in such cases a higher temperature is then required.
Such additional heat should be applied very gradually, and with the utmost
care. The distillation may proceed, adding degree of heat by degree, so
long as the distilled substance yields pure oil. When the heat has passed a
certain point, which is determined by the nature of the substance under dis-
tillation, no more pure oil can be had, and crude oily and tarry matter comes
over. Owing to the great variety of bituminous substances existing, it is
impossible to lay down the exact degree of heat required for the distillation
of each by the process; but as a general rule, the following method should be
observed : —-Commence with a low temperature, and carry it up very grad-
ually until the pure oil begins to condense; continue the same temperature
so long as the oil exudes. If the oil ceases, increase the heat very gradually,
as before described, until no more pure oil can be obtained. The gas out of
which the oil is formed should be set free, and have an opportunity of pass-
ing slowly through the filtering or straining substances, so as to deposit its

CHEMICAL SCIENCE. Dad

impurities. When too much heat is applied, the filtering or straining opera-
tion will be imperfectly accomplished. Instead of using sand as the strain-
ing or filtering medium for the gas, clay and earths of most kinds may be
employed, as also chalk, gypsum, lime, black oxide of manganese, some
salts, plumbago, charcoal, etc.

ON THE PRESENT STATE OF CHEMICAL KNOWLEDGE IN RELATION
TO ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES AND THEIR FALSIFICATIONS.

At arecent meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, Dr. A. A.
Hayes, by request, addressed the Society on the above subject.

He stated that the products of fermentation— whether resulting from
“ worts,”’ in which the altered starch of grains furnishes the material, or the
“must ”’ of expressed juices of grapes, fruits and plants — might be, for con-
yenience, classed as wines. Thus ale, which is the product of the first fer-
mentation of malted barley, may be considered as a wine of malt; the
addition of hop extract being a matter of taste, which replaces the fruit
extract in wines. If we include also the mixtures of cane products, sugar
and water, honey and water, and, finally, skimmed milk, we have sources of
various resorts for producing exhilaration or intoxication, adopted by all
nations.

The first chemical change in many of the mixtures used is produced by the
remarkable body called diastase, which has the power of converting nearly
two thousand times its own weight of starch into dextrine, or about half that
quantity into grape sugar. This body is developed in the act of germination
in grains and seeds; and probably in this principle of malted barley we have
the type of a class of these substances, which in different ways act to produce
remarkable transformations in organic bodies.

The second change, which demands attention, is that of the conversion of
dextrine and glucose — the sugar of fruits —into alcohol, which remains dis-
solved in the fluid. This breaking up and rearranging of the elements of
sugar, is effected, as is well known, through the aid of the beer yeast plant,
usually. Like diastase, the beer yeast plant is endowed with life, and has
the power of communicating motion to organic and organized matter, result-
ing in change of composition. Inso simple an expression of the phenomena
of beer, or wine production, we have omitted some most important sub-
stances, which participate in the changes. These are the natural fixed oils
and fats, and the volatile odorous bodies in grains, but more especially in
grapes, fruits, cane products, etc. Thus the hop extract, added before fer-
mentation to ale, beer, or porter, becomes altered, as do the grape oils; and
the remark applies to all known cases of fermentation of mixed solutions.
Mature grapes contain a natural ferment, in its appropriate cells, requiring,
to bring its affinity in view, only that the cell walls and tissues of the fruit be
broken, so as to provide fluid sugar, on which it reacts. Fermentation,
which at a temperature of 70° F. commences immediately in grape juice,
develops, besides alcohol, a whole class of new bodies. So in the fermen-
tation of grains, the fixed bland oils of the seeds, slightly altered, remain,
while more volatile odorous oils are directly produced from materials present.
Now these oils deserve special attention, because on the production of these,
and their subsequent further change, the money value of the beverages
depends. A very large consumption of beverages is supplied by the first

238 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

fermentation of the materials named, and these alcoholic mixtures also form
the basis of the spzrit manufacture.

The second fermentation of wines. is perhaps more important than the first.
In this, the alcohol remaining almost unaltered, the greatest changes take
place in the fruit extracts and oils. Fruit extracts lose their acidity and
much saline matter, while the presence of acids leads to the production of
ethers, from oily bases present, which then give their odors to the wine. It is
apparent that the proportions, and even kinds of ethers present, may vary;
but a general predominance of one designates a wine. Closely connected
with the presence and kind of ether, are the effects of wine on the human
system; those wines having much ether and little alcohol proving exhila-
rating, while the alcoholic and oily wines may be distinguished as intoxi-
cating beverages.

In the spirit manufacture, after the first fermentation has ceased, distilla-
tion follows, for the separation of alcohol from the non-volatile organic
matters. Here again the volatile oils are characteristic bodies, and impart
their odors to the spirits in a strongly marked degree. Brandy, whiskey,
rums, corn and potato spirits, have their values based on the kind and
quality of oil each contains. Their other constituents, in pure samples, are
simply odorless water and odorless alcohol.

In all pure distilled spirits, with the oils, certain acids are connected, and
the etherification of the oils slowly proceeds, as in the case of wines. The
distinction between new, or raw spirits, and old, or matured spirits, arises
from this etherification of the oils commonly called fusel oils. The highly
aromatic brandies of the last century, like the “ Nantes” brandy, were
distilled from partly matured wines, and contained all their ethers.

The falsifications of beers, wines, and spirits, so far as our commerce is
concerned, are extensive, and will be alluded to briefly.

In the early manufacture of brandy, wines of low cost were distilled; but
the more general demand for wines, with occasional short crops of grapes,
have led to another mode of producing the enormous quantity of raw spirits
now consumed.

After the grapes have been pressed and fermented, the residue, consisting
of skins, kernels, and pulpy parts, is mixed with solutions of glucose, ob-
tained from starch; odorless spirit is added, and the artificial must thus
formed is fermented cautiously. Distillation separates a spirit, loaded with
the oils of grape fermentation to such an extent that an excess of grape oil,
besides brandy, is obtained in rectification. This is the brandy of the pres-
ent day, and forms the large bulk of our importation. The oil of grapes,
under the name of “Cognac Oil,’’ is vended for a moderate price, and be-
comes a large producer of brandy, by a very short process.

As the oils known as fusel oils are less volatile than alcohol, a managed
distillation permits us to separate the oil from alcohol, which then becomes
odorless or neutral. Cognac oil, mixed with neutral spirit, instantly pro-
duces factitious brandy, sugar and coloring matter being adjuncts. Sucha
base mixture is largely made in this country; and as it has no principle
capable of maturing, it should take a place below the raw spirits. Falsified
wines are made here from mixtures of spirit, water, sugar, and low-priced
wines, as imitations of wines of well-known names. Sparkling wines are
made on a large scale, from fruit wines or sweet wines, with sugar and car-
bonic acid mechanically introduced; and such wines are probably often

CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 259

imported. Sherry and Madeira, as imported, have spirits mixed with the
wine, and often forty per cent. of proof spirit is contained inthem. Bothale
and beer are sold which haye been mixed with low-priced spirits, to increase
their intoxicating effects. But the most demoralizing intoxicating bever-
ages are the new, or raw spirits,so common. In many of these the fusel oils
exist to the point of saturation. These oils have specific actions on the sys-
tem, and the ethers are not present.

LIQUORS AND THEIR ADULTERATIONS.

Mr. F. Stearns, Pharmaceutist, of Detroit, communicates to the Medical
Independent the following popular account of the modern processes for man-
ufacturing and adulterating liquors, the most of which are well known to
chemists and dealers, but not to the public generally.

Modern researches in organic chemistry have enabled the chemist to
isolate from fermented grape juice those peculiar principles which give it
aroma, bouquet, color, etc., and which serve to distinguish it from other
liquids. They have also enabled him to procure, from the refuse of wine-
vats, and by artificial means, the materials necessary for the successful imi-
tation of every wine and distilled liquor known.

Formerly, pure liquors were mixed—that is, they were increased in bulk
by additions of distilled spirit, and then brought up to the required standard
by means of foreign substances. Now, however, they are manufactured
entirely. The art of the “mixer” has become scientific by the aid of the
chemist, and he is a producer. Now, the “jobber” who is skilled in the
mysteries of the trade, can stand beside a cask of pure spirit (highwine),
and imitate perfectly, with chemical flavors, essential oils, ete., Otard or
Schnapps, Johannisberg or St. Peray.

In our own country this art of manufacturing liquors is carried to its great-
est perfection — and it is the purpose of the writer to show, in this article,
some of the methods employed.

The high ruling prices of imported wines and liquors, caused by the scant
vintages of late years, has been the great incentive to the artificial produc-
tion of them here. It is even asserted that foreign liquor-makers, not satis-
fied with sophisticating their own growths and distillations, import, from
this country, large quantities of alcohol, for the purpose of making brandy,
and reshipping it to the United States.

The substances in the grape which impart color, bouquet, taste and flavor
to wine, are tartar, tannin, essential oil, and the coloring matter of the
husk. These form but one per cent. of it—the balance being alcohol,
water and sugar. It has been ascertained, that, in the process of fermenta-
tion, not over a fourth part of these substances are taken up by the wine,
and that the most valuable one—the essential oil—can be obtained from
the lees. This flavoring oil—the product of the grape —is mixed with an
artificially-produced cenanthic ether, and constitutes what is known in com-
mercial parlance as “‘ Oil Cognac,” and is used in manufacturing brandy.

This is found in market, varying much in quality of aroma and appear-
ance. That which bears the highest price (about twenty-five dollars for a
fluid ounce) is of a pale amber-color, and consists almost entirely of cenanthic
ether, as produced from the grape, and is used for imitating the finer kinds
of brandy. There is another variety — a mixture of essential oil and cenan-
thie ether — of a light-green color, due to the presence of copper; another

240 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

is colored pink by cobalt; others are white, yellow, or brown, —the greatest
difference being in the quality of the cenanthic ether.

The properties of pure brandy are subject to some variation, arising from
different growths of the vine. An experienced dealer and judge can always
recognize the products of different provinces. Brandy is colorless when
distilled, but acquires a slight amber-color from the cask in which it is kept,
or is colored by caramel (burnt sugar), which is said to render the spirit
mellow and more palatable. Analysis shows pure brandy to consist of
alcohol, water, volatile oil, cenanthic ether, coloring matter, and sugar.
Some varieties also contain a small portion of acetic ether and tannin.

Now, to show how closely modern manufacturers follow the guide thus
given by analysis, in producing a domestic article, I will state some of the
methods employed.

The highest proof-spirit is employed for imitating fine brandy, because
less contaminated with the grain or fusel oil present in the whiskey, —the
most of it being removed by distillation with the permanganate of potash.
This spirit is reduced to the standard required,— being that of equal
parts, by volume, of absolute alcohol and water, called “neutral spirits,”
though this term indicates a spirit of any proof,—and is converted into
brandy as follows:

A mixture (a little over six ounces) of amber cognac oil, oil of bitter
almonds and ethereal oil of wine, U. 8. P., put into one hundred and seven-
ty-five gallons of spirit, prepared as above, produces, with the assistance
of a little simple spirit and more or less caramel, the finest varieties of pale
or dark brandy. Sometimes a gallon of Malaga wine (a made-up wine) is
added.

A mixture, in all one and a half gallons, of acetic ether, tamarinds, sour
cherry-juice, and a little white oil cognac, forms, when put into one hundred
and thirty gallons of ‘‘neutral spirits,” pale or dark cognac, as may be
desired, with caramel and simple syrup.

The green oil of cognac, with ethereal oil of bitter almonds and tannin, —
in all, nearly six ounces, —converts one hundred and fifty gallons of neutral
spirits into brandy. A few pounds of elder-flowers give it mellowness, and
the tannin imparts roughness and age.

The pink or brown oils of cognac make “ Rochelle” brandy, when mixed
in due proportion with acetic and peach ethers. It only requires of them
seven ounces, to doctor one hundred and thirty gallons of neutral spirits —
caramel as before.

It is, perhaps, well to remark, that manufacturers also require, in order to
produce the variations of different pure brandies, bruised French plums, for
their acid and flavor ; wild cherry juice, for its astringency and bouquet; oak
shavings, for their astringency, color, and odor; catechu, for its tannin and
color ; powdered charcoal, black tea, ground rice, peach ether (a compound
of oil of bitter almonds and diluted butyric ether), and grape oil—a com-
pound of the organic, radical amyle, possessing a strong, vinous odor. In
connection with this substance, it is a singular fact that amyle is carefully
separated, in one of its forms of combination, — that of fusel oil (hydrated
oxide of amyle),—from the spirit, in first preparing it for the manufac-
turer’s use, only to reénter it, in another form, for the purpose of forming
‘* Brandy.’’

Holland gin, when pure, is a spirit obtained by first fermenting barley and
rye with hops, allowing effervescence to cease; then distilling, and repeating

CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 241

distillation from juniper berries, which last gives a peculiar aroma and
diuretic properties. Age improves gin, imparting to it a smooth, oily flavor,
much admired by many.

Three-quarters of the gin sold is entirely innocent of any knowledge of
Holland. The Haglish cordial gins, so much used as medical agents for
their diuretic and carminative qualities, are all made-up liquors.

Manufactured gin is made as follows: A mixture of oils, of juniper berry
(freshly distilled) and angelica seed, in equal proportions, together with rum
ether, oil of lemon, common salt, and simple syrup, is added to spirit of the
proper proof, neutralized by means of spirits of nitre. Sometimes oils of cara-
way seed and fennel seed, with peach ether, are added to the above, to create
an “Aromatic Gin,” or to give smoothness, richness, and creaminess to the liquor.

Creosote is used to give to gin a certain degree of smokiness; caustic potash
is added to make it strong and biting on the palate.

British “ cordial” gin is sometimes made of oil of bitter almonds, oil of
vitriol (sulphuric acid), spirits of turpentine, oil of juniper, coriander seed,
orris root, elder flowers, acetic ether, and sugar, in proper proportions,
macerated in proof spirit.

Common gin is a crude distillation of whiskey, from a mixture of spirits
of turpentine and common salt, with a dash of juniper berries.

Rum, when pure, is the distilled product of fermented refuse saccharine
matter which accumulates where sugar and molasses are made. The best
varieties are obtained from the West Indies, and termed Jamaica, Santa
Croix, and Kingston — the Jamaica being considered the best. The peculiar
flavor of rum is due to the presence of a portion of empyreumatic oil, which
forms and passes over it during the process of distillation.

Now, by distilling a mixture of black oxide of manganese, sulphuric acid,
alcohol and acetic acid, a peculiar ethereal liquid is obtained, possessing the
odor of rum in a remarkable degree; this, when mixed with essential oils,
and colored brown, is termed, commercially, “‘ Oil Jamaica Rum; ” colored
pink, and entitled “‘ Oil Kingston Rum; ” or left of its natural color, and it is
* Oil St. Croix Rum.”

A single ounce of the oil Jamaica rum, with a little essential oil of pimento
(allspice), some acetic ether, a few pounds of sugar, and ten gallons of water,
converts one hundred gallons of fourth-proof spirit into “‘ Jamaica;”’ or,
by using white or pink oils, with some essence of lemon and spirits of
nitre, the same quantity of spirit is converted into Kingston or St. Croix
rum. Simple syrup, molasses, and caramel, are also used to sweeten, give
smoothness and color to this liquor.

It is often remarked, that if habitual drinkers would confine themselves to
whiskey — that pure drink — the probabilities are that they would average
longer lives, and be less subject to the horrors. This might be true if high
proof alcohol was drunk by them, properly diluted, but not when the com-
mon grain whiskey of the still is used.

Common whiskey contains a large per-centage of fusel oil (an oxide of the
organic radical amyle), which passes over in distillation in considerable
quantities. Repeated rectification only partially removes it. It is, in a pure
state, highly poisonous.

I am credibly informed by an extensive alcohol distiller, that, in running
highwines enough to produce three hundred barrels of alcohol, he separated
at least a barrel of crude fusel oil, one tablespoonfull of which, if swal-
lowed, would produce fatal effects.

ya |
a

242 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

In order to cheapen the production of whiskey, and of course, at the same
time, lessen its wholesomeness, manufacturers are accustomed to cover up the
flavor of the grain oil which the raw spirit contains — not remove it partially
by rectification — by adding strong flavoring materials.

Peach whiskey is fashionable. Where does the peach come from? When
nitric acid is distilled with benzole, a peculiar substance is produced, which
resembles in odor the oil of bitter almonds— this is the peach part of the
whiskey. Raw grain whiskey is readily converted into pineapple whiskey by
adding a portion of an ethereal liquid obtained by the action of oil of vitriol
upon butyric acid, butyric acid being the result of a fermented mixture of
putrid cheese.

Artificial flavors are sold for flavoring the spirit in imitation of Mononga-
hela and Scotch whiskey; and all that a barrel of raw whiskey requires to
convert it into ‘ Bourbon,” is two gallons of Jamaica rum, with a little oil
of caraway and bitter almonds.

So much for distilled liquors.

Wines, generally, are so doctored by foreign growers, to suit the vitiated
taste of habitual drinkers of them, that, after the addition of liquor tonic ~
(brandy), sugar, and coloring matter, the best of them would hardly be
recognized when compared with samples in their original state of purity.

All the best wines zmported into the country contain a fair share of brandy;
it is added to them previous to exportation, for the ostensible purpose of
making them stand the voyage without fermenting, but, in reality, because
the market demands strong wines.

The manufacture of wines has reached the greatest perfection.

Port wine, which, in a pure state, is a sweet, rich, aromatic wine, of deep
color and mild taste, is required, by those who use it habitually, to be strong.
The English, especially, prefer the strong port, and it constitutes the variety
termed London dock, and is made by adding brandy, elderberry juice, and
sugar, to pure juice port.

Of the other varieties of port, though some may reach us in a pure state,
yet they are generally of a poor quality, being mixtures of wines of different
growers, good, bad and indifferent.

Neutral spirit is the base of manufactured ports in this country, contain-
ing, usually, 25 per cent., by volume, of alcohol, flavored with “‘ May wine
ether,” colored with elderberry juice, beet juice, or cochineal and caramel.
The other qualifications of pure port wine are obtained by suitable additions
of red tartar, catechu, tannin, sugar, honey, and spices.

Madeira wine, in a pure state, it is asserted, is exported to our shores in
greater quantities than to any other country, because Young America likes
this wine for its flavor, rather than strength. In a pure state, and when
old, it has a pungent, bitter-sweet taste, and nutty flavor; it is very fragrant,
and is generally admired by wine-drinkers. It is considered one of the most
valuable of medicinal wines. It is manufactured from neutral spirit, to
which a portion of good Maderia or sherry is added, with sugar, coloring
matter, and flavoring, denominated “‘ Ether of Madeira Wine,” sold by
importers of those flavors. It is also made by fermenting a mixture of malt
and sugar, and adding Cape wine, brandy, sherry and port.

Sherry, it is believed, we also get a fair share of, in a pure state —at least
with nothing more than brandy in it, varying in amount from five to ten per
cent. It is pale or dark, according to the amount of coloring matter it is
allowed to take from the husk of the grape. ‘This is the wine directed to be

CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 243

used in the manufacture of the medicated wines of the United States Phar-
macopceia, from the fact that it contains no acidity.

As a made-up wine it is manufactured similarly to Madcira, and materials
are used which will impart to raw spirit its peculiar dry, nutty flavor.
British sherry is a wine obtained by fermenting sugar, ale-wort, raisins, and
yeast; then biter almonds and orris powder is added, and the wine fined; or
a spirit, obtained by fermenting parsnip-juice with water and sugar, is
mixed with a poor grade of Madeira, cassia, cloves, and bitter almonds
added, and the whole fined with isinglass.

Clarets are abundantly produced, and consequently cheap, though some of
the favorite varieties rank among the highest priced wines. They are as
fully as abundantly manufactured from rough cider, a red wine from the
Cape of Good Hope, catechu, spirits, bitter almonds, ete.

The less said about champagne wines the better, for there is more — several
times over —exported to America and Russia alone then the whole cham-
pagne district in France produces; and in the immediate champagne districts
are large establishments for the manufacture of artificial champagne.

The Rhine wines, or “‘ Hocks,” as they are called, are nearly all made-up
wines, and by the same means that the other wines mentioned in this article
are manufactured. Someof the brands of Rhine wines bear fabulous prices
in districts where they are produced, and are never exported. It is the same
with all wines grown: all are subject to sophistication in the hands of dis-
honest producers; or the demand being greater than the supply, tempts those
skilled in the manufacture to so make imitations of them.

ON AMYLIC ALCOHOL.

The following research on Amylic Alcohol has been submitted to the
French Academy, by M. Pasteur:

The fusel oil of commerce consists chiefly of two kinds of amylic alcohol
—one active, and the other inactive, with regard to polarized light. These
two varieties are exactly similar in their chemical properties, differ but
slightly in density and boiling point, and give rise, under similar circum-
stances, to products which resemble each other in all respects, excepting
in their relation to polarized light, — those which are derived from the active
alcohol being themselves active, and those which result from the inactive
alcohol being themselves also inactive. The proportion of the active and
inactive alcohols in fusel-oil varies according to its origin: thus the fusel oil
obtained by fermentation of the juice of mangold wurtzel, contains about
one-third of the active and two-thirds of the inactive amylic alcohol; where-
as, that which is produced by the fermentation of the molasses, contains
about equal parts of the two alcohols. The two alcohols cannot be sepa-
rated by fractional distillation, but only by fractional crystallization of the
active and inactive sulphamylates of baryta. For this purpose it is neces-
sary to prepare a large quantity of sulphamylate of baryta from crude amy-
lic alcohol, rectified by a single distillation, in order to free it from water and
vinic alcohol. The amylic alcohol, thus far purified, is mixed, as usual, with
an equal weight of sulphuric acid, the mixture treated with carbonate of
baryta, then filtered, and left to crystallize. The crystals have all the same
aspect, lustre, form, and angles; and, as in the case of a perfectly constant
and homogeneous substance, the salt may be crystallized either wholly or par-

244 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

tially any number of times, without the slightest change in the aspect of the
crystals. Nevertheless, the mass is really composed of two kinds of crystals
differing in solubility, and in their action on polarized light, —one being,
indeed, active, and the other inactive. They are very difficult to separate,
in consequence of their complete isomorphism. Nevertheless, the active salt
is 23 times more soluble than the inactive; and if the first crystals which
separate be recrystallized about twenty times, a product will at length be
obtained which has no action on polarized light; and by repeatedly crystal-
lizing the mother-liquor, a solution will ultimately be left containing nothing
but the active salt. Lastly, on extracting from these two varieties of the
sulphamylate, the amylic alcohol of which they contain the elements, it is
found that the more soluble salt yields an amylic alcohol which rotates the
plane of polarization to the left, and to the amount of 20° in a tube fifty .
centimetres long, while the less soluble salt yields an amylic alcohol which
has no perceptible action on polarized light.

The comparative study of these two alcohols exhibits many points of
interest. Every refction that can be performed with the one, may likewise
be produced with the other, under the same circumstances; and the resem-
blance of the resulting products often approaches nearly to identity, without
ever actually attaining it. Moreover, the active alcohol always gives active
products, and the inactive alcohol inactive products, provided we do not go
as far as the radical Cio Hu, in which reside the dissymmetry of the mole-
cules and the action on polarized light. One of the most remarkable differ-
ences exhibited by the two alcohols is in their densities. The active alcohol
is heavier than the other, and the difference amounts to nearly ;}g. Con-
sequently, equal volumes of the two alcohols do not contain equal numbers
of molecules,— those of the active alcohol being more crowded than those of
the other; and the difference is considerahle for a phenomenon of such a
nature. The active alcohol boils at 127° to 128° C., under the ordinary
pressure, and the inactive alcohol at 129°.. The mixture of the two boils at
intermediate temperatures, and not at 132°, as is commonly stated.

THE CHEMISTRY OF CAUSTICS. BY WILLIAM BASTICK,

Of all the applications of chemistry to the sciences of medicine and sur-
gery, there is not one which has been so little studied or written upon as the
Chemistry of Caustics. Having recently had my attention called to this
fact, while making some investigations into the nature of caustics, and
especially their mode of action, I propose to lay briefly before those inter-
ested in this subject the conclusions arrived at, however fallacious the labors
of future and abler investigators may prove them to be.

It seems to me that caustics, with reference to their action, may be divided
into two great classes, namely, one which comprises those which merely kill
or destroy the vitality of the living tissue; and the other, which includes
those which not only destroy the vitality of the living tissue, but decompose
or dissolve the tissue, whether dead or living.

As examples of the former class, may be enumerated chloride of zinc, sul-
phates of copper and Zinc, bichloride of mercury, etc.; and as examples of
the latter class, may be mentioned caustic potash, nitrate of silver, man-
ganese cum potassa, chromic acid, ete.

Another distinctive feature of these two classses is, that, while the latter’
destroys and decomposes the living or dead tissue, the former, having

CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 245

killed the living tissue, acts afterwards as a powerful antiseptic or preserva-
tive of it.

It is not within my province to point out to those extensively employing
caustics, to whom these facts may be new, the importance of bearing in
mind this distinctive feature between the two classes of caustics, when sclect-
ing the description of caustic to be employed in any given case.

Although caustics may be conveniently divided in the manner described
into two principal classes, these classes can be further subdivided into many
others, because the mode of action is frequently distinct in each individual
case, Whatever the final result may be on the living tissue.

To illustrate this point, the modes of action of caustic potash and chromic
acid may be cited. When the living tissue is placed in contact with caustic
potash, the destruction of its vitality ensues by the potash dissolving its
albuminous and fibrinous components;—in fact, acting inthe manner de-
scribed by chemists for obtaining the various protein substances from organic
matter. Of course f only allude to the leading features of the action of caus-
tics in this instance as well as in others. When the same tissue is treated,
chromic acid, instead of obtaining a solution of the protein compounds of
the tissue, and thus destroying its organized structure, the tissue is destroyed
by a slow process of combustion; or, in other words, it is oxidized at the
expense of the oxygen of chromic acid, by reason of the facility with which
that acid parts with its abundant oxygen when in contact with organic
bodies. The manganese with potash acts in a similar way as a caustic to
chromic acid, but in consequence of the permanganic and manganic acids
which it contains being in combination with the base potash, its action is
more controllable and persistent. It may not be here out of place to men-
tion, what appears to me to be a practical advantage, that the destructive
caustics, if I may so term them, possess over the conservative ones. In
doing so I beg to state, once for all, that I offer my opinions on such points
with great diffidence, knowing that chemistry is not medicine or surgery,
but only one of their instruments. The practical advantage is this: When
the surgeon desires the removal of the diseased tissue by caustics, if he uses
a conservative caustic he kills the tissue, but has to effect its separation by
a further process of suppuration, etc.; whereas, if he employs a destructive
caustic, the processes are in simultaneous action, and the desired result is,
consequently, more speedily accomplished.

Nitrate of silver is essentially an oxidizing caustic, but its action is much
slower than that of chromic acid or manganese with potassa, from the cir-
cumstance that it does not so readily part with its oxygen; and it forms an
insoluble compound with organic structures, which acts as a preventative to
its continuous power as a caustic, by forming a sort of impermeable coating
on the tissue to be removed. I am aware that this action is an advantage
where hemorrhage is to be feared.

The exsiccated sulphate of zinc and copper, when employed as caustics,
act like chloride of zine by their powerful affinity for water. But when the
vis vite is destroyed by such affinity, their further action is that of strong
antiseptics, thereby greatly, if not entirely, retarding the natural disruption
of tissues which have ceased to possess vitality. Bichloride of mercury,
and, in fact, all mercurial caustics, possess a conservative action, by their
strong affinity for the albuminous components of organic structures, with
which they form compounds of definite character.

Nitric and sulphuric acids belong to the class of destructive caustics; the

Z1*

246 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. -

action of the former is that of the oxidation of the tissues, while the latter
owes its power as a caustic to its power of extracting the elements of water
from organized bodies, — behaving like the exsiccated salts previously men-
tioned, with which it is sometimes judiciously combined to prevent the
spreading of the acid beyond the parts to be destroyed by reason of its
fluidity when uncombined.

Chloride of gold has been extensively employed, generally in combination
with other caustics, in some of the continental hospitals. When placed in
contact with organic matter, this salt is reduced to a metallic state similar
to the action of nitrate of silver; but, as far as my experience goes, it is
inferior as a caustic to the silver salt, because of the large quantity of oxid-
izing material which is set free when the organic matter is treated with
nitrate of silver. Among the conservative caustics, arsenic and its com-
pounds will find its proper class; for although arsenic is poisonous to living
tissue, it is a powerful antiseptic agent. It forms no combinations with
dead or living tissue, and only a feeble one with albuminous matter: and
from this cause it must be regarded, in a chemical point of view, as a very
inefficient caustic.

Chlorides of antimony and iron, which have been used as caustics, ex-
hibit a mode of action similar to chloride of zinc. The very feeble action of
the latter must, in some cases, be its principal recommendation.

It will be evident from the previous statements that chemistry will supply
us with an indefinite number of caustics; for it is clear that whatever
decomposes or combinesewith living tissue sufficiently to kill it, is, to all
intents and purposes, a caustic. It is equally manifest that, while it is the
essential condition of every substance professing to be a caustic, that it
should kill the living tissue, it by no means follows that all caustics per-
forming this condition should destroy or dissolve away, as it were, the tissue
when no longer possessing life, for this latter property belongs to a distinct
class of caustics. F

I am aware that I have not noticed the so-called irritant action of caustics;
but, in explanation, I reply, that the consideration of this action is foreign
to the purpose of this communication, and, moreover, a subject not within
the province of the chemist. — Med. Times and Gazette.

THE CHEMISTRY OF GUNPOWDER.

Although the processes involved in the combustion of gunpowder, and
determining its mechanical action, would appear to be very simple, accord-
ing to what is at present known of this subject, still our acquaintance with
the precise nature of these processes is exceedingly slender and imperfect.
The consideration of the subject, since its first, and still most important ex-
perimental investigation, undertaken by Gay-Lussac more than thirty years
ago, has led to such discordant results, that, at the present time, there is no
chemical view of it that is at all consistent with experience. The normal
composition of gunpowder may be represented in chemical proportions, by

C3+S-+ KO, NOs,

or one equivalent of nitrate of potash, one equivalent of sulphur, and three
equivalents of carbon (charcoal). Supposing the whole of the carbon to be
converted into carbonic acid, and the nitrogen to be liberated, C3 +S+KO

CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 247

N 0O5=3 CO2+N+KS5S, 100 grains would furnish 13086 cubic inches of gas
at the temperature of 32° Fahr., and under an atmospheric pressure of twen-
ty-nine of mercury.

By meas-
10 grains of gunpowder. Yields by Combustion. By weight. =~ 13-086
cubic 1ns.
Carbon -- 0-1832 Carbonic acid .. oe 0-4885 = 9-823
Sulphur sciermpg) alLoA: = Sulphide of potassium 04078 = —
Nitre -- 0°7484 Nitrogen ye “4 01037 = 3263

The volume of the gas would be the same if the carbon were converted
into carbonic oxide instead of carbonic acid ; and if, instead of nitrogen
being liberated, binoxide of nitrogen were formed; and since the gas pro-
duced by the explosion of gunpowder consists, as a general rule, solely of
carbonic acid, carbonic oxide, nitrogen, and nitric oxide, with mere traces of
hydrogen and sulphuretted hydrogen, it would appear that 131 cubic inches
is the largest volume of gas that 100 grains of normal gunpowder could pos-
sibly furnish. However, the experiments of Gay-Lussac, and those of most
subsequent investigation, indicate, on the contrary, that the volume of gas
furnished by the explosion of gunpowder under the ordinary atmospheric
pressure is much greater than that which could be furnished according to the
above view. Messrs. Bunsen and Schischoff, of Heidelberg, have, therefore,
directed their attention to this important point in theoretic artillery, and have
published a memoir on the subject, which not only furnishes the first com-
plete solution of the problems involved in the theory of the explosion of
gunpowder, but which is particularly rich in new methods of investigation
and analysis. The authors, from want of time, were obliged to confine their
researches to one kind of powder, and to its combustion under the ordinary
atmospheric pressure. The methods employed, however, will apply, with
slight modifications, to other cases. The powder gave, on analysis —

DO MIODCLTC: ir cicraictelealsieininstaisiaio\siotaicrsi nies) osalejsie s\ahaxs /ousvs cine orate elegereiereere 78:99
PaIpnUTs i). PEAT a OE ee. SOIR, SE BSA. f 9°84
Carbon japebie. Siatie pales els SoS h dee Das Bb ewig «tee sr ‘| 4
EN aera lah os Be hia ds halts aaa glaas ces elisha :
Carbon, Oxyren. Joo. adenader Arigopuetioc odecorpooouce.ce Sree 3°07
AGH. Cases OOELISR ES Bias. DO SS SO. TH SaaS trace
100.00

A preliminary qualitative analysis gave the following substances as solid
products of the combustion of the powder employed: 1. sulphate of pot-
ash, 2. carbonate of potash, 3. hyposulphite of potash, 4. sulphid of potas-
sium, 5. hydrate of potash, 6. sulphocyanid of potassium, 7. nitrate of pot-
ash, 8. carbon, 9. sulphur, 10. carbonate of ammonia. The gaseous products
were 1. nitrogen, 2. carbonic acid, 3. carbonic oxide, 4. hydrogen, 5. sulphid
of hydrogen, and occasionally 6. nitrie and nitrous oxide. By means of a
particular apparatus, the authors were able to prepare the solid residue of the
explosion, the smoke or vapor which accompanies it, and the gaseous pro-
ducts, and to analyze each separately. For the elaborate details of the anal-
ysis we must refer to the original memoir. The solid residue was found to
contain —

Sulphate, OF POLashy csaes.ons cass +> off Neem += ALE EEC EF oe 56°62
Carbonate of potash vo... oo. hia staf: rb 8 OE IC Sb ABOO DEP 27:02
Hyposulphite of potash...........5...% CPSs Pre oe te Pa 757
Sulphid of potassium........... lye Ce BR Pde ONS 1-06

248 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

Hdrnte of potaeht i452. 29-f ais cries ARS 1:26
Sulphoey anid OF potassivumavsctjsr5:<bj.06. oe siees eee a Tews sheiereiate le 0°86
IS BG CUE E len cya: creleters cepa eee iajole ahoces atmos we chvionaialoraterotraise Ok Subate sie nrbelO
Re RENO Norden a elena din isis aiorelo\ntt gas esleias peeisbotie eas Siaieit pers Creu ea
MUP. sicsiaclere« « Selenieaiasis Risioleisitmeatab ie ieiers aieia/eus ogee eee trace.

100°52

The condensed smoke, or powder-vapor, was found to contain —

Sulphate Ol, POLS s cnesn ues0v ass 0.0.40 dennmdie deck « cma wes e-Uoe
COTPOHALE, CL POUISA. occcinnss sigh sinannalen<o canbe te palewSa.¢ 5 sei 23°45
EL yPOSW pits GL POCHSEE 2. ae cise Coe nc se cclvuciccnes samivn' came cleo 4:90
Hydrate or potas. LIN VG tad eeeveaeelacance secret adece, was
Sulphocyaniil of potassiames io. 220 ceadels HU. Me Ss 0
Witeabe of ipotasin.). sess, Jocnis tise tar tle mea ee. tS
Carbone? .iachj.devnnee> lapmuan eae «sprained dementia basin tas Lee
2-3 Carbonate of ammonia..............

These analyses show clearly that the residues of the explosion of gunpow-
der consist essentially of sulphate and carbonate of potash, and not of sulphid
of potassium, as is erroneously assumed in military books. The gaseous
products of the explosion were found to be —

Carboni aCid. oecesesescep ose bces TT Po oe 52°67
Nitpogen’.\2 54 i. Rfelsievareiale claiets etereles> ciefasei ta ercbetersreneyc nis don puke versie o.. 41°12
CARDOSO Ds iio. aac chin hos ace ben Meme sane tara ust s'< act 3°88
FIV GROROR a naicnacmeaises nas “eh sange Sinje\e winteiclarers icmia = eiaiateaiein etare) ote 1:21
OMA OT MYO PORE ca. cain s ainiaiaincore <imselclaged’ sic svoieiain ais amiace suavatesel . 0°60
Oe uelweesoesestuno as efabefetato siete) Seitioc pedo Sto Oa SAdS Nass. UF 0°52

100-00

From this analysis it also appears that the old theory of the explosion is
incorrect, since, according to it, nitrogen and carbonic acid should be present
in the ratio of 1: 3; whereas the actual ratio is not even as 1:1°5. The au-
thors found, further, that one gram of the powder used by them gave 0°6806
gr. of solid residue, and 1931 ¢. c. of gas, or one-third less than should be
given according to the old theory. To determine theoretically the work done
by the explosion, the authors first determined the quantity of heat evolved
in the combustion, which was found to be in heat units 643°9 C. for one gram
of powder. This number requires, however, to be corrected for the heat
evolved by the combustion of the gaseous products in the combustion-tube
filled with air, amounting to 24°4 units, so that the true heat of combustion
is 619°5 C. The calculated quantity of heat, supposing that the combustible
ingredients of the powder burn freely in oxygen, is 1039°1 C.: the difference
is easily explained by the absorption of heat on the part of nitrogen set free.
The temperature of the flame of the powder is found by dividing the num-
ber 619°5 by the specific heat of the products of the explosion, namely 0°206,
and is therefore equal to 2993° C. When, however, powder burns in a space
in which it cannot expand, the number 619°5 must be divided by the specific
heat of the products of the combustion under a constant volume, which is
018547, and the temperature of the flame is therefore 3340° C. These values,
2993° C. and 3340° C., are approximations which cannot be far from the
truth. The authors, in the next place, show that the received theory that the

.

CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 249
solid residue of the explosion of the powder exert a sensible tension, is wholly
unfounded; since this residue does not boil at the temperature of hydrogen
burning in air, which is 3259° C., and its tension even at that temperature
cannot, therefore, equal a single atmosphere. The authors next calculate the
pressure in atmospheres which the powder exerts at the moment of explo-
sion, and find it 4373°6, of which about 1000 are due to the expansion of the
solid residue. The pressure which the powder employed could exert upon the
sides of a cannon, would, as these results show, never exceed 4 1-2 thousand
atmospheres. Hence it appears that the statements of the best authorities
on artillery, that this pressure amounts to 50,000 or 100,000 atmospheres, are
entirely without foundation in fact. One kilogram of the powder employed
' could exert in its explosion a theoretical work of 67410 meterkilograms. —
Pogg. Ann., cii, 321.

ALCOHOL FROM SORGHUM.

M. Leplay, of France, has recently published the results of a protracted
research upon the sorghum. He has recognized: Ist, that the quantity of
solid matter which the stems of sorghum give in drying augments gradually
and quite regularly, from the formation of the panicle (flowering) to the
maturity of the grain, whatever the soil; 2d, this solid matter accumulates
in the juice and not in the insoluble part of the plant; 3d, when the stem is
still green, and the panicle scarcely formed, it contains only a little sugar;
the sugar is developed as the plant advances and the grain approaches
maturity, and hence the composition of the stem and the production of the
saccharine matter depend entirely on the state of the plant, and not on the
epoch of its cultivation; 4th, in the juice of the sorghum, before its maturity,
in which the saccharimeter can discover little or no sugar, fermentation in-
dicates between thirty-two and one hundred grammes of sugar per litre; but
as the grain advances towards maturity, there is a gradually increasing de-
viation to the right in the polarizing apparatus, caused by the cane sugar
present; and when the grain is ripe, the quantity of cane sugar indicated by
the polarizing apparatus is but little less than the sugar indicated by the
fermentation.

On desiccation, the sorghum loses seventy per cent. of its weight. In
this state it can be preserved, and so used in the manufacture throughout
the year. Mr. Leplay carries on the fabrication with little cost, and ob-
serves that it is easily done with apparatus that may be carried from place
to place.

EXAMINATION OF ALCOHOLIC LIQUIDS TO ASCERTAIN THEIR
ORIGIN. BY M. MOLNAR.

According to this author, this process is applicable to alcoholic liquids
which have apparently no foreign odor. It consists in introducing sixty
grammes of the spirit to be examined into a flask containing two or three
dccigrammes of caustic potassa dissolved in water. It is well agitated, and
the whole is subjected to evaporation until only five or six grammes remain.
Then the residue is put into a bottle with a glass stopper, and about five
grammes of dilute sulphurie acid are added; the characteristic odor is
immediately diffused; this is especially true with regard to spirit from grain
and from beet-root.

250 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

M. Molnar mentions incidentally that he has always succeeded in purify-
ing spirituous liquors, and freeing them from their essential oils, by using
caustic potassa concurrently with recently-calcined wood charcoal.—Dingler’s
Polytechn. Journal.

ON THE CHEMICAL CHANGES OF THE GLUCOSE OF THE SORGHUM.

At a recent meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, Dr. A. A.
Hayes read the following paper “On a chemical change which takes place
in the Glucose of the Sorghum: ”

In a paper communicated some months since, I alluded to the fact, that
the glucose of the sorghum cultivated in New England, like fluid fruit
sugar, passes to the condition of dry, or crystalline fruit sugar. The subse-
quent more careful investigation of this change, proceeding indeed during
many months, has resulted finally in the production of pure glucose of sugar,
having the higher grade of a variely of beet-root, or cane sugar.

In the account which follows, the experiments were made on the glucose
of that variety of sorghum which has dark purple seed coverings, —the
variety generally cultivated in the Northern States.

When we extract the saccharine matter of the stalk of the sorghum,
either by expression, or through the aid of water, and purify the solution
by means of animal charcoal, we obtain glucose, holding in solution some
salts of potash, lime, and soda. This glucose does not afford crystals by
evaporation in desiccated air, nor does alcohol, saturated with cane sugar,
leave undissolved any sugar.

The perfectly formed cells of the plant, triturated with animal charcoal,
afford to boiling alcohol the same substance. The dry glucose is abundantly
soluble in alcohol of 86 per cent., and the dense syrup of the same dissolves
without limit in it. After exposure in warm air, crystalline concretions,
resembling dry grape sugar, form in isolated masses. Analysis shows a
large proportion of saline matter, composed of phosphoric acid, chlorine,
sulphuric acid, acetic acid and potash, soda, lime, and oxide of iron. This
saline matter forms a compound with the glucose, and thus makes up the
crystalline grains, which first appear in the dense syrup. These are constant
results, in treating the plant which has been cultivated the two past seasons,
and they present no remarkable feature, in comparison with those obtained
on glucose from other sources.

After the lapse of several weeks, however, the pure glucose which has
been withdrawn from the foreign aggregates exhibits the production of
crystalline points, which, becoming numerous, soon assume the forms of
regular crystals. These crystals increase in volume, but while forminz in the
glucose they present skeletons, rather than solid crystals, of a pure substance,
and are often grouped. Crude syrup, remaining after the concentration of
the juice by rapid boiling, undergoes the same modification, and crystallized
sugar slowly separates from samples which did not originally contain any.

Slips of the pith of the plant, which had been carefully examined under
the microscope, without any traces of crystals being found, after some
months, show their cells filled with voluminuous, dry crystals. Repeated
trials prove that the chemical change, resulting in the production of the
crystals, from glucose, is not dependent on exposure to air and loss of water,
but it takes place when the syrup is kept closed in bottles.

As the glucose is abundantly soluble in alcohol of 90 per cent., this agent

CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 251

enables us to learn at any moment the production of sugar in a sample, — the
sugar, when formed, being nearly insoluble in cold alcohol. Thus, when a
certain number of crystals have formed, if we withdraw by solution in
alcohol the unchanged glucose, and after dissipating the alcohol, allow it to
repose, crystallization recommences in the portion removed, and repetitions
of this experiment may be made, until after about ten months, small por-
tions only of unaltered glucose remain.

Although the evidence of the conversion of the glucose, step by step, into
sugar, afforded by the action of alcohol, is important, the observations here
recorded are based upon experiments made in a similar manner, with the
alkaline solution of tartrate of copper, and acidulated alcohol saturated
with cane sugar; they leave no doubt that the normal saccharine juice of the
plant becomes, per se, converted into sugar, forming regular crystals of
large size. These crystals, by solution in water, are easily purified, losing
their porous structure and becoming solid, transparent, and colorless modifi-
cations of the rhombic prism from an aqueous solution. They are always
apparently more voluminous than the crystal of cane sugar, formed under
like circumstances, but they have all the brilliancy of cane sugar. In
chemical characters, the most pure crystals yet obtained show a diversity
when compared with our cane or palm sugar. They are less soluble in
water; in sulphuric acid they do not exhibit the same depth of coloration
that sugar-cane does. With the copper test, a partial reduction takes place,
under the same conditions, where cane sugar does not produce change on
this agent.

The conclusion reached is, that this sugar, wholly unlike any variety of
glucose or fruit sugar, belongs toa higher class, and probably will rank
with beet sugar, in most of its characters.

The present is the first instance, within my knowledge, of the conversion
of any variety of glucose into sugar of high grade, after its extraction
artificially.

Dr. Hayes further remarked, that neither the crystalline form, nor the
action of the polariscope, are to be relied upon in distinguishing the varieties
of sugar. He considered the crystalline form of the sorghum sugars, and
the honey sugars to be identical; the chemical properties of the sugars he
regarded as the only distinct proof of the several varieties.

ON THE ACTION OF ANESTHESIA.

At a recent meeting of the N. Y. Academy of Medicine, Dr. Detmold
remarked that members would recollect that, about the year 1847, he called
the attention of the academy to certain propositions, which he then made,
proving quite conclusively that carbonic acid gas is the efficient agent in
causing anesthesia. The carbonic acid may be given as such, or one of its
chemical ingredients may be so administered, that, finding in the blood the
other constituents of this compound, carbonic acid gas is generated, and
anesthesia, to a certain extent, is the result. Thus we may administer oxy-
gen in large quantities, in the form of nitrous oxide (protoxide of nitrogen,
or laughing-gas), which has all the chemical reiictions of oxygen, but is
much more soluble in water and the scrum of the blood than pure oxygen,
and, therefore, is much more readily taken up. This compound, meeting
with the carbon of the blood, carbonic acid gas is formed in large quanti-
ties, with the production of anzesthesia to a certain extent. Or we may, on

.

252 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

the contrary, administer the carbon, as the oxide of carbon or any of the
hydro-carbons, alcohol, the ethers, ete.; in this case the blood again fur-
nishes the other constituent of carbonic acid, oxygen, and anesthesia is again
the result.

The stage of excitement corresponds to the period of combination of these
elements and the formation of carbonic acid gas. If the gas is administered
as such, there will be no stage of excitement; but if the constituents com-
bine slowly, and the gas is generated in limited quantities, there will be a
corresponding state of excitement. Thus, in the stupor of drunkenness,
carbonic acid is exhaled in normal quantities; but as the stupor passes off,
large quantities of that gas are exhaled. The venous state of the arterial
blood, during anesthesia, is another proof that carbonic acid is being gene-
rated in large quantities. If it is true that in post-mortem examinations of
those dying while under the influence of chloroform, bubbles of air are found
in the heart and blood-vessels, it is highly probable that this air is carbonic
acid gas, unless, perchance, it has entered the circulation by some mechanical
lesion.

The only means, in his opinion, of any avail in restoring a patient from
profound or fatal anesthesia, is artificial respiration, or such other means as,
by exciting reflex action, will restore respiration, and thus hasten the elimi-
nation of the carbonic acid gas. It has been recommended in threatened
and apparent death from anesthesia, to resort to the inhalation of oxygen or
nitrous oxide. Reasoning from the premises which he had given, such
remedies would be in the highest degree dangerous. To satisfy himself in
regard to this fact, he had made numerous experiments upon animals, and
invariably found a fatal issue hastened by administering oxygen. — New York
Journal of Medicine.

At a subsequent meeting, Dr. Detmold favored the academy with a writ-
ten exposition of his views of the rationale of the action of chloroform, sulph.
ether, and nitrous oxide, the three agents employed for the purpose of pro-
ducing anzsthesia. He attributes the action of all of them to the production
of carbonic acid gas in the system. The first two supply the carbon, which,
absorbing oxygen from the blood, and the last supplying oxygen, which,
absorbing carbon,—in either case carbonic acid is the result; which, by its
action on the living organism, produces anesthesia. This theory, though
not absolutely susceptible of demonstration, is yet, apparently, based on a
logical foundation, and finds a seeming confirmation in a number of well-
known facts.

ANESTHESIS BY CARBONIC ACID.

In the Annual of Scientific Discovery for 1858, page 320, some account of
experiments instituted by Drs. Follin and Simpson, on the use of carbonic
acid for local anesthesis, was given. We have now to report on the effects
of its inhalation when mixed with a certain quantity of air, as observed by
M. Ozanam, who proposes its use for man. He states, that the effects of
carbonic acid are similar to those of ether, but more fugitive; and while,
with the latter, the inhalation should be interrupted at intervals, with car-
bonic acid, the reverse is true. He affirms, that as long as it is wished to
prolong the sleep, the inhalations should be continued; that they may be
continued ten, twenty, thirty minutes or more, without danger to life. On
ceasing the inhalation, waking is almost immediate. In these experiments

CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 253

no case of sudden death has been observed, as in chloroform. When death
is in prospect, it comes slowly, and may be foreseen for a long time in
advance, and its progress noted, by the state of the head and that of the
pupils of the eyes. The following experiment, reported by M. Ozanam, is
highly interesting:

“T prepared a gas-bag, containing 100 litres of carbonic acid, and resolved
to continue the anesthesis as long as was possible. The animal was asleep
at the end of three minutes, without convulsions, and so remained, extended
on its side. The inhalations were continued for eighty-seven minutes, and
then the apparatus was withdrawn. The sleep was prolonged afterwards
for five minutes; towards the tenth minute the legs commenced to shake;
at the fifteenth the animal was up again; and thus 102 minutes were used
in the whole experiment — a length of time much beyond what the longest
operations would require.”

Messrs. Ferre and Ozanam have respired the gas several times— if not to
the production of sleep, at least to feeling its first effects. They say its taste
is slightly pungent, and as agreeable as that of ether; it excites salivation.
They propose its adoption, in surgical practice, as the least danggrous
method, and as sufficiently eflicacious. — Correspondence of Silliman’s Journal.

INQUIRIES INTO THE QUANTITY OF AIR INSPIRED THROUGHOUT
THE DAY AND NIGHT, AND UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF EXER-
CISE, FOOD, MEDICINE, TEMPERATURE, ETC.

A communication on the above subject, to the Royal Society, by Edward
Smith, M. D., contains the results of 1200 series of observations. The
author himself was the subject of all the investigations. He is 38 years of
age, 6 feet in height, healthy and strong, and with a vital capacity of the
lungs of 280 cubic inches. From this communication the following facts are
derived :

The total quantity of air inspired in 24 hours (allowance being made for
intervals, amounting, altogether to 40 minutes, during which it was not
recorded), was 711,060 cubic inches; or an average of 29,627 cubic inches
per hour, and 493°6 per minute. The quantity was much less during the
night than during the day. There was an increase as the morning advanced,
and a decrease at about 84 30m P. M., but most suddenly at 11 P.M. Dur-
ing the day, the quantity increased immediately after a meal, and then sub-
sided before the next meal; but in every instance it rose again immediately
before a meal. The rate of frequency of respiration generally corresponded
with the quantity, but the extremes of the day and night rates were greater.
The period of greatest parallelism was between tea and supper. An increase
was occasioned by one meal only, namely, breakfast. The average depth
of respiration was 26°5 cubic inches, with a minimum of 18°1 cubic inches in
the night, and a maximum of 32°2 cubic inches at 1» 30™ P. M. The mean
rate of the pulse was 76 per minute; the minimum at 35 30 A. M., the
maximum at 8h 45m A. M.;—the difference being more than one-third of
the minimum rate.

Sleep came on in two of the series of continuous observations, and the
time of its occurrence was also that of the lowest quantities of air inspired.

The amount of breathing was greater in the standing than in the sitting
posture, and greater sitting than lying. It was increased by riding on
horseback, according to the pace, also by ridingin or upon an omnibus. In

22

254 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

railway travelling, the increase was greater in a second than in a first-class
carriage, and greatest in a third-class and on the engine. An increase was
also produced by rowing, swimming, walking, running, carrying weights,
ascending and descending steps, and the labor of the tread-wheel; and in
several of these cases the rate of increase was determined for different
degrees of exertion used. Reading aloud and singing, and the movement
recommended by Dr. Hall for restoring suspended respiration, increased the
quantity; bending forward, whilst sitting, lessened it.

The quantity of inspired air was increased by exposure to the heat and
light of the sun, and lessened in darkness. Increase and decrease of artifi-
cial heat produced corresponding effects; and the depth of respiration was
greatly increased by great heat. An increase in quantity was caused also
by cold bathing, and sponging, and the cold shower-bath; by breakfast,
dinner, and tea— when tea actually was taken; but when coffee was sub-
stituted, there was a decrease. Supper of bread and milk also caused a
decrease. Milk by itself, with suet, caused an increase.

An increase was obtained with the following articles of diet, viz.: eggs,
beefsteak, jelly, white bread (home-made), oatmeal, potatoes, sugar, tea,
rum (1 0z). The following caused a decrease, viz.: butter, fat of beef, olive-
oil, cod-liver oil, arrow-root, brandy (1 oz. to 13 oz.), and kirchenwasser.
Ether (3 drachm) increased the quantity and depth of inspiration. A
decrease in quantity was caused by sp. ammon. co. (3iss), sp. ammon. feet.
(3iss), tincture of opium (20M), morphia (4 and }gr.), tartarized antimony

4 gr.), and chlorid of sodium.

Carbonate of ammonia (15 grains) caused a small increase, at first, and
then a small decrease; febrifuge medicines had a like effect. Chloroform
(25 Mand 3ss), by the stomach, varied the quantity from an average increase
of 28 cubic inches to an average decrease of 20 cubic inches per minute,
with a maximum increase of 63 cubic inches per minute. Chloric ether
(3ss) also varied the quantity, but there was an average increase of 17 cubic
inches per minute, and of 1°8 per minute, in the rate; whilst the pulse fell,
on the average, 1°7 per minute. Chloroform, by inhalation (to just short of
unconsciousness), lowered the quantity a little during the inhalation, and
more so afterwards. The rate was unchanged, but the pulse fell, on an
average, 1°7 per minute. Amylene, similarly administered, and to the same
degree, increased the quantity, during inhalation, 60 cubic inches per min-
ute, but afterwards decreased it to 100 cubic inches per minute less than
during the inspiration.

DETECTION OF ARSENIC AND ANTIMONY.

Dr. Odling has ascertained that -1,, grain of arsenious acid may be de-
tected with certainty by means of Reinsch’s test, and that the metallic de-
posite, crystalline sublimate, and yellow sulphide, may be obtained succes-
sively. He gives the preference to fine copper gauze for the precipitation of
the arsenic, and conducts the sublimation in a hard glass tube, two inches
long, one-eight inch diameter, sealed at one end, and drawn out at the other
end to about an inch, almost capillary. He finds that decisive results are
obtained when the dilution amounts to 2,250,000 times the weight of arse-
nious acid. Protracted ebullition seems to be a necessary condition of the
deposition of arsenic, particularly when the quantity is small or the degree
of dilution great. It has been urged as an objection to Reinsch’s test, that

CHEMICAL SCIENCE. I55

during the ebullition with hydrochloric acid, arsenic is volatilized as chloride;
but Dr. Odling does not consider this fact is of any consequence in practice, as
the loss is inappreciably small, and might be provided against by using a
small retort for the operation.

It is generally believed that Reinsch’s test is applicable only for the detec-
tion of arsenical compounds that are dissolved by dilute hydrochloric acid.
In cases of poisoning, it is not unfrequent that the whole of the arsenic is
converted, by the decomposition of the tissues, into tersulphide, which is
generally represented as being insoluble in dilute hydrochloric acid, and con-
sequently the arsenic would not be extracted from the organic substance and
tissues by boiling with dilute hydrochloric acid; however, Dr. Odling has
found that the precipitated tersulphide of arsenic is readily dissolved by very
dilute hydrochloric acid, and even by boiling water, to a much greater extent
than was observed by Dr. Christison.

He finds also that the deposits obtained from arsenic and antimony resem-
ble each other very closely; but that this is not of any consequence in prac-
tice, owing to the ease with which the arsenical deposit is distinguished from
that produced by arsenic.

With regard to the detection of antimony by means of Reinsch’s test, he
finds that bismuth, and even tin, will yield metallic deposits which cannot
safely be distinguished from that obtained from antimony, by the appearance
only.

The characters of the bismuth deposit are somewhat peculiar; when thin,
it approximates closely in appearance to that obtained with antimony. The
deposit obtained with tin differs much according to circumstances: when
thin, it has a peculiar dotted appearance; sometimes it is almost black ; some-
times steel-blue. When heated, it sometimes appears to diminish consider-
ably. It would, moreover, be produced only when the amount of metal in
solution was so large as not to present any difficulty in detecting it.

Dr. Odling suggests the following as a delicate method of confirming the
indication of antimony:

The coated copper is covered with a solution of one grain permanganate
of potash in fifteen ounces of water, a drop or two of potash solution added,
and the whole boiled. In afew minutes the permanganate is decomposed,
the antimony passes into solution, and may be precipitated by means of
sulphuretted hydrogen from the solution acidulated with hydrochloric acid.

Excretion of Arsenic and Antimony in the Urine.—Dr. Kletzinsky, as the
result of his investigations upon the expulsion of metals in the secretions,
comes to the following conclusions: 1. The presence of a small quantity
of albumen in arsenical urine is indubitable, but it is problematical in anti-
monial urine. The excretion of both metals may take place in the form
of their alkaline salts. 2. The excretion takes place a short time after
poisoning by arsenic, more quickly than in antimony poisoning, and con-
tinues uninterruptedly until death or recovery,— the excretion of antimony
continuing usually longer than that of arsenic. 3. That in its forensic
relation, the analysis of the urine in arsenic or antimony poisonings, pro-
viding the patient live for from twelve to twenty-four hours, is capable of
furnishing a complete negative or positive conclusion.— Wien Wochenschrift,
No. 8.

Source of Error in Marsh’s Test for Arsenic.— The following is a resumé of
a paper read before the French Academy of Medicine, by M. Blondlot, on
a source of error in making use of Marsh’s method of detecting arsenic.

256 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

It is known that Messrs. Flandin and Danger have proposed to modify the
method of Marsh by applying sulphuric acid to carbonize the organic mat-
ters suspected of containing arsenic. M. Blondlot, while examining the
stomachs of three persons who had been poisoned by arsenious acid, found
on the mucous membrane small fragments of this acid, which superficially
were of afine yellowcolor. He thought that this yellow matter resulted from
the formation of a sulphide of arsenic, resulting from the action of hydro-
sulphuric acid on the arsenious acid, and ulterior experiments proved the
correctness of this view. As hydrosulphuric acid is formed in putrefied
organic matters, if they contain arsenic, the sulphide of arsenic will be
formed; and M. Blondlot shows that employing sulphuric acid to carbonize
these matters, will leave with the carbonized parts the sulphide of arsenic,
so that a portion of the poison will be lost. A committee of the Academy
has ascertained the exactitude of the assertions of M. Blondlot; and to avoid
this source of error, they propose to throw upon the carbonized remnant a
great deal of concentrated and boiling nitric acid, so as to transform the sul-
phide of arsenic into arsenious acid. By distilled water the excess of nitric
acid is then expelled, and the arsenic may be easily found by the method of
Marsh.

SENSIBILITY OF THE PRINCIPAL REAGENTS ON STRYCHNINE.

Professors De Vry and Der Burg, of Rotterdam, have recently published
the result of a series of experiments, showing the sensibility of the principal
reagents used for the detection of strychnine, when administered as a
poison. Their conclusions are as follows:

Chromate of Potash, or Ferricyanide of Potassium and Concentrated Sulphuric
Acid, — By these reiigents ggdpp of a grain of strychnine can be detected, if
one drop of a solution, containing one grain of strychnine in 60,000 grains
of water, is evaporated in a small porcelain dish on a water-bath, and the
remaining substance moistened with the smallest possible quantity of pure
concentrated sulphuric acid. By introducing in this solution a very small
fragment of a crystal of bicromate of potash or ferricyanide of potassium,
and moving this fragment with a glass rod in the solution, a beautiful dark
purple color is produced on every part of the surface of the porcelain that
has been in contact with the acid solution, and the fragment of one of the
two salts. |

Bin-iodide of Potassium, and Iodide of Mercury and Potassium: By a solution
of one of these compounds, soson of a grain of strychnine can be detected.
These reagents, like the following, possess only the ascertained sensibility,
provided the drop of liquor is contained in a capillary test-tube, in which
the liquid, although only a drop, forms a small column, in which the forma-
tion of a precipitate can be observed by comparison with a similar capillary
tube filled with pure water, and mixed with the reagent.

Tannic acid reveals ~55y5 Of a grain of strychnine.
Solution of chlorine in water, xa )55-

Sulphocyanide of potassium, +, 5-

Neutral chromate of potash, x5 55°

The precipitate formed by bin-iodide of potassium is brownish-red, and if
dissolved in weak, warm spirit, acidulated by sulphuric acid, beautiful crys-

CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 257

tals are formed of sulphate of iodo-strychnine, which polarize the light, as
has been discovered by Mr. Herapath. The precipitates formed by iodide of
mercury and potassium, by tannic acid, and by solution of chlorine in water,
are white. This last reagent must be used in relative large quantity, and
the precipitate formed by it does not appear immediately.

The precipates formed by sulphocyanide of potassium and neutral chro-
mate of potash are both crystalline. The color of the former is white, and
the form of the crystals observed by the microscope is very characteristic.
The color of the latter is a beautiful yellow. The formation of both these
precipitates is accelerated by rubbing the surface of the tube with a glass
rod.

The precipitate formed by chromate of potash gets immediately a dark
purple color, if moistened by concentrated sulphuric acid. All the other
precipitates get the same color, if they are dissolved in a small quantity of
strong sulphuric acid, and the solution brought into contact with a fragment
of a crystal of chromate of potash or ferricyanide of potassium.

The authors also give as their opinion, founded on experiments and inves-
tigation:

That if death has been caused by strychnine, this poison can be detected
in the body, provided it has been administered in a quantity more than suffi-
cient to cause death.

That if the poisoning by strychnine has been chronic, and has resulted
from a quantity not greater than just necessary to cause death, the cause of
this death cannot be proved, either by the post-mortem examination of the
body, or by a chemical investigation of the intestines.

That it appears to be highly probable that that part of the strychnine
which acts mortally is decomposed in the living body.

That the urine of patients who take strychnine or its salts as a medicine,
contains not a trace of this poison.

Mr. Maxwell Simpson, in a communication published in the Dublin Hospital
Gazette, states that strychnia is not the only substance that will produce a
purple color when brought into contact with a mixture of bichromate of
potash and oil of vitriol,—the test usually relied on for the detection of this
poison. I have found that naphthalidam, an organic base derived from
naphthalin, will produce, as might have been expected, an exactly similar
color when tested with the same mixture. The color is best brought out by
making a mixture of equal volumes of oil of vitriol and a cold saturated
solution of bichromate of potash, and bringing it, while still warm, into
momentary contact with a particle of the naphthalidam.

ANTIDOTE FOR STRYCHNINE.

The Rev. 8. Haughton, in a communication recently made to the Royal
Irish Academy, on the properties of nicotine and strychnine, stated :

“That he was induced to make the experiments by the consideration of
the specific actions of strychnine and nicotine upon the muscular system,
which appeared to be so opposite in their character as to lead him to a
conviction that they might prove to be equally antidotes to each other’s
action. It is generally believed that strychnine exerts a specific action upon
the lower or lumbar portions of the spinal column, exciting the muscular
system (at least the voluntary muscles) into a state of tetanic contraction,
and ultimately producing death indirectly, by rendering respiration mechan-

_ 2

258 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

ically impossible, by virtue of the permanent contraction of the pectoral
muscles, and not, as was once supposed, by its action upon the heart. It is
also well known that the most powerful agent we possess for relaxing the
action of the muscles is nicotine, whether administered in the form of
tobacco smoke or the infusion of the leaves. From these well-known facts
he (Mr. Haughton) was led to believe that these powerful poisons might be
used as antidotes to each other’s action; and with the view of testing this
conjecture, he made several experiments. Four of these went to show the
effects of the two poisons separately. The fifth and sixth are important, as
they appear conclusive to Mr. Haughton as to the action of nicotine in retard-
ing, and in certain cases, completely counteracting the effects of strychnine.
In the fifth experiment, a frog had lived for forty-seven minutes in a mix-
ture of two solutions, of which one would have destroyed life in four
minutes, and the other would have produced paralysis in one minute, and
destroyed life in twenty-three minutes; and yet in the mixture the animal
had lived for forty-seven minutes, and afterwards for twenty-four hours.
In the sixth experiment, a frog immersed in a similar mixture of the poison
for ten minutes, had ultimately recovered, — the effects of the strychnine
being completely obviated by the action of the nicotine. Mr. Haughton
expressed a hope that further inquiries would be instituted into the action of
strychnine and nicotine upon some of the warm-blooded animals, as he
believed that in nicotine, which was always easily procurable in the form of
tobacco-leaf infusion, would be found a valuable antidote in at least some
cases of strychnine poisoning, whether intentional or accidental.

ON THE DETECTION OF THE ORGANIC ALKALOID POISONS.

Ata recent meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, Mr. John
Green stated that he had detected unequivocal signs of strychnine in the liver
of a skunk which was said to have been killed by this poison. The process
by which it was found is that proposed by Flandin.

As is well known, there is great difficulty in detecting minute quantities
of vegetable poisons in the animal body; and the theory has been advanced,
that they are destroyed before reaching the liver.

Dr. A. A. Hayes remarked that the communication of Mr. Green had
interested him, and he deemed it highly important, on account of the positive
fact of the detection of strychnia, after a moderate dose had caused death.
From personal experience, he was led to add his testimony to the efficiency
and simplicity of the method of M. Ch. Flandin, for detecting the poisonous
alkaloids in the tissues of the organs, as well as in the contents of the
stomach.

In some trials, in the way of testing this method, Dr. Hayes stated that,
using simple extract of opium, and pursuing morphia and meconic acid, he
had been led to the conclusion that the excess of lime might react on the
alkaloids, at the temperature of the water-bath, and thus reduce the amount
of any alkaloid it would be possible to detect. In some cases, too, the dry
mass containing the alkaloid with a large excess of lime, even in the state
of fine powder, was slowly acted on by alcohol: a great abundance of
lime combinations with fatty acids being present. He had found it advan-
tageous, especially when operating on partially digested food in stomach
contents, to add a small portion of chloride of calcium solution, which has
the power of dissolving lime in excess, when concentrated (Ca. Cl.,CaQ.), and

CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 259

thus, without diminishing its activity in breaking up protein compounds,
allows the dry matter subjected to alcohol, or other solvents of alkaloids, to
remain permeable. When baryta or lime is subsequently employed to
develop the alkaloid, either with or without ammonia salts, the chloride of
calcium does not interfere, and very pure alcoholic or ethereal solutions can
at once be obtained.

He added, that he wished to express his accordance with the opinion of
Mr. Green, that the chemical experiments should be so conducted in the
search after poison which had caused death, as to eliminate from the tissues
that portion which had entered them, as being distinct in its effects from
the remainder found in the stomach or intestines, uncombined with protein
compounds. In cases of poisoning by corrosive poisons, the parts destroyed
or altered are easily observed and the results of many experiments had led
him to form the opinion, that the organic poisons, in their actions, leave
traces only little less strongly marked.

In proof that strychnine is a much more stable body than has been
hitherto considered, Mr. Green cited from the Journal Medicale (1856) an
account of toxicological experiments upon the bodies of various animals
which had been poisoned with minute doses of strychnine, in the tésswes of
which that substance had been found. It was recognized after the lapse of
months, and even for years; and, in one instance, was found in the bones,
and in the material of a wooden box in which an animal had been buried.

COLORATION OF POISONS.

Dr. Moffat, an English chemist, recommends the coloration of poisonous
substances with carbo-azotic acid, for the following reasons:

“1. Its coloring power is so great, that one grain is sufficient to impart a
distinct yellow color to 70,000 grains, or one gallon of water.

“2. The taste is so intensely bitter, that, in the above proportions, it im-
parts a very decided bitterness.

“3. Carbo-azotic acid also possesses the valuable property, which is pecu-
liar to itself, of giving a yellow color to the skin, as if the person were suffering
from jaundice, when taken for three or four days in doses of one grain per
diem. This coloration would be easily distinguished from jaundice by any
medical man. ,

“4. The strong color which carbo-azotic acid imparts to food, urine, and
feeces, would serve as a proof that poison had been administered, especially
when detection of the particular poison employed might be doubtful, as in
the case of strychnine and other organic poisons. [Carbo-azotic acid can also
be detected in minute quantities by the appropriate tests. ]

“5. A saturated solution of carbo-azotic acid in prussic acid does not ap-
pear to modify the therapeutic action of that potent remedy; and twenty
drops of such solution impart a deep yellow color to one gallon of water.
[ien drops tinge one gallon.]

“6. The color imparted to water is permanent. A bottle of water taken
from SIXTEEN gallons of water, to which ONE grain of carbo-azotic acid was
added on the 21st of March, 1856, upwards of fifteen months since, still retains
its yellow color.

“7, Carbo-azotic acid does not produce any deleterious effects upon the
system. I have administered it until the skin, conjunctiva, urine, and saliva

260 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

were quite yellow, and a bitter taste felt in the mouth, without perceiving an
unfavorable symptom.”

BASIC NITRATE OF BISMUTH AS A REAGENT FOR GRAPE SUGAR.
BY PROF. BOTTGER.

In testing urine for example, for sugar, if one volume of urine be boiled
with an equal volume of a solution of one part of crystallized carbonate of
soda in three parts of water, and a very small quantity of basic nitrate of bis-
muth be added to it, the latter becomes gray by reduction, if grape sugar be
present. Cane sugar does not possess this property, and none of the other
bodies oecurring in the urine blacken the bismuth salt. — Journ. fiir Prakt.
Chemie, \xxi. p. 431.

NEW TEST FOR MANGANESE.

Bottger has given us a new reagent for manganese. He states that the
minutest quantity may be detected by the chlorate of potash. In order to
detect it, throw a small quantity of the material suspected to contain man-
ganese into a test-tube, which already contains the chlorate of potash ina
state of fusion. After the combustion has entirely ceased, and the tube is
cold, a peach-blossom residue will be left if there has existed the smallest
quantity of manganese. By means of this reaction, Bottger has discovered
manganese in boxwood, beech, cork, in the iodine of commerce, tea-leaves,
and several articles of food.

ON THE DETECTION OF ADULTERATIONS OF THE ETHEREAL OILS.

In 1854, an eminent drug house of Dresden offered a prize for the solution
of the following problem:— To find a certain and easily applicable method
for the detection of oil of turpentine in the most important ethereal oils.
This problem was solved by, and the prize awarded to, Mr. G. S. Heppe, of
Leipsic.

Though it was not the good fortune of Mr. Heppe to discover a substance
which characterizes the oil of turpentine exclusively, yet we are enabled, by
the test used by him, successfully to demonstrate the same in most of the
oils containing oxygen,—those oils containing no oxygen, as ol. Juniperi,
Citri, etc., therefore excepted. This reagent consists im nitro-prussid copper,
and the mode of its application is as follows:

A so-called eprouvette (a small glass tube, open at one end), which ought
to be perfectly clean and dry, is filled one-fourth, or at the most one-third,
with the suspected oil, then 2-5 milligrammes (about as much as a small pin-
head) of finely powdered and perfectly dry nitro-prussid copper is added, and
well shaken up; then the tube is heated over a spirit-flame up to the boiling-
point of the oil, and, after one ebullition, is drawn away, and set aside to
settle. If the oil was free from turpentine, then the precipitate will be,
according to the oil used, either black, brown, or gray, and the oil itself be
more or less of a darker color than originally. But if the ethereal oil con-
tained turpentine, then the precipitate will be either green or bluish-green,
and the oil either colorless or of a pale-yellow hue. The longer the oil is
left for settling, the more perceptible the color of the oil or of the precipitate
will be.

CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 261

The methods generally in use at the present time for the detection of oil of
turpentine in other ethereal oils are as follows:

1. To rub the suspected oils between the hands, and to detect the adultera-
tion by its peculiar smell; or to insert a strip of paper into the same, then to
light it, and extinguish it a little while afterwards, when the peculiar smell of
turpentine will be remarked, if it is present in any considerable quantity.

2. To mix the oil in question with an equal quantity of 80° alcohol, when,
if it contained any oil of turpentine, fennel, or anise, no complete solution
will ensue.

3. Oil of turpentine will not dissolve red sanders, though many other
ethereal oils will, whereby this property will be diminished, if any oil of tur-
pentine had been added.

4. Iodine, if brought into contact with oil of turpentine, will raise a slight
explosion; but not so with many other oils. Yet, if the former had been
added to the latter, and if even in only small proportion, a similar effect will
result.

ON THE AMOUNT OF CAFFEINE IN COFFEE-BEANS. BY PROF.
A. VOGEL, Jr.

The method hitherto employed for the extraction of caffeine from coffee-
beans and tea-leaves, is both complicated and uncertain. It consists in
extracting the coffee-beans with water, precipitating the tannic acid from
’ the solution by lead salts, and evaporating only the solution freed from lead
for crystallization. This method is exceedingly inconvenient, and this is
probably the principal reason why the statements as to the amount of
caffeine in coffee differ so much from each other.

The following method appears to the author to be much simpler, and to
lead to more accurate results. It is founded on the treatment of powdered
coffee-beans with commercial benzole. This extracts two constituents from
the coffee —oil of coffee and caffeine. After the evaporation of the benzole,
these two substances may be easily separated from each other by agitation
with hot water, in which the caffeine dissolves, whilst the oil floats on the
surface, and may be skimmed off. The caffeine is obtained by the evapo-
ration of the aqueous solution, in very beautiful crystals, which may be sub-
limed.

The whole of the benzole may be recovered, by distilling it in a retort,
after it has stood about a week upon the coffee-beans. The residue in the
retort is the oil of coffee and caffeine, which may be separated as above by
agitation with water, or by treatment with ether, which dissolves the oil
and leaves the caffeine in crystals. By this method oil of coffee and caffeine
might by obtained as subsidiary products in benzole manufactories. —
Kunst-und Gewerbeblatt fiir Bayern, 1858.

ETECTION OF MINERAL ADULTERATION IN FLOUR BY CHLO-
ROFORM.

A chemist at Charleville has contrived the following procedure, by which,
according to M. Lassaigne, a ten thousandth portion of mineral matter may
be detected in flour adulterated with the same. A glass tube, three centime-
tres in diameter, and from fifteen to twenty in length, closed at one end, is to
be tightly corked at the other, so that fluid may be well shaken init. From

262 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

one to three drachms of the flour are to be introduced into this tube, which
is next to be nearly filled with chloroform. The tube is now to be corked,
well shaken, and left awhile at rest, until the separation has had time to
take place. The flour rises to the surface of the chloroform, while the
mineral adulteration falls to the bottom, and may be submitted to analysis
in order to detect its exact nature. — Moniteur des Hop.

ANALYSIS OF FISH SCALES.

At a recent meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, Mr. John
Green gave the results of an analysis of the scales of the striped bass (Lab-
rax Lineatus), as follows, viz. :

In scales dried at 212° F., 45°9 per cent. of ash. 100 parts of ash contained
of lime, 48°36; of magnesia, °99; of phosphoric acid, 50°65. This result is
identical with the composition of .bone ash. The structure of bone is differ-
ent in the Ganoid fishes -from that of any Cycloid or Ctenoid, and confirms
the differences already established from the appearances of the scales. The
scales of the Amia, of the western waters, contain bone corpuscles of the
same form and appearance as those of Megalops and Lepidosteus, showing
a new analogy of Amia with Ganoid fishes.

ON THE DETECTION OF ORGANIC IMPURITIES IN THE AIR.

At a recent meeting of the London Chemical Society, Dr. Augustus Smith
stated that he had for several years paid particular attention to the con-
dition of the air of towns, and had, during that time, frequently endeay-
ored to obtain a ready mode of estimating the organic matter present in it.
Until recently, however, he had not found any satisfactory method of so
doing: but now, by the adoption of a new process, results before requiring
days or weeks of experimenting, could be obtained in a half an hour. The
method devised consists in finding how much of a solution of permanganate
of soda will be decomposed by a given amount of air.. The indications given
by this are very beautiful, and illustrate those truths which sanitary econo-
my has long been teaching, with indifferent success, to the country. I find,
says Dr. Smith, as much difference between the back streets of a town and
the air of a hilly district, as from 1 to 22. In other words, there was found
in the air of a close court 22 times more matter capable of decomposing the
solution, than there was found in a free, hilly district. Some of the results
obtained, when tabulated, are as follows:

A definite amount of a standard solution of the salt was decolorized by 22
measures of air from the high ground in the neighborhood of Preston, by 9
measures of air from an open street in Manchester, by 53 measures of air
from between some small houses on the banks of the Medlock river, by 2
measures of air from a closed carriage full of passengers, and by 1 measure
of air from the back yard of a house in a low and closely-built neighbor-
hood.

Mr. Smith terms the means thus employed the sepometer. Its delicacy is
such that it registers many steps lower than the point of which the ordinary
smell is. capable of taking cognizance. It clearly and distinctly tells the
state of ventilation in a room.

Mr. Smith has also observed a very noticeable difference when blood was
agitated with different varieties of air. Contrary to expectation, the air of

CHEMICAL SCIENCE, 263

the town was found to exert a greater reddening effect than the air of the
sea-shore.

REMARKS ON THE NATURE OF OZONE.

In the January number of the Philosophical Magazine there is a memoir
by Schonbein, in which he ascribes to ozone the very remarkable character,
that while it exercises a powerful oxidizing influence upon oxidizable sub-
stances, and even upon the noble metals, a moistened strip of paper colored
with binoxide of lead and immersed in ozonized air, is bleached in conse-
quence of the reduction of the binoxide of lead, — the ozone being at the
same time destroyed, or rather converted into ordinary oxygen.

This statement has confirmed Hr. Clausius in the opinion which he had
previously formed as to the nature of ozone, and consequently he has been
induced to make it known.

In a recent memoir by Hr. Clausius on “the kind of motion called heat,”
he has endeavored to account for the relations of volume existing between
the simple and compound gases, by the assumption that in simple gases
several atoms are combined so as to form one molecule; that, for instance,
the molecule of oxygen consists of two atoms of oxygen. He is of opinion,
that under special circumstances, it may happen that among the number of
molecules in a given quantity of oxygen, some may be decomposed into
separate atoms. These oxygen atoms would differ in their behavior towards
other substances from those combined into molecules, and Hr. Clausius is of
opinion that those uncombined atoms are ozone.

In support of his peculiar views, Hr. Clausius brings forward the following
data, in a communication to the Phil. Magazine:

If electricity passes out into oxygen or atmospheric air, or if electric
sparks are discharged through either of these gases, ozone is formed; and
this formation is independent of the nature of the electricity, that is, whether
it be positive or negative. This action may probably be attributed simply to
the repulsive power of the electricity, by virtue of which the two atoms of a
molecule, being charged with the same kind of electricity, are driven apart
in the same manner as is observed with larger bodies.

Oxygen, when separated from its combinations by electrolysis, under
favorable circumstances, is obtained in an ozonified state. This is explained
thus : — At the moment of disengagement, the atoms of oxygen are separate.
Most of them combine immediately upon the electrode, two and two together,
to form molecules, and here perhaps the electrode itself, when, for instance, it
is formed of platinum, exerts an auxiliary action. A small portion of the
atoms, however, remain in the separate condition, and this constitutes the
ozone with which the oxygen is mixed.

Finally, a third mode of formation occurs when atmospheric air is in con-
tact with moist phosphorus. This process may perhaps be imagined to
proceed as follows: As the phosphorus combines with the surrounding
oxygen, a number of oxygen molecules, in contact with the phosphorus,
must be decomposed into their two constituent atoms; and it may happen
that the phosphorus does not combine with both of such atoms, but that
one of them, being removed from the sphere of activity of the phosphorus
through the motion caused by the heat developed, remains in the separate
condition. We know from electrolysis, that in the combination of hetero-
geneous atoms to a molecule, one part of the molecule is positively, and the

264 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

other is negatively electrical. This may, perhaps, also be the case in the
combination of two homogeneous atoms, as, for instance, of two oxygen
atoms, one of them becoming positively, and the other negatively elec-
trical. Inasmuch, now, as, by the oxidization of the phosphorus, the oxygen
doubtless enters into combination as the electro-negative constituent, it may
come to pass that, of the two oxygen atoms resulting from the splitting up
of a molecule, the negative one is that especially retained by the phosphorus,
and the positive one may be free to move away, or at least may be less
hindered from doing so. Even after such an atom, in the course of its
motions, and through contact with other molecules, or the walls of the ves-
sel, has lost its electro-positive state, thus becoming more adapted for com-
bination with the phosphorus, yet such combination cannot take place until
its motions bring it again into the sphere of action of the phosphorus.

Certain remarkable phenomena in connection with ozonification by means
of phosphorus, have been observed. Thus, rarefied oxygen is more easily
ozonified than denser oxygen, and oxygen mixed with hydrogen or nitrogen
is more easily ozonified than when it is in the pure state. I believe that
probable, or at all events, possible, explanations may be given for many of
the secondary phenomena. [I shall not discuss these, however, in this place.

The circumstance which was mentioned before as being probable, that,
namely, in the combination of two oxygen atoms to a molecule, the two
atoms have opposite electrical states, may be made use of to explain certain
other phenomena. The fact that the ozone, which is formed in a quantity
of oxygen, does not disappear again in a short time of its own accord
through the formation of molecules by the recombination of the separated
atoms, may perhaps be due to the diminished tendency which such free
atoms have to combine, through the loss of their electrical condition; just
as oxygen, even when ozonified, may be mixed with hydrogen without com-
bination resulting.

When ozonified oxygen is heated, the ozone is destroyed. This may per-
haps be explained by supposing that the high temperature determines the
combination of the separated oxygen atoms, just as it may that of oxygen
with hydrogen and other oxidizable bodies.

Becquerel and Fremy have shown experimentally that the ozonification of
a given quantity of oxygen by electric sparks can only be carried to a cer-
tain extent if the ozone remain mixed with the oxygen; but if the ozone be
removed as soon as formed, for instance, by the oxidation of silver, the
whole of the oxygen may be gradually converted into ozone. This points
to the conclusion, that if too many separate atoms be contained in the gas,
they recombine with one another; and perhaps the electric sparks themselves
may have the power of exerting the inverse effect under altered circum-
stances; that is, they may assist the combination of separated atoms in the
same manner as they can determine the combination of oxygen and hydrogen.

Let us now consider some of the effects of ozone.

The principal action, namely, the strongly oxidizing power, may be con-
sidered as self-evident, after the description of ozone given; for it is clear
that separated oxygen atoms can more easily enter into combination with
foreign bodies than such as are already combined with one another, two and
two, and which must be first freed from such combination before they can
be in a state fit for combination with other substances.

In this respect ozone is comparable with oxygen in the nascent state, with
the exception that with the latter the electrical condition must be taken into

CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 265

account in addition; for when oxygen is evolved out of a compound in
which it was electro-negative, it will for two reasons easily enter into another
combination, in which it has also to play an electro-negative part: first,
because the atoms are in the separate state; secondly, because they already
are in the proper electrical condition. Hence oxygen in the nascent state
may, in many cases, surpass ozone in activity.

The galvanic polarization of a plate of platinum, by immersion in ozoni-
fied oxygen, is related to the above action. It is known that the two elec-
trodes, which serve for the galvanic electrolysis of water, become thereby
polarized in such a manner as to be capable of giving rise by themselves to
a current in the opposite direction. This is explained by supposing the one
electrode to be covered by a layer of hydrogen, and the other with a layer
of oxygen; and such explanation accords with the fact that a plate of plat-
inum, when immersed in hydrogen, acquires thereby also a positive polariza-
tion. But if a platinum-plate be immersed in common oxygen, the corre-
sponding phenomenon, which might, perhaps, be expected, — namely, the
acquirement of negative polarity by the plate,—does not occur; and this
appears to contradict the above-given explanation. I imagine, however,
that this difference may be accounted for as follows: Inasmuch as a mole-
cule of water consists of two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen,
the atoms of hydrogen, which, like the atoms of oxygen, are also combined
two and two to molecules, may enter into combination with oxygen without
separating from one another. The atoms of oxygen, on the contrary, as
long as they are combined together as molecules, are not in a suitable con-
dition for combination with the hydrogen. Hence oxygen, in its ordinary
state, is incapable of causing galvanic polarization, but acquires this powcr
by ozonification.

Besides an oxidizing action, ozone may exert an opposite or deoxidizing
one, as Schonbein has proved in the case of peroxide of lead, the ozone
itself being converted thereby into ordinary oxygen. Now, as this trans-
formation of ozone into oxygen occurs also when it is brought into contact
with other peroxides, it immediately suggests itself that the deoxidation of
the peroxide is also not confined exclusively to the peroxide of lead. This
action may be explained without difficulty. If we imagine an oxide which
readily gives up the whole, or a part of its oxygen, in contact With a gas in
which separate oxygen atoms are moving about, seeking to combine with
second atoms, these moving atoms, on coming into contact with the oxide,
are able to withdraw the atoms of oxygen which are only feebly combined.
This accounts at the same time for the double effect — the reduction of the
oxide and the disappearance of the ozone.

The behavior of ozone is, in many respects, similar to that of the peroxides.
Peroxide of hydrogen, for instance, has, as is well known, a strong oxidiz-
ing action, by reason of the facility with which it gives up its second atom
of oxygen. If, on the contrary, peroxide of hydrogen be brought into con-
tact with the oxides of the noble metals, or with certain metallic peroxides,
a reciprocal reduction takes place. We may, in such a case, presume that
the oxygen atoms liberated from the peroxide of hydrogen combine and
form molecules with those which are given off from the metallic oxides or
peroxides.

In considering the above-mentioned phenomenon, the question may arise,
why the atoms of ozone, or the easily-separable oxygen atoms in a single
oxide or peroxide should not unite with one another with as great a facility

239
Lo

266 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

as the atoms of two heterogeneous substances combined together? Various
secondary reasons, however, may be of influence. In the first place, the
state of aggregation must be considered. In a solid metallic oxide or perox-
ide, the several parts are fixed in position with respect to one another; and
we may therefore presume that the oxygen atoms do not come into that
contact with one another which is necessary for combination. A fluid body,
on the contrary, adapts itself better upon a solid one, and its particles pos-
sess, at the same time, the necessary mobility. The same is the case with a
gaseous body; and such a one, in addition, undergoes a condensation on the
surface of the solid body. It may, moreover, be the case, that the equally
electrified condition of the oxygen atoms of a definite compound renders
them less disposed to combine with one another than with the non-electric
ozone, or with the oxygen atoms of another compound, whose electrical
state may possibly be a different one. Moreover, the electrical conducti-
bility of the substance may be of influence, inasmuch as those alterations of
the electrical condition which are necessary for combination, may take place
more easily in contact with metallic bodies than in the interior of badly-con-
ducting bodies. Probably still further reasons might be given in answer to
the question proposed; but those already advanced may suffice, at all
events, to show how numerous the influencing circumstances may be, and
how vain it must be to expect to find the phenomena following some simple
law which holds good in all cases.

Finally, I must remark, that the density of ozone, as given by Andrews
and Tait,* — according to whom it would appear to be nearly four times as
great as that of ordinary oxygen,— is contradictory of my hypothesis concern-
ing the nature of ozone. If, however, we reflect, that the experiments could
only be tried with oxygen containing comparatively little ozone, and that,
in order to convert the ozone into ordinary oxygen, the whole was heated to
230° C., or more, it is easy to perceive how extremely difficult it must have
been to remove the disturbing influences so far as to attain the requisite

.degree of accuracy. For this reason, then, without in the least calling in
question the skill and care of the experimenters, I have, nevertheless, hesi-
tated to attach sufficient weight to the results they have found, to induce me
to suppress my hypothesis. — Philosophical Magazine.

At the Peeds meeting of the British Association, 1858, Dr. Lankester
exhibited an instrument for measuring the intensity of ozone, which con-
sisted of two small rollers included in a box, which were moved by means
of ordinary clockwork. Over the rollera strip of paper, prepared with iodide
of potassium and starch, is allowed to revolve, — the paper being exposed to
the air from an inch of open surface in the lid of the box. Twenty-four inches
of paper pass over the rollers in the course of the twenty-four hours, and thus
registers, by its color, the intensity of the action of ozone in the atmosphere.
By this instrument the intensity of the ozone for every hour in the twenty-
four could be registered, and minima and maxima, with an average, be ascer-
tained. The register of ozone could also be compared with those of the
anemometer, and the relation of ozone to the direction and force of the wind
ascertained. Dr. Lankester pointed out the importance of ascertaining the
presence of ozone, on account of its undoubted relation to health. He drew
attention to a series of tables which had been drawn up from the registra-

* Proceedings of the Yoyal Society, vol. viii., p. 498, and Phil. Mag. for February,
1858, p. 146.

CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 267
tions of the anemometer, made at London, Blackheath, and Felixstow, on the
coast of Suffolk. From these it was seen that the relation of these three places
was as 0, 22, and 55. The instrument acted also as a clock, and the time
could be accurately marked upon the ozonized paper.

Dr. Marshall made some remarks on his own observations during the last
twelve months, and stated that he had not been able to discover, though
assisted in the investigation by medical gentlemen, that there was any obvi-
ous connection between ozone and the state of health.

UNWHOLESOMENESS OF LIGHTS.

Recent experiments have proved that lights of equal intensity, obtained
from different materials, require very different lengths of time to generate
the same quantity of carbonic acid. The following is the relative time
required by the common materials: Olive-oil, 72 minutes; Russian tallow,
75; common (French) tallow, 76; whale-oil, 76; stearic acid, 77; wax can-
dles, 79; spermaceti, 83; gas from common coal, 98; gas from fat or cannel
coal, 152 minutes. Coal gas, therefore, and especially gas from cannel coal,
is the least unhealthy of all ordinary lights; which is contrary to the usual
opinion. — Cosmos, June, 1858.

DESTRUCTION OF INSECTS IN ORCHARDS, GARDENS, ETC.

M. Mellot Brulé, the distinguished horticulturalist (France), has recently
demonstrated, by experiment, the efficacy of the powdered proto-sulphuret
of iron (which has been before used for the preservation of timber), in de-
stroying noxious and annoying insects.

The powder may be strewed over the ground around the roots of the tree,
or fixed on the surface of a collar surrounding the stem. No insect will pass
it; or, if they attempt it, they are immediately killed. The proto-sulphuret of
iron (black pyrites,) occurs as a mineral in various parts of France and Ger-
many, and is manufactured for the purpose of developing sulphuretted hy-
drogen, which is undoubtedly the effective agent in destroying the vermin.
— Cosmos.

NITRO-GLYCERINE, OR GLONOINE.

Mr. A. G. Field, F. R. C., communicates to the London Pharmaceutical
Journal, the following account of the preparation and properties of glonoine,
with its therapeutic effects:

“Tn 1847, when chemists were intent on the production of gun-cotton, M.
Sobrero made known the fact that glycerine, when treated with a mixture of
sulphuric and nitric acids, yielded a similar compound, which he described
as an oily liquid, heavier than water, in which menstruum it was insoluble,
although readily dissolved by alcohol and ether.

“ According to this author, the smallest quantity of it was sufficient to
produce a most violent headache, from which he concluded it would prove a
most dangerous poison.

“This consideration induced me to try and ascertain the best mode of
preparing this substance, and again examine its principal properties.

“ Preparation. — After repeated experiments, I found the following the
best mode of preparation: — One hundred grammes (1543.3 grs.) of glycerine,
freed as much as possible from water, and having a sp. gr. 1.262, were cau-
tiously, and in small quantities at a time, added to 200 cubic centim. (18

268 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

ounces) of monohydrated nitric acid, previously immersed in a freezing mix-
ture. The temperature rises upon each addition. It is therefore necessary
to allow the mixture to cool down again to—10° C. (14° Fahr.) before any
fresh addition is made, as it is very necessary that the temperature should
never rise above 0° C. (32° Fahr.) When the glycerine and nitric acid have
formed a homogeneous fluid, which may be facilitated by stirring the mix-
ture with a glass rod, 200 cubic centim. (18 ounces) of concentrated sulphuric
acid are cautiously and slowly added.

“This operation is accompanied with the greatest danger, if the tempera-
ture is not continually watched. Experience, however, shows me that there
is no reason for fear, provided the temperature be always kept below 0° C.

32 Fahr.)

‘“ When these precautions have been taken the nitro-glycerine separates,
after the addition of the sulphuric acid, in the form of an oily liquid floating
on the surface, and may be collected by means of a separating funnel.

“The product thus obtained, which is still contaminated with a little acid,
weighs about 200 grammes (3086.6 grs.). <A still further portion, however,
about 20 grammes (308.6 grs.), may be obtained from the acid liquor by dilut-
ing it with water.

“The products thus obtained are then dissolved in a small quantity of
ether, and this solution repeatedly shaken with water, till all trace of acid is
removed. The ethereal solution is then heated over a water-bath till nothing
more is volatilized.

“ Properties. — Nitro-glycerine is an oleagenous liquid of a clear yellow
color, having a sp. gr. from 1.595 to 1.600. Heated to 160° C. (320° F.) it is
decomposed, evolving red vapors; at a higher temperature it either explodes
or inflames without any detonation.

“Tt is difficult to determine accurately the point at which explosion takes
place; it is best observed by allowing the nitro-glycerine to drop, from time
to time, upon a piece of heated porcelain. At first it burns away with a vivid
flame; but as the temperature diminishes, it violently explodes, evolving red
vapors, and frequently breaking the porcelain on which it falls.

“By placing a drop on an anvil, and striking it with a hammer, it instantly
detonates. When properly prepared, and free from acid, it may be kept for
any length of time. I have some in my possession, which has been kept for
two years without undergoing the slightest change.

“Upon the addition of sulphuric acid to the ethereal solution, decomposi-
tion ensues, and a great quantity of sulphur is thrown down.”

The following is Mr. Field’s description of his experience, of the effects of
glonoine. ,

“On the evening of the 3rd of February, 1858, I was conversing with a
homeopathic practitioner, when he mentioned a medicine which possessed
peculiar and extraordinary qualities, some of which he described as having
affected himself, though he had taken it in very minute quantities. I
laughed at his credulity, and offered to take as much as he pleased, upon
which he let two drops of what he called the first dilution of glonoine fall
on my tongue. After swallowing this small quantity of fluid—I was as-
sured the quantity did not exceed two drops—I asked what effects I must
expect, but was told to wait and observe for myself. I then purposely con-
versed on other subjects. In about three minutes, I experienced a sensation
of fulness in both sides of the neck; to this succeeded nausea; and I said,
‘T shall be sick.’ The next sensation of which I was conscious, was as if

CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 269

some of the same fluid was being poured down my throat, and then suc-
ceeded a few moments of uncertainty as to where I was, during which there
was a loud rushing noise in my ears, like steam passing out of a tea-kettle,
and a feeling of constriction around the lower part of my neck, as if my
coat were buttoned too tightly; my forehead was wet with perspiration, and
I yawned frequently. My intellects returned, however, almost immediately,
and [remember saying, ‘This has nothing to do with homeopathy, but it
has to do with a very powerful poison.’ When these sensations had passed
off, which they did in a minute or so, they were succeeded by a slight head-
ache, and dull, heavy pain in the stomach, with a decided feeling of sickness,
though without any apprehension that it would amount to vomiting. This
condition lasted about half an hour, at the end of which I was quite well,
and walked home, a distance of half a mile, with perfect comfort.

“The physician to whom I am indebted for this overdose told me, that
when his first impression that I was shamming had passed off, my condition
caused him the greatest alarm, for he really thought he had killed me. I
learn from him that my head fell back, my jaw dropped, I was perfectly
white, breathing stertorous, and no pulse at the wrist for the space of about
two minutes. He immediately rushed to a closet and procured some stimu-
lant, which he poured down my throat.”

Since the publication of the above statement by Mr. Field, other experi-
menters have operated with glonoine, and the results obtained are most dis-
cordant; so much so, that its physiological action can by no means be consid-
ered as established. The general opinion, however, is, that it is an agent of
great potency.

ON PEPSIN, AND ITS CHEMICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL PROPERTIES.

In an extended communication made by’M. Boudault, to the Société
de Pharmacie, Paris, the author, after discussing the general properties of
pepsin, proceeds to make the following remarks upon that substance em-
ployed as a medicine: Its administration presents some rather considerable
difficulties, in consequence of its liability to alteration when the vessel which
contains it has been open. Besides this, its origin, its viscosity, and its disa-
greeable smell, were so many motives for disliking it on the part of the
patient. It was necessary, then, to find a method of transforming it without
injuring its medicinal action. It was to be feared, in associating it with an
inert substance, that the latter would experience a kind of digestion, or would
act upon the pepsin as a ferment. It was necessary, besides, that this sub-
stance should be sufficiently hygrometric to absorb the humidity of the pep-
sin, and not to attract, in addition, the air. Sugar was one of the substances
With which it appeared most easy to associate pepsin; but at the end of some
days the cane sugar is transformed, under its influence, into glucose, and af-
terwards into lactic acid, for here the pepsin acts as a true ferment. Starch
dried at 100° (Cent.) has given to M. Boudault the most favorable results.
Starch, which has the property of not injuring the digestion, forms with
pepsin a pulverulent matter, the odor of which is very weak, and the taste
partly disguised. The powder is preserved very well, in well-stopped bottles,
and time does not modify in any way its physiological properties. Under
this form, pepsin may be mixed with a number of medical substances which
do not at all modify its therapeutic action: thus, with hydrochlorate of mor-
phia, to relieve violent pains of the stomach; with strychnine, to stimulate

23*

270 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

the peristaltic movements of this organ; with nitrate of bismuth, lactate of
iron, carbonate of iron, and other similar preparations. It is very efficacious
in dyspepsia, and in all cases of difficult digestion which generally follow the
convalescence from serious or chronic diseases; and it has been found a pow-
erful digestive agent in cases of consumption, caused by insufficient food.
Pepsin is administered in the first spoonful of soup, or even before meals,
wrapped up in a wafer; and precaution must be taken not to eat immediately
afterwards food which is at a higher temperature than 45°, for then the diges-
tive properties of pepsin would be destroyed. It is employed in the acid or
in the neutral state. In the acid state it takes the place of the gastric juice,
when the latter is not formed in sufficient quantity in certain morbid affec-
tions; in the neutral state — that is to say, feebly acidulated — in cases where
the stomach contains too great a quantity of acid. It may be shown that
chemical or artificial pepsin may very well take the place of the gastric juice, ,
and may be considered among one of our most efficient remedies.

COFFEE AND MILK AS AN ARTICLE OF DIET.

From an extended report of Dr. Caron, Physician to the prisons of the
department of the Seine, France, on the influence of various articles of food
with animal economy, we derive the following observations respecting the
use of coffee and milk. Speaking of the popular habit of breakfasting on
coffee with milk, he says: I think I am justified in attributing to this kind
of aliment, the production of the nervous diseases which principally affect
females of every class, particularly those inhabitating large towns. The
very general coincidence of the same symptoms with the use of coffee and
milk, induced me to examine what might be the cause of those phenomena,
and then I was led to investigate what theaction of coffee and milk is, and
then the action of that mixture on the human economy. I was first obliged
to make the analysis of the infusion of coffee, next to determine its physical
and chemical properties; I was obliged, besides, to submit my first essays to
new experiments, which conducted me to a series of most interesting
researches, which I now propose to describe.

The infusion of coffee is a liquor of a dark brown, possessing a particular
aromatic taste, slightly bitter — the chemical analysis containing the follow-
ing principles, viz.: a coloring matter soluble in water, a volatile empyreu-
matic oil soluble in alcohol, which is developed by torrefaction, some tannic
and gallic acid, some resin, and an extract of cafeine. This liquor, when
warm and sweetened, constitutes a stimulating and pleasing beverage, known
by every one; but what no one has thought of is, that, when in contract with,
milk, its nutritious properties are neutralized, because of its fermentation
being retarded. Having put together some coffee and milk in a bottle, it
was twenty-seven days before the mixture began to decompose, whilst milk
and sugar were decomposed in three days; chocolate with milk was five
days; pure cafeine and milk eleven days. It is evident that the astringent
properties of coffee hinder the digestion of milk; but it happens also, that,
during the action of coffee on the principle of milk, the cafeine is set free,
and acts on the membrane of the stomach in the same manner as vegetable
alkalies, producing the most evident hyposthenization, a fact which till now
has been overlooked. Then Dr. Caron continues to relate the experiments
he made on himself, and some other persons willing to submit to the trial,
the results of which were general prostration, vital concentration, ccphalagia,

CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 271

weakness and trembling of the legs, tottering walk, nausea supervening with
fulness of the stomach, constant somnolence, great want of appetite,— he
having remained since the morning till 11 o’clock at night without eating
anything. But, what is particularly worth noticing, he adds, is the condition
of the pulse, which, on the average, was from eighty to ninety, and which,
under these circumstances, was lowered to sixty-eight. At four o’clock in
the afternoon it was reduced to sixty, and two hours later to fifty-six, when
he took food in order to stop the effect. While taking the meal, he was sub-
ject, from time to time, to giddiness, flushing of the face, and nausea; after
the meal, the pulse rose to seventy-two, when he felt much relieved. He
continues farther on, and says: A mixture of coffee and milk, as I have
stated above, having the property of hindering the fermentation when in
vessels, acts identically in the same manner in the stomach, and constitutes
an inert liquid, on which the gastric juice has little or no action at all. Dr.
Caron continues the account of his experiments, mentioning cases he has
treated, and proves ultimately that many patients laboring under irritation,
leuchorrhcea, and hysteria, were restored to health by simple tonic treatment
after having given up the use of coffee.

ON THE ECONOMICAL APPLICATIONS OF GLYCERINE.

The following suggestions regarding economical applications of glycerine,
are contained in a paper read before the American Association for the Pro-
motion of Science, 1858, by Henry Wurtz, of New York:

It must be apparent to every one who considers the peculiar qualities of
the substance, glycerine,— namely, its resemblance to oils in not being volatile
at ordinary temperatures, while, unlike them, it is miscible with water, alco-
hol, etc.; its resistance to congelation, not being perfectly solid even at the
freezing-point of mercury; its unchangeability; its agreeable taste when
pure, and harmless action upon the system; its wide range of solvent pow-
ers, together with the quantity in which it may be cheaply procured, — that
it must in future fulfil important purposes, not only in pharmacy, but also in
the arts. Accordingly, we find that technical applications have already been
proposed for it. Barreswil’s method of preserving clay, which is to be used
for moulding purposes, in a moist and plastic state, may be alluded to as an
example.

Some uses, which are probably new, have occurred also to me.

In the first place, its conjunction of the property of compatibility with _
human digestion and assimilation, with that of non-evaporation and even
absorption of water from the air, suggest applications in the preservation of
articles of food and luxury which are injured by desiccation. As an exam-
ple of minor importance, if mustard, for table use, were mixed with diluted
glycerine, instead of water or vinegar, the usual vehicles, it would retain its
liquidity indefinitely without drying up. So of many other condiments.

A more important application, however, of a similar kind, would be in the
preparation of articles of confectionery composed of sugar, preserved fruits,
chocolate, etc., which are frequently met with enveloped in tin-foil to prevent
their desiccation. The same object might be accomplished more effectually,
and probably more economically, by admixture, in the process of manufac-
ture, with a certain proportion of pure glycerine.

Another article of luxury, of still more extensive consumption, the con-
sumers of which demand that it should be preserved for them in a moist

O72 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

state, is that known as “ chewing tobacco; ”’ and a vast consumption of tin-
foil arises from this requirement of the tobacco chewers. I have repeatedly
prepared small quantities of chewing tobacco (the variety called “‘ fine-cut’’)
for persons addicted to its use, by admixture with a little glycerine, and
always very much to their satisfaction. In the preparation of this drug, the
manufacturer must also please the palate of the consumer by introducing
some dulcifying ingredient. Common sugar or molasses, however, will not
answer the purpose, because they render the mass liable to ferment and turn
sour. An infusion of the root or extract of liquorice is therefore usually
resorted to. This does not, however, keep the tobacco moist, as molasses
would do; and to attain this it is necessary to press into solid compact masses
and pack into tight cases; or, in the case of the finer qualities, to enclose in
wrappers of tin-foil. In view of these facts, glycerine will be seen to supply
every requirement of the tobacconist, as it will not only keep his product
moist for an indefinite time, even when exposed to the air, but will also
sweeten it. He may almost look upon glycerine as made specially for his
use.

The common water meters, used for measuring the consumption of illumi-
nating gas in houses, are open to two strong objections, namely: when in a
warm situation the water rapidly evaporates, and when in a cold place it
freezes. To avoid congelation, the usual expedient is to fill the meter, in cold
weather, with alcohol or whiskey, thus rendering the first-mentioned difficulty,
that of evaporation, still more inevitable.

Now, what liquid do we possess which is practically free from both these
objections of evaporation and congelation? Evidently diluted glycerine. I
propose, therefore, as asubstitute for both water and alcohol, for filling gas
meters, glycerine (sufficiently diluted to prevent its absorption of more water
from the gas, and increasing in volume to any important extent), thus ren-
dering the meter independent of attention within the ordinary limits of
temperature.

For lubricating the bearings of fine machinery also, and particularly of
chronometers, glycerine seems to me worthy of a trial, as it is unchangeable
by the atmosphere, and remains at temperatures which few or none of the
oils will resist. For chronometers, pure oleine and oleic acid have been used ;
but the former thickens on exposure to the air, and the latter congeals at a
few degrees below the freezing-point of water.

Other uses occur to me, such as in the preparation of copying ink, in water-
color painting, and in the preservation of dried plants for herbaria in a flexible
state; mere allusions to which may at present be sufficient.

CHEMICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PURE GLYCERINE.

According to Dr. Cap, pure glycerine, suitable for medicinal purposes,
should have the following properties: It should be odorless, even when
rubbed between the hands; its consistency must be that of thick syrup. It
must be of honey-like taste, strongly sweet, its reaction nearly neutral; one
volume of glycerine must be perfectly soluble in one volume of alcohol, acid-
ulated with 1-100 of sulphuric acid, without forming a deposit, when stand-
ing in a cool place, even after twelve hours. Further: one volume of gly-
cerine must dissolve in a mixture of 100-00 alcohol and 50-00 of sulphuric
acid, without forming a precipitate (salts of lime), or leaving syrupy residua
(adulteration with honey or simple syrup). In this way an addition of 10-00

CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 273

of syrup may be detected; but, if it contains less, on adding a drop or two
of sulphuric acid to the mixture, a white deposit forms immediately. Gly-
cerine dissolved and boiled with water, should not be changed to a darker
hue, which would indicate the presence of glucose. — Med. Reporter.

ON THE PREPARATION OF COLLODIUM. BY M. ZINKEISEN.

To detect the most advantageous process of preparing collodium, the fol-
lowing trials have been made by me:
1. The Codex Medicam. Hamb. prescribes:

20 parts of dry Nitre,
30 parts of English Sulphuric Acid,
2 parts of cotton,

which has been previously treated with soda—to be left in contact with the
acids only a few minutes.

Four trials, made according to this formula, yielded, after application of a
temperature from 45° to 35° R., from three minutes to one hour and a quar-
ter, very little more than 2 ounces of wool each, of which only i could be
dissolved in ether, and ;), in alcohol at most; for there remained distinct,
undissolved filaments of wool. The quantity of cotton, therefore, appears
too large in this process.

2. According to the prescription of Mann, there are to be taken:

20 ounces of Nitre,
81 ounces of English Sulphuric Acid (of 1.830 sp. weight),
1 ounce of Cotton,

which are to be left in contact for a “ good while.”

I had the acids working on the wool for one hour and a half, at a tempera-
ture of from 45° to 35° R., and, after drying, got 1 ounce and 1 drachm of a
very fine, clear, and entirely soluble wool.

This prescription, however, is too expensive for manufacturing purposes.

3. Bertram’s formula:

16 ounces of Concent. Sulph. Acid (1.850 sp. w. by mixing
fuming and English Acids),
11 ounces of dry Nitre, and
1 ounce of Cotton.

While mixing the nitre with the acid, the temperature went up as high as
60° R., some brown bubbles of oxygen gas escaping. After cooling the
mixture down to 45° R., the cotton was added, and left in contact for one
hour, at nearly the same temperature. After drying, it yielded 13 ounces
of wool, which exploded heavily, but was indissoluble. A second trial, at
which the cotton was put in at 60° R., yielded no better result.

In this formula the sulphuric acid is too concentrated and its effects too
violent.

4. Schacht’s prescription:

24 ounces of Sulphuric Acid,
16 ounces of Nitre, and
1 ounce of Cotton.

Immediately after mixing the acids, the cotton is to be put in at a temper-

274 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

ature of 45° R., and left in contact therewith for one hour, during which
time the mixture cooled down to 35° R.

Result: 1 ounce and 3 drachms, easily and completely soluble, burning
very slowly. This collodium answers every expectation.

5. Prescription of Bretschneider and Liidersen:

6 ounces of fuming Sulph. Acid (1.850),
6 ounces of fuming Nitric Acid (1.410),
+ ounce of Cotton —

the cotton to be put in in halves, forty-five minutes in contact, at from 40
to 25° R.

Result: 54 drachms, yellowish, quickly exploding, swelling to a gelatinous
mass, with 16 parts of ether and 1 part of alcohol, and yielding, even with 32
parts of ether, a very thick collodium, the coat of which was very thin and
transient.

A second trial, at which the cotton had been left in the mixture only for
10 minutes, yielded the same result.

6. Konig’s formula:

8 ounces of fuming Sulph. Acid (1.840),
4 ounces of fuming Nitric Acid (1.410),
4 ounce of Cotton, dipped in successively.

At the first trial five minutes’ influence, at 45° R.; at the second trial, one
hour’s influence, at 50° to 35° R. The first trial yielded an entirely insoluble
wool; the second, a wool only partially soluble—both of them, however,
very explosive.

The prescription of Schacht is, undoubtedly, the most advantageous, espe-
cially in a pecuniary point. In eight trials, with 13 ounce of cotton each, I
got 17; ounces of wool, and 20 pounds of very fine collodium. I have fur-
ther to state, that I made these trials with three different kinds of cotton.
The chief points to be observed, in order to come to a satisfactory result,
are, undoubtedly, the weight of the sulphuric acid, the temperature of the
mixture, and the duration of the process. According to my experience, the
sulphuric acid should not weigh below 1.820, and not above 1.810; the most
advantageous temperature is 45° to 35° R., which, in general, generates of
itself, when the dry and completely cooled nitre is mixed with the acid. The
time of contact should not be less than half an hour, in order that all the
filaments of the cotton be penetrated. A good prepared collodium wool
will, however, not be decomposed if left under the influence of the acids even
for a longer time.

It is very advantageous not to dry the wool by heat, but by repeated pres-
sure between blotting-paper. — Druggist’s Circular.

GERMAN YEAST.

Mr. Hennel, of England, has patented the manufacture of German yeast
from flour. To obtain 10 pounds of this German yeast, the inventor takes
2} pounds of flour of malted wheat, the same of flour of malted barley, and
the same of rye flour. To this mixture water is added (at 30° Reaumur),
and the mass stirred to a thin paste. This paste is then raised to 45° R.
by hot water, and afterwards cooled down to 30° R.; next are added 22
pounds of wheat starch dissolved in ¢old water; and 5 ounces of double

CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 275

carbonate of soda, and 2$ ounces of tartaric acid, severally dissolved in
lukewarm water, together with 1} pounds of common yeast. The mass will
now require hot or cold water to bring it to 27° R., when it is left twelve
hours to ferment. After this it is pressed through a hair sieve, and in eight
or ten hours the yeast forms on the bottom of the cask. This yeast is
taken and put into double bags, which are submitted to pressure to free it
from moisture.

NEW PROCESS OF BREAD-MAKING.

The following is an account of a new process of bread-making recently
put in practical operation by Dr. Dauglish, of Carlisle, Scotland:

According to the ordinary process, fermentation is produced by the action
of the yeast upon the particles of starch in the flour, thus liberating minute
bubbles of carbonic acid gas, which permeate the entire mass of the dough,
and make it “rise.” The chemical change, however, which here takes
place, is such that it has been estimated by M. Dumas, that in France 172
per cent. and in England 8} to 12 per cent. is wasted by the decomposition
which takes place in the process of fermentation. In the new process,
patented by Dr. Dauglish, no yeast or baking powder is used, the rising of
the dough being effected by water impregnated with carbonic acid gas.
The idea of making bread with aérated water is not a new one; a patent
was taken out for such a process some years ago, but it was then found that
when the flour was mixed with the impregnated water the gas escaped
before the bread had time to rise. The novelty of Dr. Dauglish’s patent
consists in preventing the escape of the gas from the water, by subjecting
the materials to an outward pressure of carbonic acid gas while the flour is
being mixed with carbonated water. The carbonic acid gas is generated in
such apparatus as is usually employed by soda-water manufacturers; the
gas is pumped into a large reservoir, from which it is forced, as it is required,
into a vessel containing water—the absorbing power of water for car-
bonic acid being very great. The kneading machine is a strong iron retort,
fitted with air-tight lids, and provided with revolving prongs in the inside
for mixing the dough. In the machine now in operation, this retort is
capable of containing forty stones of flour. Into this are put twenty stones
of flour, with the requisite amount of salt. A stream of carbonic acid gas
is forced into the retort, and a sufficient quantity of carbonated water is
admitted and well mixed with the flour and salt; the gas with which the
water is impregnated being prevented from escape by the pressure of the
ambient carbonic acid gas. As soon as the flour and water are mixed, a
pipe is opened, and the loose gas is letout. The consequence of the pressure
being taken away from the surface of the paste is that the gas which was
held in solution by the water operates in precisely the same manner as the
gas in a bottle of soda-water when the cork is removed, the dough rises and
fills the retort, occupying twice as much space as before. The bread is then
ready for being worked into loaves —the only operation that will necessi-
tate handling. The rising can be regulated by the pressure of gas: so that,
did the strength of the machinery permit, the bread might be made of
almost any lightness. The pressure of the gas, and the quantity of water
admitted, are regulated by gauges. é

276 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

\

PROCESS FOR DECOLORIZING THE FATTY OILS.

M. Brunner states that he has been most successful in bleaching fatty oils
by proceeding as follows:

The oil is made into an emulsion with water, to which the proper consist-
ence is given by gum or starch paste, and this emulsion is well worked up
with thoroughly ignited charcoal, coarsely powdered and freed from fine
dust by sifting. To one part of oil about two parts of charcoal powder are
taken. The doughy mass is allowed to dry thoroughly at a temperature
which should not exceed 212° F., and the oil is subsequently extracted with
ether in the cold in a displacement apparatus. After this extract has depos-
ited any charcoal powder that may have passed through during the extrac-
tion, it is put into a retort, and the ether is distilled off in the water-bath.
In this way olive oil and walnut oi] are completely deprived of color. It
might perhaps be supposed that the charcoal has a direct decolorizing action
in this case upon the oil, just as in many cases it clears many aqueous fluids.
This, however, is not the case. Oils left in contact with charcoal for weeks
together did not undergo the least decolorization, even when they were dis-
solved in ether and digested with charcoal. The presence of the water con-
tained in the emulsion appears first to give rise to the action. It is probable
that by the preparation of the emulsion, the coloring matter, which does
not belong to the oil itself, is taken up by the water, and afterwards absorbed
by the charcoal. The action may be similar to that set up in the operation
employed by painters to bleach oils, which consists in agitating the oil
sufficiently with an equal volume of water, and exposing the mixture to the
sun. The water, which soon separates again from the oil, appears turbid,
and often mixed with slimy flakes. The operation is repeated for weeks,
the water being frequently renewed, until it is no longer rendered turbid, and
the oil often appears limpid. In the above process the essential part appears
to be the complete desiccation of the charcoal mixed with the emulsion. If
the oil be extracted with ether before this is the case, it is obtained again
with its original color.

Lastly, it is to be remarked that by this process the oils undergo a very
remarkable thickening. Thus walnut oil is obtained nearly of the consist-
ence of butter. — Bremer Mittheilungen, Dec. 1857.

NEW MEDIUM FOR PAINTS.

A recent improvement in the preparation of paints is thus described by
the discoverer, M. Sorel, in the following communication to the French
Academy:

In 1855 I had the honor of presenting to the Academy various products
obtained by means of oxychloride of zinc, especially cements and mastics,
as hard as marble, and quite insoluble in water, and a paint, equally insoluble,
intended to replace, very economically, oil and other painting. This paint
had the inconvenience of being difficult to use, and of requiring, like silice-
ous painting, the application of a liquid on the last layer to fix it and
render it insoluble; when I wished to avoid the use of this liquid by
rendering my paint more drying, I was met by an equally serious incon-
venience: the paint thickened very rapidly in the vessel, and there was not
time to use it. I have now succeeded, by adding certain substances to my

CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 277

liquid, in surmounting these difficulties, and rendering the application of
this new paint easy.

The liquid which in this paint replaces oil, essence of turpentine, and the
other liquids and excipients used in ordinary painting, is an aqueous solution
of chloride of zinc, in which I have dissolved an alkaline tartrate. These
salts possess in the highest degree the property of retarding the thickening
of the new paint before being used. I add to the liquid, to give tenacity to
the paint, gelatine or fecula which I have caused to pass into the state of
starch by heating the liquid. It must not be heated so much as to transform
the fecula into dextrine or glucose.

To form the new paint, whatever the color may be, I use the above liquid
and a powder which should be in great part oxide of zine. For colored
paints I use the same powder plus the coloring matters. The colors usually
employed in ordinary painting may be employed.

The new paint possesses the following properties: 1st. It is not necessary
to grind it; the powder only requires to be diluted with the liquid, and the
paint is used in the ordinary manner. 2d. It is more beautiful and more
solid than oil paint; it covers better, and is not rendered black by sulphurous
emanations, like paints of ceruse or other lead bases. 3d. It is absolutely
without odor, and dries very rapidly. Wecan apply a layer every two hours
in winter, and every hour in summer; which enables us to paint an apart-
ment in one day and inhabit it the same day, without being affected by the
odor of the paint. 4th. It resists moisture and water, even when boiling,
and may be washed with soap like oil paint. 5th. In consequence of the
chloride of zinc which it contains, the paint is eminently antiseptic, and fitted
to preserve wood from perishing. 6th. It possesses to a very high degree
the quality of diminishing the combustibility of wood, fabrics, and paper,
and of rendering these matters uninflammable. 7th. It is perfectly innocu-
ous both to those who prepare and those who use it.

I have also the honor of placing before the Academy a new translucid
plastic matter, which is formed with the principal elements of the paint of
which I have just spoken, but in very different proportions. It is a combi-
nation of potato fecula and hydrated chloride of zinc, of a sufficient density
to swell the fecula without dissolving it. To modify the hardness of the
matter, and to render it more or less white or more or less opaque, certain
salts or powdered matters are added, such as oxide of zinc, sulphate of
baryta, etc. This plastic matter is prepared cold by moistening the fecula
and other matters with chloride of zinc. This new compound is easily
moulded, and solidifies in the mould like plaster. The objects thus obtained
are as translucid as horn, bone, or ivory; but to obtain this translucidness,
very little or none of the moist pulverulent substances must be introduced,
except sulphate of baryta. This salt, although insoluble, gives very little
opacity to the matter. This is not the case with oxide of zinc or carbonate
of lime.

To keep the objects thus obtained from moisture, they are covered with
one or two layers of good varnish.

Any color may be given to this new matter, and it may be obtained more
or less hard; it may even be obtained as supple as caoutchouc, but not
elastic.

This new plastic compound may be used for moulding many objects of
art and ornament, and in the manufacture of many things requiring either

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278 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

hardness, suppleness, or transparency. This substance may replace, in
many cases, plaster, marble, ivory, horn, bone, gutta-percha, gelantine, etc.

ON A METHOD OF IMPARTING A RED COLOR TO BONE AND IVORY,
BY DR. J. C. KELLERMANN.

The bone to be colored is laid for fifteen to twenty minutes in very dilute
cold nitric acid of the strength of a good vinegar; this dilute nitric acid is
obtained by mixing fully one-half a litre of soft water with about thirteen
grms. of nitric acid. The bone is then immersed for fifteen to twenty
minutes in a solution of protochloride of tin, made by dissolving a piece of
the size of a lentil in a pint of water. The objects thus mordanted are then
put into the following red-bath, which must first be heated until it begins to
boil.

Red-bath.—For an experiment on the small scale, take three to five grms.
of fine red carmine, pour to it ten to twelve drops of ammonia, and stir it
up well until the carmine is dissolved; then add about two ounces of soft
water. In this bath, when heated to boiling, the objects must be left for
about fifteen minutes. The tints obtained are more vivid when the boiling
of the bath is not continued whilst the objects are in it.

If it be desired to change the tint thus obtained (a very fiery carmine-red)
to amore scarlet, one of the following methods may be employed. When
the red-bath begins to boil, and immediately after the objects have been
immersed in it, five to ten drops of tartaric acid, of the strength of a good
vinegar, may be added; or the water in which the protochloride of tin is to
be dissolved may be mixed with an extremely small quantity of English
sulphuric acid. — Dingler’s Polytechn. Journal.

ON THE PREPARATION OF SOME SIMPLE CEMENTS.

Dr. Davy, F. R. 8., has recently published the following paper on the
manufacture of various simple cements, which admit of a useful and ready
application.

Gutta-percha, as is well known, is itself an admirable cement for certain
purposes, when softened by hot water or by a moderate degree of heat; and
it has been used in making other cements; but I am not aware of any cement
described in which it forms a part; its high commercial value is an obstacle
to its application in many cases where it could be employed with advantage.

Gutta-percha, though readily adapted to an almost endless variety of uses,
is, however, not easily rendered fluid when alone, and hence is not quite
manageable enough for certain purposes.

Ihave made many experiments, using different proportions of gutta-per-
cha with pitch, resin, wax, etc., with a view to form useful cements. In the
present communication I propose to notice only one cement, which I made
by melting in an iron saucepan. Two parts by weight of common pitch,
and adding to it one part by weight of gutta-percha, stirring and mixing
them well together until they were completely incorporated with or united
with each other, formed a homogeneous fluid, which may be used in this
state for many purposes; but which, on account of the facility and tenacity
with which it adheres to metals, stones, glass, etc., 1 found convenient to
pour into a large basin of cold water, in a thinner or thicker stream, or as a

CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 279

cake. In this state, while warm, it is quite soft; but may be soon taken up
out of the water and drawn out into longer, or pressed into shorter pieces,
or cut, or twisted into fragments, which may again be readily retinited by
pressure.

When the cement is cold, or before, it may be removed from the water
and wiped dry, when it is fit for use.

From a rough experiment I made, there appeared to be a loss of about
one-fourteenth of the weight of the materials in making this cement, arising
from volatile matter and impurities in the pitch and gutta-percha.

Properties. — This cement is of a black color; when cold, itis hard. It is
not brittle, but has some degree of elasticity, which is increased by a slight
increase of heat. It appears to be not so tough as gutta-percha, but more
elastic. Its tenacity is very considerable, but inferior, if I mistake not, to
gutta-percha. It softens when put into water at about 100° Fahr.; and if the
heat is gradually increased, it passes through intermediate states of softness,
becomes viscous like bird-lime, and may be extended into threads of indefi-
nite length; it remains in this state, even when exposed for some time, in a
crucible, to the heat of boiling water, at 212° Fahr. When heated to about
100° Fahr., it becomes a thin fluid. Water appears to have no other action
upon it but that of softening it when warm or hot, and slowly hardening it
when cold. The cement adheres strongly, if pressed on metal or other sur-
faces, though water be present, provided such surfaces be warm.

My first trials with this cement put it to a very severe test. I used itasa
substitute for plumbers’ solder in repairing the lead gutters on the roof of
my house, which were cracked in several places, and admitted water freely
in different places, and also to staunch the leaks in an old common and
forcing-pump attached for yielding a supply of water for the use of two
houses, and raising it about thirty feet. For these purposes I found it quite
effectual. All that was necessary, in the case of the gutters, was to remove
with a brush all loose earthy matters from the cracked lead, slightly warm
it with a hot iron, then pour the cement in a fluid state on the cracks, so as
to cover them on both sides; then a hot iron was drawn along each edge of
the cement so as to soften and bevel it down to the lead, as the cement has
intermediate degrees of fluidity, and is thicker or thiner as it is exposed to
more or less heat. In its thicker state, it may, perhaps, be better adapted to
repair cracks in lead or other gutters ; but a crack in such gutters may be read-
ily filled up by taking a piece of the dry, cold cement, and applying a warm
but not too* hot soldering-iron, so as to soften the cement on the crack, then
melt it on each side and cover it with the cement. The cement will adhere
with great ease to the lead, and is far more manageable than any of our
common solders. A hole in a gutter could be readily stopped with the
cement, and a piece of lead of sufficient size to overlap the hole, say, about
one-half of an inch; cover the lead on both sides with a surface of the
cement; press it on the hole: then cover the lead and its edges with the
cement, as in puttying a pane of glass.

In the ease of the common and forcing-pump, it was only necessary to
have every part that leaked quite dry, and slightly warm, when a good coat-
ing of the cement, in its thick state, was applied, so as completely to cover

* When the soldering-iron is too hot, and applied to the cement, it decomposes a
portion of it, or raises it in a white vapor. When it is of the proper temperature,
which is about 130° Fabhr., it is merely softened or partially melted.

280 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

the cracks or apertures. The cement used in this instance did not exceed in
bulk the plumber’s solder which would have been used. The warm soldering-
iron was lastly applied to fill up any interstices, and produce throughout a
uniform surface.

IT entertain no apprehension that the warmth of our climate at any time
will impair the efficacy of this cement when applied to repair lead, zinc, or
iron gutters; for though it softens at a comparative low temperature, it still
adheres most tenaciously to metals and other substances, and does not allow
water to pass through it. My gutters were repaired with the cement before
the very hot weather we had last summer, and not the least appearance of
a leak has been since observed in the gutters.

In a similar way the cement may be readily applied to repair holes in tin
cans, garden watering-pots, iron or other metal vessels which are used only
for cold water. Vessels thus repaired should be left a few hours before they
are used, as the cement takes some little time to set or harden.

That the presence of water does not interfere with the action of the cement,
was shown in cases where I put a large hammer, also a seven-pound weight,
into hot water, for a few minutes. I then removed them from the water,
and, without wiping them, pressed the end of a small stick of the cold
cement on the surface of each, when it softened, and strongly adhered to the
metals. I then poured a stream of cold water on each of the articles, when
they could be raised from the table and carried about, being firmly supported
by the cement, and considerable force was necessary to separate the articles
from the cement.

This cement is applicable to many useful purposes. It adheres with great
tenacity to metals, wood, stones, glass, porcelain, ivory, leather, parchment,
paper, hair, feathers, silk, woollen, cotton, linen fabrics, etc. It is well
adapted for glazing windows, as a cement for aquariums. As far as my
experience has yet extended, this cement does not appear to affect water,
and will apparently be found applicable for coating metal tanks; to secure
the joints of stone tanks; to make a glue for joining wood, which will not
be affected by damp; to prevent the depredations of insects on wood. It
may be highly deserving of inquiry, whether the cement may not be applied
to preserve surfaces of metal and wood exposed to the atmosphere and to
fresh water; also to protect anchors, chain-cables, etc., from the corroding
agencies of sea water.

According to Krebs, an excellent cement for luting distilling apparatus
may be prepared by mixing meal of beans with water, or with paste of
starch, into a plastic mass. This may be used for distillation, in a small or
large way, by applying it simply with wet fingers. After a few hours the
cement becomes as hard as stone.

Casein Cement. — Wagner recommends using a cold saturated solution of
borax or alkaline silicate for dissolving casein, instead of alkaline carbonate,
as recommended by Bracconot. The solution of casein with borax is a clear
viscous liquid, exceeding gum in adhesiveness, and applicable to many pur-
poses as a substitute for glue; woollen and cotton fabrics saturated with the
solution may be tanned with tannic acid or acetate of alumina, and rendered
waterproof.

ON HYDRAULIC MORTARS.

The different varieties of this material may be divided into two- classes,
according to the chemical processes to which the hardening under water is

CIIEMICAL SCIENCE. 281

due, viz., the Roman Cements, which contain caustic lime when fresh, and the
Portland Cements, which do not contain caustic lime.

Fuchs has satisfactorily shown that the hardening of Roman cement, apart
from the production of carbonate of lime, is essentially due to the production
of basic silicate of lime (3 CaO, 2 SiO3), by the combination of an acid sili-
cate, or of free soluble silica with caustic lime.

The hardening of Portland cement under water, is, on the contrary, due to
the decomposition of a silicate, consisting of three or four equivalents of
base combined with one equivalent of silica, with the production of caustic
lime, and such compounds of lime with silica and with alumina as may be
produced in the wet way.

Consequently, the hardened Portland cement contains the same substances
as hardened Roman cement; but they are produced in a different way, in the
hardening by the action of water.

Mr. Winckler has made a series of analyses of different specimens of Port-
land cement, and comes to the conclusion that the silica may be replaced by
alumina or peroxide of iron; that the presence of alumina does not interfere
with the hardening of the cement, but renders it less capable of resisting the
action of carbonic acid; and that the presence of peroxide of iron renders
the cement less hard and less durable.

He also found that, during the hardening of Portland cement, lime is _
gradually abstracted by water. The composition of the cement, after this
action had gone on for some days, was found to correspond closely with the
formula 3 CaO, Si03+ CaO, Alo Os; and he regards this compound as the
final result of the action of water upon Portland cement.

He considers the presence of magnesia in Portland cement injurious, owing
to the fact that the tribasic silicate of magnesia and lime is not decomposed
by water.

The presence of alkalies in the cement seems to accelerate the hardening,
probably by facilitating the penetration of water into the mass.

SOLUBLE GLASS, WATER GLASS, MINERAL GUM.

Soluble silicate of soda is now largely manufactured in England, and sold,
under the above names, for various important commercial purposes. Long
known to chemists, it has within a recent period attracted the attention of
manufacturers, who find it possesses properties highly useful, and susceptible
of a great variety of applications. It is prepared most cheaply from quartz-
sand and soda-ash. The former is very finely ground, and then dissolved in
a heated solution of the alkali. The solution is then concentrated to 20°, 30°,
or 50° of Twaddle, and sold of the strength best adapted for the purpose con-
templated. A large demand has recently arisen for it as a size for calicoes,
etc., in lieu of British gum, the glaze being superior, and the price (£6 to £7
a ton) being lower.

It is also in demand for soap-making; being itself a detergent, and mixed
with common soap, prevents the usual loss by evaporation, and increases the
weight. It has also been used for saturating timbers, scenery, dresses, and
other inflammable material; being itself of a highly incombustible nature,
and thus protecting other substances to a great extent from the action of fire.
In contact with lime, it consolidates, and is partly converted into silicate of
lime. Hence it has been employed, especially in Berlin, in the process called
“Stereochrome,” a revival of fresco painting on the walls of buildings; the

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282 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

design being perfectly protected by the application of a solution of the
“water glass,” as a varnish over the surface. This may be freely washed,
and, if necessary, renewed from time to time.

The same substance is the essential element in Ransome’s artificial stone
process, and other similar processes, in which a porous standstone or lime-
stone is saturated with this silicate, which not only consolidates, but com-
bines with the lime, forming a compact mass of flinty hardness, and imper-
vious to atmospheric influence. .

Its solution possesses highly adhesive properties, and may be considered
the basis of a good cement for glass and china. By itself it holds fragments
with great tenacity in the cold, but yields on the application of heat. The
solution for this purpose must not be too strong; and if mixed, when used,
with a little lime, the cement is very firm.

ON ANIMAL AMMONIA, ITS FORMATION, EVOLUTION, AND OFFICE.

The following is an abstract of a paper on the above subject, presented to
the British Association, 1858, by the Rey. J. B. Reade. The author, after
referring to the testimony of Brande and Schlossberger, as to our ignorance
of the cause of the coagulation of the blood, and pointing out the near ap-
proach to the solution of the problem by Raspail, proceeds to show that Dr.
Richardson, in his recent work on the subject, has the undivided and justly
rewarded merit of proving that coagulation proceeds solely in proportion to
the evolution of ammonia. With reference to his own views on the subject
of the paper, the author makes the following observations :— Ammonia, as
well as fibrin, exists in the blood, and we have now sufficient, or rather
cumulative proof, that the necessary solution of fibrin is caused by the
agency of this volatile alkali. It is also equally apparent that a nice adjust-
ment of the quantity of this alkali is indispensable; since an excess, operat-
ing beyond the production of fluidity, would tend to dissolve the blood cor-
puscles themselves, and a defect would be marked by the deposition of fibrin
in the heart or arteries. But though ammonia is formed, and that in larger
quantities than is required for its primary office and operation, viz., the solu-
tion of fibrin, yet the excess is with great care drawn away from the blood
and used where nature requires it. As a gentle stimulant, its presence is re-
quired throughout the whole system, and accordingly it enters, along with
fibrin, into the formation of muscular tissues. This I showed many years
ago, in a paper read before the Microscopical Society of London. It is true
that my experiments on the presence of ammonia, quast ammonia, in breath,
flesh, and animal tissues generally, were received with much caution, or,
rather, I may say, with hesitation and doubt, and even ocular demonstration
failed, for a time, to remove foregone conclusions; but the existence of am-
monia as a normal excrete of the body, is now recognized by all parties as
an important and undisputed fact, and its power and office as a solvent of
the fibrin of the blood, is exactly determined. The primary source and for-
mation of this alkaline solvent, or what leads to its normal development, is
a physiological problem yet unsolved. Its elements are well known; but
whence derived, or how, or in what part of the body, if in it at all, the
chemical combination is effected, are questions which are supposed to point
to additional illustrations of the limit of human investigation and reason.
Yet that it is absolutely within the body that the formation of the alkaline
compound takes place, appears to be capable of proof. For it is quite certain,

CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 283

as the result of repeated experiment, that the ammonia found in the breath —
varying so much in different persons at the same time, and in the same person
on different parts of the same day, and especially during the different condi-
tions of rest, exercise, and fatigue—is not the mere return of the minute
portion inspired with the air. And if the air, when charged with its uniform
small quantity, fail so manifestly in supplying even the ammonia of the
breath, it must, of course, be rejected as the source of that additional
quantity which, at the same time, is found in every part of the body. The
source and formation of this alkali, therefore, is not ab extra. It seems,
perhaps, probable that animal ammonia is formed initially in the blood, of
which the two leading ingredients, albumen and fibrin, are equally rich in
nitrogen; for this element exists in albumen, according to the analysis of
Gay-Lussac, in the proportion of 15°7 per cent. and of 19°9 per cent. in fibrin;
while hydrogen, the other element of ammonia, is in the proportion of 7 per
cent. in each. The elements of the alkali, therefore, are present, and are
partly used for the formation of substances which are products of subtle
chemical action. Now, in the vegetable kingdom, the combination of these
elements for the formation of vegetable ammonias is a common and recog-
nized phenomenon; and similarly, — to extend the views of Dr. Richardson,
—in the exquisite balance of the chemical forces in the blood, it is arranged
that the blood should be feebly alkaline from fixed alkali or alkaline salt;
not sufficiently alkaline to hold fibrin in solution, but sufficiently so to leave
the volatile alkali free for this purpose, when formed in the closed chambers
of the circulation. I am, therefore, less disposed than my friend Dr. Rich-
ardson to leave this point an open question, but rather to meet his inquiry,
where is ammonia first formed? with the reply, in blood itself. It is with
some satisfaction I can add, that Dr. Richardson himself gives his tmprima-
tur to this theory. If this view, then, be anything like an accurate state-
ment of the chemistry of nature, it confirms and harmonizes with the fact,
that the formation of ammonia is a continuous process. The portion which
maintains fluidity at a given moment does not remain to exercise this office
for hours or days, but its evolution direct from the blood is as necessary and
continuous an act as its formation. Hence it passes along with fibrin, in
fact carries the fibrin, as its solvent, to every part of the body, to supply its
daily waste; and having performed this office, and satisfied every other de-
mand, the excess is evolved, in consequence of its equal diffusion, from every
excretory surface, and very largely, as I have heretofore proved, from the
surface of the lungs in the expired air of the breath. The evolution of am-
monia from the surface of the body may be proved by an interesting exper-
iment which happens not to have found a place in Dr. Richardson’s admir-
able list of 400 save one. If a glass vessel, of suitable shape, having its inner
surface just moistened with hydrochloric acid, be placed on any part of the
body when warm with exercise, and, therefore, in a slight state of perspira-
tion, evolved ammonia will be taken up by the acid; and if collected in a little
distilled water, the hydrochlorate may be received and crystallized by evap-
oration on a slip of glass for the microscope. The same experiment may
also be performed on the bodies of horses and other animals. The general
experiments which prove the existence of ammonia in breath are now too
well known to need description; but there is a new experiment of consider-
able importance, as confirming the proof of these two propositions — that
theré is a volatile alkali evolved in the breath, and that this alkali, having
the property of maintaining the fluidity of the blood, is ammonia. Dr. Rich.

284 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

ardson has proved that in the experiment of passing the vapor of blood
through blood, coagulation is suspended by the agency of a volatile princi-
ple; and he has also proved by experiment that this volatile principle is
ammonia. Now, the vapor of blood is a large coustituent of the vapor of
breath, and the effect of passing this latter vapor through blood is precisely
similar to that of the former. If a portion of blood be received in a vessel,
and the expired air and vapor of breath, collected in quantity and in a suit-
able apparatus, be passed through it, the fluidity of the blood is maintained
so long as the experiment is continued; thus furnishing a proof of the
escape of a volatile agent in the breath, which agent, by direct experiment
upon it, is provea to be ammonia. This experiment is, in all respects, most
satisfactory. Had it failed, the whole subject would again be enveloped in
its ancient mystery, and we should say with Brande, that the cause of coag-
ulation is still unexplained. True, we should know that the vapor of blood
sustains fluidity, and that its volatile alkali, ammonia, sustains fluidity also;
but so do the fixed alkalies, potash and soda, which are proved to be inopera-
tive as the cause of coagulation. If, then, the vapor of breath, which is
characterized by the same volatile agent as the vapor of blood, failed to pre-
vent coagulation, we must unavoidably be led to the conclusion, that, not-
withstanding the evidence of experiment in a given direction in favor of
ammonia, there is a still more subtle agency at work, even during the evolu-
tion of this alkali from newly-drawn blood, which is the true and ultimate
cause of coagulation. Ammonia, like potash and soda, would then be
looked upon as a mere proximate agent in sustaining fluidity, and its evo-
lution would cease to be acknowledged as the final and efficient cause of
coagulation.

ON THE FORMATION OF UREA BY THE OXIDATION OF ALBUMIN-
OUS MATTERS.

Béchamp has succeeded in showing that urea is one of the products of the
oxidation of albuminous bodies. The author effects the decomposition by
an alkaline solution of hypermanganate of potash. The fibrine of the blood
and gluten yield also urea by the same process. From these experiments it
is clear that the oxidation of albuminous matters under an alkaline influence
yields products very different from those obtained at a higher temperature
by means of oxidizing mixtures of peroxide of manganese or bichromate of
potash and sulphuric acid. — Ann. de Chimie et de Physique, xvii, 348.

ON THE PRESENCE OF COPPER IN THE TISSUES OF PLANTS AND
ANIMALS.

Drs. Odling and Dupré, in a communication to the British Association,
stated that they had made more than one hundred examinations, by a great
variety of processes, and had recognized the presence of copper in nearly
every instance. In several specimens of wheat grain and human viscera the
copper had been estimated. From 100 grains of wheat-ash the authors had
obtained 251 thousandths of a grain, and from a sheep’s liver rather more
than one-half a grain of oxide of copper. The process was to precipitate
the copper electrolytically on a platinum wire, to dissolve in nitric acid, and
to ignite the residue of the evaporated solution.

CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 285

SOIL ANALYSIS.

A recent writer in the North British Agriculturist makes the following
remarks on the subject of soil analysis:

“To analyze a soil, and determine from the results the degree of its fer-
tility and its adaptation to particular crops, was one of the problems placed
before the agricultural chemist, and from its solution the greatest advanta-
ges to agriculture were anticipated. As yet these expectations have not been real-
ized, nor can this be considered as a matter of surprise. The progress of our
knowledge, in place of simplifying, has complicated the question, and has
shown that the fertility and infertility of a soil is dependent upon a variety of
circumstances, of which its chemical composition is only one. Instances exist
in which the barrenness of a soil can be distinctly traced to the deficiency of
some one or other of the necessary elements of plant-life; but in other cases,
a barren and a fertile soil may present an almost perfect similarity in
composition, and contain all the elements required by plants in proportions
known to be amply sufficient for their healthy growth. The difficulty of
explaining these facts has been increased, just in proportion as soil analyses
have become more minute; for their tendency has been to show that the
instances in which infertility is due to the absence of any of the essential
constituents of the plants are comparatively rare, and that quantities which
we are apt to overlook as totally unimportant, may be amply sufficient for
all that is required. One-tenth of a per cent. of potash, soda, or phosphoric
acid, may appear a quantity so small that the chemist might be justified in
neglecting it, and yet a soil containing these quantities is capable of afford-
ing an abundant supply of these elements to many generations of plants ; and,
notwithstanding this, there are soils containing a much larger quantity of
these substances, which, if not absolutely barren, are only capable of sup-
porting a very scanty vegetation. These facts have rendered it obvious
that it is not merely the presence, but the accessibility, so to speak, of the
constituents of a soil that must be determined; and when the chemist, in
addition to the exact proportion of these minute quantities, is required to
ascertain the various forms of combination in which they exist, it is natural
that he should show little disposition to enter upon a branch of investigation
of such complexity, and which, in the present state of our knowledge, is
likely to give only negative results.

“The difficulties of this investigation have been so fully recognized by
Liebig, that he has pronounced it impossible to arrive at a satisfactory knowl-
edge of the composition of the soil, and its suitableness for particular crops,
by analysis alone.”

ON THE ANNUAL YIELD OF NITROGEN PER ACRE IN DIFFERENT
CROPS.

The following is an abstract of a paper on the above subject, presented
to the British Association, 1858, by Messrs. Lawes & Gilbert:

The authors stated, in commencement, that they had, at a former meeting
of the Association, announced, that the amount of nitrogen yielded per acre
per annum, in different crops, even when unmanured, was considerably
beyond that annually coming down, in the form of ammonia and nitric acid,
in the yet measured and analyzed aqueous deposits from the atmosphere.
The investigations upon this subject were still in progress; and a desirable

286 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

introduction to the record of the results would obviously be, to illustrate, by
reference to direct experiment, that which had been before only assumed,
regarding the yield of nitrogen in our different crops. To this end had been
determined the annual produce of nitrogen per acre, in the case of various
crops, which were respectively grown, for many years consecutively, on the
same land; namely, wheat, fourteen years; barley, six years; meadow hay,
three years; clover hay, three years out of four; beans, eleven years; and
turnips, eight years. In the majority of the instances referred to, the yield
of nitrogen had been estimated, both for the crop grown without manure of
any kind, and for that with purely mineral manure, — that is, excluding any
artificial supply of nitrogen. It was the object of the present communica-
tion to give a summary view of some of the facts thus brought to light.
Beans and clover were shown to yield several times as much nitrogen per acre
as wheat or barley. Yet the growth of the leguminous crops, carrying off so
much nitrogen as they did, was still one of the best preparations for the growth
of wheat; whilst fallow (an important effect of which was the accumulation
within the soil of the available nitrogen of two years into one), and adding
nitrogenous manures, had each much the same effect in increasing the pro-
duce of the cereal crops. Other experimental results were adduced, which
illustrated the fact, that four years of wheat, alternated with fallow, had
given as much nitrogen in eight years as eight crops of wheat grown con-
secutively. Again, four crops of wheat, grown in alternation with beans,
had given nearly the same amount of nitrogen per acre as the four crops
grown in alternation with fallow; consequently, also much about the same
as the eight crops of wheat grown consecutively. In the case of the alterna-
tion with beans, therefore, the whole of the nitrogen obtained in the beans
themselves was over and above that which was obtained, during the same
series of years, in wheat alone,— whether it was grown consecutively,
or in alternation with fallow. Interesting questions arose, therefore, as to
the varying sources, or powers of accumulation, of nitrogen, in the case of
crops so characteristically differing from one another as those above referred
to. It had been found that the leguminous crops, which yielded in their
produce such a comparatively large amount of nitrogen over a given area
of land, were not specially benefited by the direct application of the more
purely nitrogenous manures. The cereal crops, on the other hand, whose
average yield of nitrogen, under the same circumstances, was comparatively
so small, were very much increased by the use of direct nitrogenous ma-
nures. But it was found that, over a series of years, only about four-tenths
of the nitrogen annually supplied in manure for wheat or barley (in the
form of ammonia salts or nitrates), were recovered in the immediate increase
of crop. Was any considerable proportion of the unrecovered amount
drained away and lost? Was the supplied nitrogenous compound trans-
formed in the soil, and nitrogen, in some form, evaporated? Did a portion
remain in some fixed and unavailable state of combination in the soil?
Was ammonia, or free nitrogen, given off during the growth of the plant?
Or, how far was there an unfavorable distribution, and state of combination,
within the soil, of the nitrogenous matters applied directly for the cereal
crops, — those, such as the leguminous crops, which assimilated so much
more, gathering with greater facility, and from a different area of soil, and
leaving a sufficient available nitrogenous residue within the range of collec-
tion of a succeeding cereal crop? These questions, among others, which
their solution more or less involved, required further elucidation before some

CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 287

of the most prominent of agricultural facts could be satisfactorily explained.
Comparing the amount of nitrogen yielded in the different crops, when
grown without nitrogenous matter, as above referred to, with the amount
falling in the measured aqueous deposits, as ammonia and nitric acid, it
appeared, taking the average result of the analyses of three years’ rain, that
all the crops yielded considerably more, and some very much more, than so
came down to the soil. The same was the case when several of the crops
had been grown in an ordinary rotation with one another, but without ma-
nure, through two or three successive courses. Was this observed excess in
the yield over the yet measured sources at all materially due merely ta
exhaustion of previously accumulated nitrogenous compound within the
soil? Was it probably attributable chiefly to the absorption of ammonia or
nitric acid, from the air, by the plant itself, or by the soil? Was there any
notable formation of ammonia or nitric acid from the free nitrogen of the
atmosphere? Or did plants generally, or some in particular, assimilate this
free nitrogen? As already intimated, some of the points which had been
alluded to were at the present time under investigation. Others, it might ba
hoped, would receive elucidation in the course of time. There, of course,
still remained the wider questions of the original source, and of the distribu.
tion and circulation of combined nitrogen in the soil, in animal and vegeta-
ble life on the earth’s surface, and in the atmosphere above it.

BOUSSINGAULT’S RESEARCHES UPON THE RELATION OF NITROGEN
AND THE NITRATES TO THE SOIL AND VEGETATION,

Several years ago Boussingault demonstrated, in the clearest way, that
plants are incapable of assimilating the free nitrogen of the atmosphere.
Two years ago, in a paper communicated to the French Academy of Sci-
ences, he showed that nitrates eminently favor vegetation. He now shows,
by decisive experiments —

(1). That the amount, even of ternary vegetable matter, produced by a
plant, depends absolutely upon the supply of assimilable nitrogen (ammonia
and nitrates). A plant, such as a sunflower, with a rather large seed, may
grow in a soil of recenfly calcined brick, watered with pure water, so far as
even to complete itself by a blossom; but it will only have trebled or quad-
rupled the amount of vegetable matter it had to begin with in the seed. In
the experiments, the seeds weighing 0°107 grammes, in three months of veg-
etation formed plants, which, when dried, weighed only 0°392 grammes, —a
little more than trebling their weight. The carbon they had acquired from
the decomposition of carbonic acid of the air was only 0°114 grammes; the
nitrogen they had assimilated from the air in three months was only 0°0025
grammes.

(2.) Phosphate of lime, alkaline salts, and earthy matters, indispensable to
the constitution of plants, exert no appreciable action upon vegetation,
except when accompanied by matters capable of furnishing assimilable ni-
trogen. Two plants of the same kind, grown under the same conditions as
above, but with the perfectly sterile soil adequately supplied with phosphate
of lime, alkali, in the form of bicarbonate of potash, and silex, from the
ashes of grasses, resulted in only 0°498 grammes of dried vegetable matter,
from seeds weighing 0°107 grammes; and had acquired only 0°0027 grammes
of nitrogen beyond what was in the seeds.

(3.) But nitrate of potash, furnishing assimilable nitrogen, associated

288 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

with phosphate of lime and silicate of potash, forms a complete manure, and
suffices for the full development of vegetation. Parallel experiments, with
nitrate in place of bicarbonate of potash, resulted in the vigorous growth of
the sunflower plants, and the formation of 21°248 grams of organic matter,
from seeds weighing, as before, only 0°107. This 21°111 grams of new veg-
etable matter, produced in three months of vegetation, contained 8444 of
carbon, derived from the carbonic acid of the air, and 0°1666 grams of nitro-
gen. The 1°4 grams of nitrate of potash applied to the soil, contained
0°1969 grams of nitrogen, leaving a balance of 0°0303, nearly all of which
was found, unappropriated, in the soil.

Finally, Boussingault made a neat series of comparative experiments,
introducing into calcined sand the same amount of phosphate of lime and
tarbonate of potash, but different proportions of nitrate of soda, or, in other
words, of assimilable nitrogen, and watering with water free from ammonia,
but containing a quarter of its volume of carbonic acid. The soil divided
umong four pots, each having two seeds of sunflower (H. argophyllus was
the species used in all the experiments); the pot

No. 1 received of nitrate of soda, 0-00 grams.
6 9 iz9 (74 0:02 se
ce 3 6c (74 0:04 ce
“cc 4 ‘73 (79 0:16 (73

The results of fifty days’ vegetation are given in the rate of growth, size and
number of the leaves, weight of product, etc. :

No. 1 made of new vegetable matter, 0-397 grams.
iz 2 66 6c 0:720 66
&¢ 8 ce 66 1°1380 iT
6c 4 6c (79 3.280 6c

In No. 2, so little as three milligrams of assimilable nitrogen introduced
into the soil enabled the plant to double the amount of organic matter. The
proportion of the weight of the seeds to that of the plant formed was, in

No.1, as 1: 46gr
ce 2, ec 1 : 76
Cog, SS SRS
Morr, VE) aes

In no case did the nitrogen acquired by the plant exceed that of the nitrate
added to the soil.

In the experiments where no nitrate was added to the soil, the two or
three milligrams of nitrogen acquired by the plants during three months of
vegetation, came, in all probability, from ammoniacal vapors and nitrates
existing or formed in the atmosphere. To establish their presence, Bous-
singault arranged an apparatus which detected the production of some
nitrates. And, in exposing to the air 500 grams of calcined sand, which
had ten grams of oxalic acid mixed with it, in a glass vessel, with an open
surface equal to that of one of the flower-pots used in the above experiments,
the sand took 0°0013 grams of nitrogen from the air, of which a part was
certainly ammonia.

The object of the researches, of which a summary is given in the second
paper, was, to determine the quantity of nitrates contained, at a given

CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 289

moment, in one hectare of cultivated ground, one of meadow, one of the
forest soil, and in one metre of river or spring water. The quantity in the
soil was, of course, found to vary extremely with the extremes of wet or
dry weather. Garden soil, highly manured every autumn, contained, on
the 9th of August, 1856, after fourteen dry and warm days, 316°5 grams of
nitre in a cubic litre of soil. On the 29th of the month, after twenty rainy
days, the same quantity contained only 13 grams of nitre. The greater part
had been dissolved out of the superficial soil.

Some specimens of forest soil, in a state of nature, furnished no indica-
tion of nitrates; others gave 0°7 and 3°27 grams of nitre to the cubic meter.

The soil of meadows and pastures afforded from 1 to 11 grams of nitre
to the cubic metre. Nineteen specimens of good cultivated land gave,
four of them, none; others, from 0°8 to 1°33; the richer ones, from 10°4 to
14-4; and one fallow, of exceptional richness, as much as 108 grams of nitre
to the cubic metre. To the latter, much caleareous matter had been added.

The soil of a conservatory, from which the nitrates would not be washed
away by rains, contained 89, or 161, and some rather deep soil 185 grams of
nitre in the cubic metre.

The sources of the nitre are not difficult to understand when we reflect
that a manured soil, especially a calcareous one, is just in the condition of an
artificial nitre-bed. The ultimate result of the decomposition of ordinary
manure is a residuum of alkaline and earthy salts, phosphates, and nitrates;
the latter, with the ammonia, furnishing the assimilable nitrogen, all-essen-
tial to productive vegetation. In incorporating with the soil undecomposed
mauure, instead of the ultimate results of the decomposition, less loss is suf-
fered from prolonged rains washing out the formed nitrates.

The soluble matters washed out of the soil are to be sought in the water.
River and spring water, therefore, act as manure by the silex and alkali,
the organic matter, and the nitrates which they hold. The spring waters
poorest in nitre of those examined contained from 0°03 to 0°14 milligrams
of nitre to the tre; the richer ones from 11 to 14 grams in the cubic metre.

As to river water: the Vesle, in Champagne, held 11 grams, the Seine, at
Paris, 9 grams the cubic metre. These were the richest. The Seine, at
Paris, carries on to the sea, in times of low water, 58,000 kilograms, in
times of high water, 194,000 kilograms of nitre, every twenty-four hours.
What enormous amounts of nitre must be carried into the sea by the Mis-
sissippi, the Amazon, and by every great continental river; and how active,
beyond all ordinary conception, must the process of nitrification be over all
the land; and how vast the supply of assimilable nitrogen for the use of the
vegetation! — Stlliman’s Journal.

ON THE ABSORBENT POWER OF SOILS.

At a recent meeting of the London Chemical Society, a paper from Liebig
was read, on the absorbent powers of soils, in which he maintained that the
spongioles of plants, in obtaining their supply of saline matter, did not act
by simple absorption, but exerted a real decomposing action upon certain
ill-defined compounds which the saline matter formed with the insoluble
constituents of the soil.

ON THE COMPOSITION OF VARIOUS. PHOSPHATES OF LIME.
Atarecent meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, Dr. A. A.
Hayes made a communication, reporting progress in experiments elucidating

25

290 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

points in connection with the composition of the various phosphates of lime,
proceeding from changes during decay. He had stated in former communi-
cations, that the so-called bone phosphate of lime, of bones forming the
earthy part of the “ phosphatic guanos,” or the guanos of the rainy latitudes,
in presence of decaying organic matter, had lost one, two, or more equiva-
lents of the lime base—leaving a monobasic. phosphate. In subsequent
actions, this lime disappeared by solution, while the apparently more soluble
phosphate remained.

It was deemed important, at this stage of the investigation, to study the
changes which the bone phosphate had suffered in the midst of putrefying
matter, resulting in the production of Peruvian guano, where the conditions
are peculiar. Analyses of a number of samples, from the different localities,
have proved that in every case the lime of the bone phosphate has in part
become engaged with other acids; the oxalic acid being generally the most
powerful acid present; while the phosphoric acid disengaged, has united to
ammonia and other bases found in the mass. This change of composition
in the bone phosphate, under entirely different conditions of exposure, is
interesting, apart from the additional evidence it affords of a natural prowi-
mate decomposition of the tri-basic phosphate, without the presence of abundance
of water. In this new case, it is true, the phosphoric acid finds other bases
to combine with; while in those before reported it remains in larger propor-
tion with the lime and water only. It is generally believed that Peruvian
and similar guanos are alkaline in constitution, from the fact that carbonate
of ammonia is readily formed from them. Perfect samples are, however,
always in the acid state naturally, and a large part of the volatile matter
consists of salts of the volatile, oily acids and ammonia; carbonic acid being
rarely found, unless as part of calcareous matter, accidently present. This
fact establishes a resemblance which was unexpected, between the two dif-
ferent modes of decomposition of organic matter; one in presence of
abundance of water; the other, where mere moisture and decaying organic
remains are abundant.

Another course of experimenting has been pursued on this subject of bone
decomposition, which had been alluded to before, and the results have a
more general interest, as they affect physiological conclusions. Chemical
physiologists, with hardly an exception, consider the earthy part of bones
as composed of tribasic phosphate of lime, bi-basic phosphate of magnesia,
carbonate of lime, and fluoride of calcium; alkaline salts being occasionally
present. This mixture of earthy bodies, rarely definite, is subject to great
variations of proportions in disease, and it is so loosely connected with the
cartilage, that absorption and deposition take place, without derangement of
vital functions.

On looking over the evidence supporting this important conclusion, one is
surprised to find that it is all derived from two courses of analytical inquiry.

1st. Carefully cleansed and fresh bones are treated by means of dilute
acids, for the solution of the earthy salts, leaving the cartilage in nearly its
natural form. Carbonic acid is usually determined in this operation, and
the phosphoric acid and bases form the solution; the acids and bases are
then apportioned by calculation.

2d. Bones which have been washed, and reduced to coarse powder, are
heated with free contact of air, until the organic part of the cartilage is
destroyed; the remaining ash is then analyzed for acids and bases, and the
compounds calculated. ?

CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 291

If we carefully make the analytical experiments, on exactly the same
portion of fresh bone, by both these methods, we do not arrive at correspond-
ing results; and it will thus appear, that neither of these courses will bear
criticism. As this part of the subject will be presented to the Society in
connection with the evidence, it may be remarked now, that the kind of
information such results afford, is like that we obtain respecting the salts
existing in vegetable productions, when we analyze their ashes, instead of
confining our trials to the tissues and cell walls.

In the analyses of osseous tissue which have been made since my commu-
nication to the Society, the simple process of decomposition in water has
been continued in application. As before observed, the bones readily impart
their earthy part to this fluid, both before and after the cartilage becomes
changed, in the act of decomposing into simpler forms of matter. Thus
far, the results have accorded with those of earlier trials, showing that in
the osseous tissue, bi-basic phosphate of lime may exist, and that the pres-
ence of mono-basic phosphate is not inconsistent with a neutral condition in
the tissues. It remains to be proved that protein, as well as water, may act
as a constitutional element equivalent to a base, in connection with lime, to
form double phosphates; and we shall then have a simple and consistent
explanation of the fact of the existence of mono and bi-basic phosphates,
as now found in the secretions both healthy and morbid.

ON THE EVOLUTION OF AMMONTA FROM VOLCANOES.

Dr. Daubeny, in a recent communication to the London Geological Soci-
ety on the above subject, referred to the existence of a chemical compound
of titanium with nitrogen, known from the researches of Wohler and Rose;
and pointed out its bearing on one part of the theory of voleanoes — namely,
the evolution of ammonia, and the consequent presence of ammoniacal salts
amongst the products of their operations. He then commented on the hy-
potheses already suggested by Bischoff and Bunsen, to account for the vol-
eanic production of ammonia— viz., 1st, the decomposition of carbonaceous
or other organic substances; 2ndly, the conversion, by the hot lava overflow-
ing the herbage, of the nitrogenized matter present in the latter into ammo-
nia, and the combination of this with the muriatic acid in the lava, giving
rise to the sublimation of sal-ammoniac. To both of these hypotheses the
author pointed out serious objections. He had himself proposed to account
for the presence of ammonia in volcanic outbursts by assuming that the
gaseous hydrogen, although incapable of combining with nitrogen under
ordinary pressures, might unite with it under that exercised upon it in the
interior of the earth; and he still believes this idea to be worthy of consid-
eration, though, perhaps, it is impracticable to secure by experiment the
conditions necessary for the chemical union of these two gases. The affin-
ity, however, which certain metals possess for nitrogen, seems to afford more
solid grounds on which to build a theory respecting the production of am-
monia. Titanium has been found, by MM. Wohler and St. Claire Deville, to
absorb nitrogen from the air; and the union of heated titanic acid with ni-
trogen (forming a nitride of the metal) takes place, indeed, with so much
energy as to generate light and heat; and thus constitutes a genuine case of
combustion, in which nitrogen, and not oxygen, acts as the supporter. Al-
doneh titanium is evidently present to some extent in most volcanoes, the

uthor is not disposed to think that it abounds sufficiently to account for

292 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

the large quantities of sal-ammoniac that are known to occur; but, rather, he
argues by analogy that probably not only titanium, but other metals, such as
iron, and probably even hydrogen, may combine directly with nitrogen in the
interior of the globe, under conditions of great pressure, and other circum-
stances likely to modify the nature of those reactions which take place under
our eyes. In a postscript the author adverted to the recently discovered fact,
that boron, like titanium, has the property of combining directly with the
nitrogen of the air, and that the compound which it forms with it also pos-
sesses the property of evolving ammonia under the influence of the alkaline
hydrates.

ON THE CHEMISTRY OF THE PRIMEVAL EARTH.

The primitive rocks which filled so large a place in the geological systems
of the last century, are now being forgotten. We have learned that the old-
est visible portions of the earth’s crust are made up of sediments, the ruins
of still older rocks, which were as varied in their character as are their deriv-
atives. The primeval substratum has thus constantly receded before ad-
vancing science, and we are Jed to the conclusion that mechanical and chem-
ical conditions similar to those of the present epoch presided over the forma-
tion of the most ancient rocks known.

But although the materia prima of the sedimentary rocks has long since
been buried beneath its own ruins, its nature offers an interesting subject of
consideration to the chemical geologist. If we admit the igneous theory of
the earth, we may obtain a conception of the nature of the once liquid globe
and of its atmosphere, by supposing the now existing matters of the earth’s
crust and surrounding fluids to be made to react upon one another under the
influence of an intense heat. The quartz would decompose the carbonate of
lime with the production of silicate and the liberation of carbonic acid,
whose volume would be farther augmented by the combustion of all the
mineral carbon at the expense of the atmospheric oxygen. The reaction
between quartz and the chlorids of the sea, in the presence of aqueous vapor,
would result in the formation of silicates and hydrochloric acid, while the
sulphur would likewise be liberated as a volatile acid.

From these reactions there would result on the one hand a more or less
homogeneous mass of silicates of alumina and alkalies, with silicates of lime,
magnesia and iron, a mixture probably resembling dolerite, while the atmos-
phere would be made up of watery vapor, nitrogen, a probable excess of
oxygen, with carbonic, sulphuric and hydrochloric acids, representing all the
carbon, sulphur, and chlorine of the globe.

When the cooling of the globe had so far advanced as to allow of the pre-
cipitation of water from this dense atmosphere, it would descend as an acid
rain, which attacking, at an elevated temperature, the silicates, would give
rise to chlorids of calcium, magnesium and sodium, mingled with sulphates
of these bases. The liberated silica would probably separate during the
cooling of the heated waters in the form of quartz.

The subsequent decomposition of the exposed portion of the primeval
crust would result in the conversion of its feldspar into kaolin, and a soluble
alkaline silicate, which, decomposed by excess of carbonic acid, would be
carried to the sea as a bicarbonate; where, decomposing the lime salt, it
would give rise to chlorid of sodium and bicarbonate of limé, which would,
be partly precipitated in a crystalline form, and partly secreted by marine

CHEMICAL SCIENCE. 293

animals. The carbonates of lime and magnesia set free during the slow
decomposition of the primitive rock, would also go to augment the propor-
tion of carbonates in the ocean, and help to fix in mineral masses the car-
bonic acid of the atmosphere.

At length we reach the carboniferous period of the earth’s history, when a
luxuriant vegetation completed the work of purifying the atmosphere, by
transforming, as Brongniart long since suggested, the remaining excess of
carbonic acid into carbon and oxygen gas, thus preparing the air for the
support of warm-blooded animals.

By this hypothesis I think we get a clear conception of the generation
from a primeval homogeneous mass of the quartzose, argillaceous and calca-
reous materials which make up the bulk of the stratified rocks, and we obtain
at the same time a notion of the origin of the saline constituents of the sea.
—T, Sterry Hunt, Com. to Silliman’s Journal.

EFFECTS OF CARBURETTED HYDROGEN ON PLANTS.

The recent proceedings of the Philadelphia Academy contain a detailed
statement of the effects of carburetted hydrogen gas on a collection of exotic
plants, as experienced in an extensive greenhouse in Philadelphia, through
the breakage of the city “mains” and the consequent leakage of a large
quantity of gas. As a general result of the accumulation of gas, a collection
of plants, numbering near three thousand, was almost entirely ruined. The
plants not in leaf did not suffer, nor did a row of maple trees immedi-
ately over the leak; the injury sustained being entirely through their breath-
ing organs. The effect produced upon the plants is detailed at length, a
classified catalogue being given, with remarks upon each. In this list it
seems apparent that the general sympathy known to exist between the gen-
era of the same natural order extends to the action of this deleterious sub-
stance upon them. The beautiful Amantiacee were so keenly sensitive to the
poison that even large old specimens were stripped at once. The stage was
covered with the leaves, and oranges and lemons in all stages of growth,
from fruit just formed to that fully matured. The trees, by careful pruning
and nursing, were somewhat restored. Camellia were in the full glory of
bloom, about one hundred and twenty varieties. Not a leaf, bud, flower,
or woodbud remained upon the largest and finest plants; and at the slight-
est touch the leaves fell off in showers.

20*

GEOLOGY.

RECENT PROGRESS OF GEOLOGY.

Tue following is an abstract of an address given before the Geological
Section of the British Association, for 1858, at the opening session, by its
Chairman, Prof. W. Hopkins.

The existence of mammalian life, in its earlier stages, on the surface of
our planet, the condition of its existence, and the period of its introduction,
have always furnished questions of the highest philosophical as well as
palzontological interest. You will be aware that some geologists regard
each new discovery of mammalian remains, in formations preceding the
older tertiaries, as a fresh indication of the probable existence of mammalia
in those earlier periods in which no positive proof of their existence has yet
been obtained; while others regard such discoveries only as leading us to an
ultimate limit, which will hereafter define a period of the introduction of
mammalia on the surface of the earth, long posterior to that of the first in-
troduction of animal life. Be this as it may, every new discovery of the
former existence of this highest class of animals must be a matter of great
geological interest. An important discovery of this kind has recently been
made, principally by the persevering exertions of Mr. Beckles, who has de-
tected, in the Purbeck beds, a considerable number of the remains of small
mammals. The whole of them are, I believe, in the hands of Professor
Owen, for the determination of their generic and specific characters; but Dr.
Falconer seems already to have recognized among them seven or eioht dis-
tinct genera, some of them ——s and others probably placental, of the
insectivorous order.

The subject of the motion of glaciers is one of interest to geologists; for,
unless we understand the causes of such motion, it will be impossible for us
to assign to former glaciers their proper degree of efficiency in the transport
of erratic blocks, and to distinguish between the effects of glacial and of
floating ice, and those of powerful currents. An important step has recently
been made in this subject @y the application of a discovery made by Mr.
Faraday, a few years ago, that if one lump of ice be laid upon another, the
contiguous surfaces being sufficiently smooth to insure perfect contact, the
two pieces, in a short time, will become firmly frozen together into one con-
tinuous transparent mass, although the temperature of the atmosphere in
which they are placed be many degrees above the freezing temperature.
Dr. Tyndall has the merit of applying this fact to the explanation of certain
glacial phenomena. There are two recognized ways in which the motion of
a glaicer takes place; one by the sliding of the whole glacial mass over the
valley in which it exists; and the other by the whole mass changing its
form in consequence of the pressure and tension to which it is subjected.

GEOLOGY. 295

The former mode of progression is that recognized by the sliding theory;
the second is that recognized by what has been termed the viscous theory
of Professor Forbes. The viscous theory appeared to be generally recog-
nized. Still, to many persons, it seemed difficult to reconcile the property of
viscosity with the fragility and apparent inflexibility and inextensibility of
ice itself. On the other hand, if this property of viscosity, or something of
the kind, were denied, how could we account for the fact of different frag-
ments, into which a glacier is frequently broken, becoming again united into
one continuous mass? Dr. Tyndall has, I conceive, solved the difficulty.
Glacial ice, unlike a viscous mass, will bear very little extension. It breaks
and cracks suddenly; but the separate pieces, when subsequently squeezed
together again, become, by regelation (as it is termed), one continuous mass.
After some general remarks on the cause of the laminated structure of gla-
ciers, during which he remarked that there was no doubt Dr. Tyndall was
right in supposing the laminz of blue and white ice to be perpendicular to
the directions of maximum pressure, he said that it remained to be decided
whether the explanations which had been offered were correct; but the
actual perpendicularity of the laminz of ice to the directions of maximum
pressure within a glacier, and the probable perpendicularity to those direc-
tions of the laminz in rock masses of laminated structure, would seem to es-
tablish some relation between these structures in rocks and glacial ice, giving
an interest to this peculiar structure in the latter case, which it might not oth-
erwise appear to possess for one who should regard it merely as a geologist.

ON THE GENERAL AND GRADUAL DESICCATION OF THE EARTH
AND ATMOSPHERE.

At the Leeds meeting of the British Association, a paper, entitled as
above, was read by Mr. J. S. Wilson, in which the author drew attention to
the fact, that those who had travelled in continental lands, especially in and
near the tropics, had been forced to reflect on the changes of climate that
appeared to have occurred. There were parched and barren lands, dry river
channels and waterless lakes, and, not unfrequently, traces of ancient hu-
man habitations, where large populations had been supported, but where
all was now desolate, dry,and barren. After quoting largely from the works
of various travellers and writers (among the latest of whom was Dr. Liv-
ingston), and giving interesting descriptions of dried-up rivers and desolate
tracts of country in Australia, Africa, Mexico, and Peru, which had formerly
been inhabited by man, Mr. Wilson concluded that there was a gradual
solidifying of the aqueous vapors, and, consequently, of water, on the face of
this terrestrial world, which, he inferred, was approaching a state in which
it will be impossible for man to continue an inhabitant.

ON THE FORMATION OF CONTINUOUS TABULAR MASSES OF STONY
LAVA ON STEEP SLOPES.

The question whether lava can consolidate on a steep slope, so as to form
strata of stony and compact rock, inclined at angles of from 10° to more
than 30°, has of late years acquired considerable importance, because geolo-
gists of high authority have affirmed that lavas which congeal on a declivity
exceeding 5° or 6° are never continuous and solid, but are entirely composed
of scoriaceous and fragmentary materials. From the law thus supposed to
govern the consolidation of melted matter of volcanic origin, it has been

296 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

logically inferred that all great voleanic mountains owe their conical form
principally to upheaval, or to a force acting from below and exerting an
upward and outward pressure on beds originally horizontal or nearly horizon-
tal. For in all such mountains there are found to exist some stony layers
dipping at 10°, 15°, 25°, or even higher angles; and according to the assumed
Jaw, such an inclined position of the beds must have been acquired subse-
quently to their origin.

Sir Chas. Lyell, in a recent communication to the Royal Society, after giv-
ing a brief sketch of the controversy respecting ‘‘ Craters of Elevation,”
describes the result of arecent visit to Mount Etna, in company with Signor
Gemmellaro, and his discovery there of modern lavas, some of known date,
which have formed continuous beds of compact stone on slopes of 15°, 36°,
38°, and, in the case of the lava of 1852, more than 40°. The thickness of

hese tabular layers varies from 1+ feet to 26 feet; and their plains of strat-
ification are parallel to those of the overlying and underlying scoriz which
form part of the same currents. ¢

An attempt is then made to estimate the proportional amount of inclina-
tion which may be due to upheaval in those parts of the central nucleus of
Etna where the dip is too great to be ascribed exclusively to the original
steepness of the flanks of the cone. The highest dip seen by the author
was in the rock of Musarra, where some of the strata, consisting of scoriz
with a few intercalated lavas, are inclined at 47°. Some masses of agglom-
erate and beds of lava in the Serra del Solfizio were also seen inclined at
angles exceeding 40°. Some of these instances are believed to be exception-
able, and due to local disturbances; others may have an intimate connection
with the abundance of fissures, often of great width, filled with lava, for such
dikes are much more frequent near the original centres of eruption than at
points remote from them. The injection of so much liquid matter into
countless rents may imply the gradual tumefaction and distention of the vol-
canic mass, and may have been attended by the tilting of the beds, causing
them to slope away at steeper angles than before, from the axis of eruption.
But instead of ascribing to this mechanical force, as many have done, nearly
all, or about four-fifths of the whole dip, Sir C. Lyell considers that about
one-fifth may, with more probability, be assigned as the effect of such move-
ments.

From various data, discussed at length in the memoir, Sir C. Lyell con-
cludes, first, that a very high antiquity must be assigned to the successive
eruptions of Etna, each phase of its volcanic energy, as well as the excava-
tions of the Val del Bove, having occupied a lapse of ages, compared to
which the historical period is brief and insignificant; and secondly, that the
crowth of the whole mountain must nevertheless be referred, geologically,
to the more modern part of the latest Tertiary epoch.

ILLUSTRATIONS OF SURFACE GEOLOGY.

In a memoir, under the above title, communicated to the 9th volume of
the Smithsonian contributions to knowledge, by Pres. Hitchcock, the author
presents the results of a large amount of personal examination, made mainly
in New England, though to some extent also in other countries. The heights
and positions of numerous terraces along the Connecticut valley and some of
its tributaries, and some on the Merrimack river, are given in the text, and
the plates contain illustrations both by sections and neat maps. The great

GEOLOGY. 297

subject of terraces—-a phenomenon that characterizes the whole breadth of
the continent (except perhaps at the south), and therefore one of the grand-
est in the science-—is approached in the right method, and an important
step is taken towards solving the great problem. ' It is impossible in a brief
notice to give a satisfactory review of the facts brought out in this long and
valuable paper. We mention afew of the deductions.

1. True unstratified drift never covers the terraces; it is covered by the
terrace material, and is therefore of older date.

2. The successive “ beaches’’ and “‘ terraces’? are made out of the drift ma-
terial, with few exceptions, all by essentially similar operations.

3. The river valleys were. excavated before the terrace epoch, for in the
rocky gorges, as at Bellows Falls, drift scratches are found, near the present
water level; these gorges, therefore, were not closed at that time by rocky
barriers.

4. The highest distinct river-terraces noticed by the author in this country
are as follows: at Bellows Falls, on the Connecticut, 226 feet above the river ;
on the Deerfield, 236 feet; on Genesee river (New York State) at Mount
Morris, 348 feet. Above these heights, there are other levels designated
beaches, and the most distinct of these are stated to be from 800 to 1200 feet
high; while others, less distinct, are mentioned as found at 1200 to 2600 feet
in the White Mountains and elsewhere.

5. The number of terraces is usually larger, and the height greater, on the
small than on large streams; there are seldom over three or four on the Con-
necticut; while on some of its tributaries, there are sometimes as many as
ten.

6. The terraces on the opposite sides of the same stream very often do not
correspond in elevation.

7. The terraces, in general, slope with the stream. They are usually
somewhat the highest about a gorge, as if the gorge had occasioned a higher
level to the river floods, and therefore more elevated depositions. They
show by the stratification that they are the result of water-action; though
stranded ice, it is urged, may have aided in making the variety of terrace
called moraine-terrace.

8. The beaches also must have been produced by water, and this water
must have been the ocean. “Hence, I feel sure,’ says the author, ‘from
the facts which I have stated, that over the northern parts of this country,
this body of water must have stood at least 2000 feet above the present sea-
level; and I might safely put it at 2500 feet; for up to that height I have
found drift modified by water.”

9. As a consequence of these conclusions, it is argued that the drift period
was a period of submergence for the larger part of the continent, and per-
haps nearly the whole, and since that period, the ocean has stood 2000 feet
deep over New England.

10. The formation of the succession of beaches might have taken place by
a gradual elevation and drainage of the continent, without pauses in the
movement of elevation; yet it is possible that some such pauses may have
taken place. Still, the author argues against the probability of such pauses,
and finally against the possibility of pauses for river terraces in general, on
the ground mainly of their unequal heights on opposite sides of the streams.

11. As regards North America, ““we may as yet safely say, that there is
no evidence of the existence of life in the seas that covered it during the period

298 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

of unmodified drift; and indeed we might say the same of a considerable
part of the period of the modified drift and alluvium.”

12. Glaciers probably existed on the mountain summits that stood above
the waters, as facts appear to show.

13. The apparent elevation of the continent may have been a consequence
of an actual sinking of the bed of the ocean, drawing away the waters from
the land.

14. The drift scratches, and transportations of stone, gravel, etc., were pro-
duced mainly by icebergs during a period of continental submergence.

THE GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF LAKES, CATARACTS, AND
NAVIGABLE RIVERS. BY DANIEL VAUGHAN.

Though lakes are very numerous in the Eastern States and in British
America, they are almost entirely absent from the part of our continent
included between the Atlantic Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, and between
the thirty-first and thirty-second parallels of north latitute. This region
contains over a million and a half of square miles; and the territory of
Brazil, which is about double the extent, exhibits, in like manner, an
absence of any large collections of fresh water. But both these regions are
distinguished for their smooth streams and navigable rivers, which are un-
equalled in the advantages they afford for inland communication. France
contains no lakes and no waterfalls of any magnitude, but its rivers are well
suited for navigation; while, in Sweden and the State of Maine, lakes are
numerous, and the rivers are so much interrupted by cataracts that they
cannot be navigated to any considerable extent, even by the smallest |
vessels.

The fact that rivers are most free from cataracts and best suited for navi-
gation, in regions where there are no lakes, is an evidence that running
waters take a considerable part in forming channels for themselves. After
one or two thousand centuries, most of the cataracts of Sweden, of Maine,
and of British America, will be obliterated; their lakes will be drained or
silted up, and their rivers, being cleared of impediments, will be well adapted
to the purposes of navigation. Such changes have been produced in other
lands during geological times. On several of the rivers of France and Spain,
geologists have discovered the sites of ancient lakes, which have long since
disappeared by aqueous action. It would seem also that, in former times,
the Alleghany mountains enclosed many sheets of fresh water, similar to
those found in the Alpine valleys, or between the Scandinavian mountains.
Could we fill up ali the channels of erosion, and deep ravines through which
rivers flow, their waters should cover a large part of the land; and we may,
therefore, infer, that lakes and cascades must have diversified the scenery of
all regions, at some period of their geological history.

We may, therefore, regard the presence of numerous lakes and cataracts
as an indication that the regions where they occur have been only recently
elevated, and that they have not been long free from the effects of subterra-
nean violence; while smooth streams and navigable rivers are an evidence
of the great age of the lands where they are found, and show that they have
been long released from the dominion of the waves

GEOLOGY. 299

ON THE GEOLOGY OF HAYTI.

At a recent meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, Dr. D. F.
Wineland read a paper on some points of the geology of Hayti, the result of
personal examinations.

The northern shore of the south-western neck of Hayti is mostly an iron-
bound coast. There are but few small sandy bays, which serve as landing-
places for the fishing-boats, and near them are generally found huts of fish-
ermen, or a small village.

The rock which bounds all the rest of the coast is a hard, brittle limestone,
formed very generally of a conglomeration of madrepores and other corals,
as Astreee, Meandrine, Millepore, etc., and of various kinds of shells,
cemented with a mass of smaller and formless lime particles, the powdered
particles of the same corals and shells. This rock is full of pores and
roundish cavities, with sharp edges, perhaps the places where softer shells
or fragments of coral have been washed out by the erosion or attrition of
the water, or knocked out by corals, thrown up in the stormy winter season
of the furious north wind. The species of corals and shells which enter into
the composition of this rock, I found nearly all alive in the adjoining sea.
Some of them, however, have disappeared from among the living; others
are dying out, and are now very rarely found, though common in the earlier
portions of the present period; for they exist in great quantities in the rock
at the depth of a few feet. Such animal remains enclosed in rock, yet
belonging to species now living, or to species now extinct, but which lived
in the earlier ages of this period, together with species now living, we are
accustomed to call modern fossils. They are the more interesting because
they show how, without any remarkable revolution of our globe, certain
species of animals gradually die out.

The same rock, composed of modern fossils and their detritus, I found in
the interior mountain regions of the island, about thirty miles from the sea-
shore, and at a height, as I should judge, of at least one thousand feet above
the present level of the sea. Indeed, the whole first, that is, northernmost,
ridge of mountains which runs along that northern sea-shore of Hayti, from
east to west, is crowned with large layers or broken masses of this same
kind of rock, which being, as stated above, a formation of the present geo-
logical period, goes far to show that this whole ridge has been raised in this
present period. Thus the existence of the greater part, and the configura-
tion of the whole of the southwestern neck of the island of Hayti, is of com-
paratively recent origin.

Two questions at once suggest themselves here, whether the formation of the
same rock, and whether the elevation of the land, are going on at the present time.
That the former, the formation of the limestone rock, is really in progress
at the present day, seems to be evident in some places, where the whole bot-
tom of the sea near the shore, at a depth of from one to five and six feet
below low-water mark, is, as it were, a flat pavement of the same kind of
rock. Crust-building corals, as Porites, Mzandrinas, Siderastreeas, etc., live
upon it, and in the interstices of these are thrown up from below dead
shells, broken Millepores, Madrepores, and Astreans. By the powerful
action of the waves on the shallow bottom, these remains are broken and
ground upon each other, and their form is lost.

The lime powder which results from this pulverizing action furnishes the
cement which fills the shells and unites the pieces into one solid mass,

300 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

Maconnerie bon Dieu (God’s Masonry), as the negroes of the French colonies
call it. In consideration of these facts, the first part of our question may be
answered. in the affirmative.

But whether the whole coast is constantly and gradually rising (as we
know is the case with the coast of Sweden), or whether those different layers
of that submarine pavement have been threwn up at various periods, by
sudden volcanic agencies, I am at a loss to decide, from my own observa- _
tions. I will only state, that the layers which lie now just above low-water
mark, are (for instance, in some places in the neighborhood of Jeremie)
quite undisturbed banks, running in a plain parallel to the level of the sea.
This seems rather to favor the idea of a gradual rising than of a sudden up-
heaving, and the latter would be more likely to fracture the layers and to
change their original horizontal position into an angle towards the horizon.

I conclude, from the information afforded me, that this limestone forma-
tion must extend over the whole northern part of Hayti, from its western
cape (Tibouron) to the neighborhood of Port-au-Prince. Further, the rocky
part of the sea-shore of Barbadoes, Maria Gallante, of Grand-terre in Guada-
loupe, of Antigua, St. Bartholome, St. Martin, Arguilla, and Santa Cruz,
seems to be of the same composition and age.

The great respiration of the ocean, the ebbing and flowing of the tide,
hardly touches that coast.. Neither the native fishermen along the coast,
nor the American captains in the harbor, speak of high and low water there.
The great tide wave is not only broken by the wall of islands in front of the
Mexican Gulf, but, perhaps, is even neutralized by a continual current, which
runs from east to west all along the northern shore of Hayti.

All the motion of the sea on that shore depends upon the wind. Its agen-
cies are twofold; first, the daily change of sea and land wind, the former begin-
ning to blow in the morning about eight o’clock, the latter in the even-
ing, between six and nine. The latter is much more constant, and being
also more powerful, it depresses, every evening, the level of the sea all
along the coast, from one to two feet. But there is, secondly, another, a
yearly change of the winds, viz.: a prevailing northerly wind in winter, partic-
ularly in December, January, and February, and a prevailing southerly wind
insummer. This great change produces this effect, that, in the season of
the North, as they call it there, the level of the sea is constantly, on the
average, eight feet higher than in the summer.

How much this change bears, also, upon the organic life of the sea-coast,
is evident. I will only state, that, during the last of May and the first of
June, in one place not larger than an acre, more than a hundred Actinex
and Holothuriz died, because left upon dry land; not to speak of the thou-
sands of other animals, fishes, echini, etc., and of sea-plants, which died in
those natural basins near the sea, where the water, cut off from the refreshing
ocean, was overheated by the nearly perpendicular rays of the tropical sun.

>

CLASSIFICATION OF THE METAMORPHIC STRATA OF THE ATLANTIC
SLOPE OF THE MIDDLE AND SOUTHERN STATES. BY PROF. H. D.
ROGERS.

The following is a concise sketch of the Geological composition of the
Atlantic Slope of the Middle and Southern States, derived chiefly from a
study of the formations of this portion of Pennsylvania.

4s

GEOLOGY. 301

Discarding from our present survey the newer deposits of the region, or
those long, narrow, superficial troughs of unconformably overlying red and
gray shales and sandstones of mesozoic, or middle secondary age, which
partially cover the older or crystalline, and semi-crystalline strata, and
restricting our attention to these, we shall find that, when carefully studied,
they rank themselves, so far as they admit of subdivision at all, into three
natural physical groups. All the sedimentary mineral masses, without
exception, are in a condition, more or less, of metamorphism or transforma-
tion from the earthy to the crystalline state by heat, and therefore, using the
term in a critical sense, all of them are Metamorphic Rocks. In the more
current conventional application of this word, only some of them, however,
pertain to the usually recognized Metamorphic or Gneissic series; others
belong unequivocally to the Paleozoic, or ancient life-representing system,
while others again constitute an extensive, intermediate group, not typically
gneissic or granitoid in their degree of crystalline structure or metamorphism
on the one hand, nor yet fossiliferous on the other, at least so far as the
closest scrutiny can discover. For a long while, indeed, from the commence-
ment of geological researches in this district of the Atlantic slope, until the
geological surveys of Pennsylvania and Virginia had unravelled the com-
position and structure of the region, all of these ancient, and more or less
altered strata of the Atlantic slope, from its summit in the Blue Ridge and
South Mountain, to its base at the margin of tide water, were regarded and
designated alike as primary rocks, and were supposed to constitute but one
group, and that the oldest known to geologists. Early, however, in the
course of those surveys, it came to light that by far the larger portion of the
rocky masses of at least the middle and northwestern tracts of the Atlantic
slope, including much of the Blue Ridge and of the Green Mountains, was
of a different type and age from the oldest metamorphic, or true gneissic
system. The evidence in support of this conclusion was, first, an obvious
and very general difference in the composition of the two sets of strata;
secondly, a marked difference in their conditions of metamorphism, and
thirdly and more especially, a striking contrast in their directions and man-
ner of uplift, the plications and undulations of the less metamorphic series,
dipping almost invariably southeastward, while the gneiss presents in many
localities, no symmetrical foldings, but only a broad outcrop, dipping to a
different quarter. These structural dissimilitudes imply essential differences
in the direction and date of the crust movements, lifting and transforming
the respective groups, and led the geologists of Pennsylvania and Virginia
to a conviction, that over at least many tracts, a physical unconformity, both
in stripe and dip, would be yet discovered. It was not, however, till a
relatively late date in the prosecution of the geological survey of Pennsyl-
vania, that the geologists of that state detected there positive evidences of
this physical break, and interval in time between the two groups of strata,
and established by ocular proof the correctness of the previous induction.
This unconformity, reflecting so much light on the whole geology of the
Atlantic slope, was first clearly discerned in tracing the common boundary
of the two formations from the Schuylkill to the Brandywine, and the Sus-
quehanna; but it was quickly afterwards recognized on the borders of the
gneissic district, north of the Chester County limestone valley, and again,
soon after, in the Lehigh Hills at their intersection with the Delaware.

Prior to the suspension of the geological survey from 1843 to 1851, the
true Paleozic Age of the non-fossiliferous crystalline marbles and semi-

26

302 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

crystalline talcoid slates, and vitreous sandstones of the Chester and Mont-
gomery Valley, had been clearly demonstrated by the State geologist,
through a comparison of the strata with their corresponding formations in
a less altered condition further north; but it was not until the resumption of
field research, upon the revival of the survey in 1851, that any distinctive
fossils were detected in these greatly changed rocks, which even in their
original state seem to have been almost destitute of their usual organic
remains.

Assembling all the evidence which we now possess, we have in the Atlan-
tic slope by actual demonstration but one physical break or horizon of
unconformity throughout the whole immense succession of altered crystal-
line, sedimentary stratra, and within this region but one paleontological
horizon, that, namely, of the already-discovered dawn of life among the
American strata. This latter plane or limit, marking the transition from
the non-fossiliferous or azoic deposits to those containing organic remains,
lies within the middle of the primal series or group of the Pennsylvania
Survey, that is to say,in the Primal White Sandstone, which even where
very vitreous, and abounding in crystalline mineral segregations, contains
its distinctive fossil, the Scolithus linearis. The primal slates beneath the
sandstone, and in immediate alternation with it, possess not a vestige of
organic life, nor has any such been discovered anywhere within the limits of
the Atlantic slope, or on the northern or western borders of the great Appa-
lachian basin of North America, either in this lower primal state, or in the
other semi-metamorphic grits and schists physically conformable with it,
and into which the true Paleozoia sequence of our formations physically
extends downward. We have thus, then, two main horizons, subdividing
the more or less metamorphic strata of the Atlantic slope into three systems
or groups; the one, a physical break or interruption in the original deposi-
tion of the masses; the other, a life-limit or plane, denoting the first advent,
so far as is yet discovered, of organic beings. As these two planes are not
coincident, but include between them a thick group of sedimentary rocks,
separated from the lower physically, from the upper ontologically, we are
fully authorized, in the existing state of research, to employ a classification,
which recognizes a threefold division of all these lower rocks. To the most
ancient or lowest group, it is proposed to continue the name of gneiss, pre-
ferring, however, to call this division generically the GNEISSIC SERIES,
employing sometimes the technical synonyme Hypozoic, proposed by Pro-
fessor John Phillips, for these lowest of the metamorphic strata. To the
great middle group, less crystalline than the gneissic, and yet destitute of
fossils, the descriptive terms semi-metamorphic or Azoic are applicable.
And to the third uppermost system, or entire succession of the American
Appalachian strata from the primal, containing the earliest traces of life, to
the latest true coral rocks, or last deposits of the Appalachian sea, it is here
proposed to affix, as for many years past, the well-chosen title, conferred
on corresponding formations in Europe, of the Paleozoic, or ancient life-
entombing system or series. Thus we have the Hypozoic rocks, or those
underneath any life-bearing strata; Azoic, or those destitute of any discovered
relics of life; and Paleozoic, or those entombing the remains of the earth’s
most ancient extinct forms of once living beings.

The Atlantic slope of Pennsylvania includes all these three systems of
strata. Where the azoic strata display their maximum amount of crystalline
structure or metamorphism, they often simulate the true ancient hypozoic

GEOLOGY. 303

or eneissic rocks so closely, and they are indeed so identical with them in
mineral aspect and structure, that the observer is baffled in his attempts to
distinguish the two groups lithologically ; nevertheless, it clearly appears, as
the sections illustrating this country prove, that they are distinct systems,
occupying separate zones, susceptible of independent definition on the
geological map.

At the time of the first construction of the general geological map of the
State, the true limits separating the hypozoic or gneissic from the azoic or
semi-metamorphic rocks were but vaguely understood, and the State geolo-
gist did not venture to define them on the map, but shaded the one system
into the other, indicating, however, what he has since proved, that the true
eneissic rocks, in their southwestward course, pass out of the State at the
Susquehanna, only a short distance north of its southern boundary, while
the azoic, or talco-micaceous group, as a genuine, downward extension of
the primal, paleozic series, widens progressively going westward, until, from
a very narrow outcrop at the River Schuylkill, it occupies at the Susquehanna
the whole broad zone south of the limestone valleys of the Conestoga and
Codorus streams in Lancaster and York counties. Since the revival of the
field work of the survey, the dividing limit of these two sets of metamorphic
strata has been traced and mapped with precision. To the southwest of the
Susquehanna it has never, it is believed, been pursued through Maryland
and the other southern States, though one may readily discern it in going
northward or westward from Baltimore, or ascending the Atlantic slope in
Virginia. In Maryland it crosses the Baltimore and Susquehanna Railroad
about twelve miles north of Baltimore, and it is intersected by the Baltimore
and Ohio Railroad a little east of Sykesville; it crosses the Potomac above
Georgetown, and the James River in Virginia, west of Richmond. The line
of boundary is, however, not a simple one, but is intricately looped, in con-
sequence of numerous nearly parallel anticiinal foldings of the strata, send-
ing promontories or fingers of the older rocks, within the area of the newer
or semi-metamorphic, to the west of their average boundary, and causing,
of course, corresponding troughs, or synclinal folds of the newer, to enter
eastward of the average boundary, the general area of the older. The
Atlantic slope has received hitherto so little exact geological study, that we
are, as yet, without the data for determining with any precision, either the
succession of its much broken and closely-plicated strata, or the geographi-
cal limits which separate even the larger sub-groups. It is sufficient, how-
ever, for our present purpose, to show the existence and the approximate
range of two great metamorphic systems, separated by a physical break;
and the conformable relations of the later or upper of these to well-known
lower paleozoic formations of the Appalachian chain.

ON THE GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE OF THE APPALACHIAN CHAIN
IN WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS.

At arecent meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, Mr. C. H.
Hitchcock exhibited a diagram of a geological section from Greenfield to
Charlemont, Mass., and gave the following explanation of it:

This section was measured in October, 1857. The design of it is to show
the amount of erosion since the strata were brought into their present
position.

I will enumerate the rocks in order, going from east to west, beginning at

894 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY

Greenfield. At Greenfield we find the Connecticut River Sandstone dipping
forty degrees east. Leaving the valley we strike the Calcareomica-slate in
Shelburne, having a dip of sixty-seven degrees east. This rock consists of
micaceous slates and schists interstratified with bluish-gray silicious lime-
stone. The dip gradually increases to thirty-eight degrees east at two anda
third miles from the commencement of the rock; when, upon East Mountain,
we find a beautiful mica-slate which cleaves into large tables, and is gen-
erally destitute of limestone. The dip of this is forty degrees east, and it
extends one and one-third miles. Then, just below the top of East Moun-
tain, upon the west side, there is about fifty feet thickness of hornblende
slate, of which the dip is twenty-eight degrees east. Passing into the valley
of the Deerfield River, gneiss is found, becoming gradually nearly horizontal.
Between this rock and the hornblende slate above, it is hard to draw the
line. Most of the gneiss has hornblendic layers interstratified with it
sparingly; but at the top of the gneiss the hornblende predominates; the
rock being in some places nothing but a heavy, unctuous, shining mass of
hornblende crystals. West of Shelburne Falls the gneiss begins to dip to
the west. The extent of the gneiss is four and one-third miles, mostly in a
deep valley.

At East Charlemont the hornblende slate is found above the gneiss, cor-
responding in character and thickness to the same rock in Shelburne. Then
follows the beautiful mica-slate, sparingly interstratified with limestone, and
lastly the caleareomica-slate, corresponding to the rock at the east end of
the section. Here, at the end of the section in Charlemont centre, the strata
are perpendicular, running north and south, and stand side by side with
talcose slate.

The Deerfield River makes a bend just above Shelburne Falls, so that the
section crosses the river twice, and continues for two or three miles further
in the valley. Had asection been measured across the river at Shelburne
Falls village at right angles to the stream, it would have exhibited a moun-
tain, west of the river, possessing all the characters of East Mountain ina
reverse order. Thus we find an anticlinal axis, with the same strata upon
the opposite sides of the ridge at their proper distances. The inference is
that the strata were once continuous, and that the material has been denuded.
A measurement upon the protracted section gives 3,350 feet, or three-fifths
of a mile, as the height above the present level of the former strata. This
is taken from the lowest level upon the section. As we go east or west from
this central point, the surface rises; consequently the thickness of the
denuded strata constantly diminishes in these directions. The denuded sur-
face is eleven miles wide.

From the bend in Deerfield River above Shelburne Falls the stream con-
tinues westward in a deep valley for twenty miles, to Hoosac mountain,
before turning northwards. This valley has probably been excavated in like
manner; but no exact measurement can be made of the amount of erosion,
because the river crosses perpendicular strata. A line drawn from the sum-
mits on either side of the valley to each other would give large results; but
they would not be equal to the truth.

Let us now look at the first described erosion in another light. The gneiss
rock at the bottom is exposed over an oval area about three miles by two.
If ten observers should start from the centre of the oval, and travel in as
many different radiating directions, they would all see the same succession
of rocks, and in the same order. The dip is quaquaversal, gradually return-

GEOLOGY, 305

ing to an anticlinal axis at a few miles distance north and south. Hence
there has been a cap denuded, three-fifths of a mile thick. Doubtless, all
along this anticlinal axis, wherever the upper rocks have been removed, the
eneiss beneath will be discovered. It corresponds to the gneiss and horn-
blende slate of eastern Hampshire and western Worcester counties, and
would seem thus to lie below the Metamorphosed Silurian rocks. — If so, it
should be included among the Hypozoic rocks.

Sections similar to the foregoing have been measured and described by
English geologists. Not being aware of any similar work in our own coun-
try, I have described this section in hope of drawing attention to the subject,
and thus insure descriptions of sections far more grand and interesting. I
can vouch, on the part of the Vermont survey, for a careful attention to this
subject.

ORIGIN OF SLATY CLEAVAGE.

The view of Mr. Sharpe, presented to the Geological Society of London in
1487, that slaty cleavage is owing simply to pressure, and is at right angles
to the line of force, has been established by various facts brought forward
by Mr. J. Tyndall. (Phil. Mag. [4] xii. 35.) He shows that a fine clay, or
almost any impalpable material, when subjected to pressure and at the same
time allowed to spread laterally, takes a laminated structure. White lead,
wax, and even cheese, are among the substances which have afforded him
evidence on this point. He attributes the effect to the small inequalities
which exist in the texture of substances of all kinds. Under pressure the
mass yields and spreads out, and the little nodules become converted into
laminz, separated from each other by surfaces of weak cohesion, and thus
the mass becomes cleavable. The air cavities or fissures also spread out
thin under the pressure, and aid in pro:lucing the cleavage: for even dried
pipeclay shows such cavities in great numbers, many too small to be seen
without a magnifier.

Mr. H. C. Sorby had before attributed the cleavage to the effect of such
lateral pressure on all the grains or pebbies in the rock; the force making the
particles, whether of mica or any stones, to place their larger diameters in
the plane at right angles to the direction of the pressure, that is, in the plane
of cleavage. He had appealed to facts in the slates of Wales, showing that
where mica scales were present, they had this position. This cause may
contribute to produce lamination, though not appearing to be necessary to
the result.

In the Philosophical Magazine for December last, Rev. S. Haughton gives
the results of some calculations to ascertain the amount of the pressure
which was exerted in cases of the production of slaty cleavage, using as
data the degree of distortion or compression of fossils. — Silliman’s Journal.

ON LAMINATION AND CLEAVAGE OCCASIONED BY THE MUTUAL
POSITION OF THE PARTICLES OF ROCKS WHILE IN IRREGULAR
MOTION.

Mr. 8. P. Scrope, in a recent communication to the London Geological
Society, on the above subject, referred to a former paper read by him before
the Society in April, 1856, in which this topic was touched upon, and pro-
- posed to carry on the inquiry as to the probable effect, upon the internal
structure of rocks, of the mutual friction of their component parts when

26*

306 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

forced into motion under extreme and irregular pressures. He commenced
by examining the laws that determine the internal motions of substances
possessing a more or less imperfect liquidity, whether homogeneous, or con-
sisting of solid particles suspended in, or mixed with, or lubricated by, any
liquid, under unequal pressures; and showed that unequal rates of motion
must result in the different parts of the substance, and that in the latter case,
there will be more or less separation of the solid and coarser from the finer -
and liquid particles into different zones or layers; those composed of the
former moving less readily than those composed of the latter; and also that
the former will, by the friction attending this process, be turned round so as
to bring their major axes into the line of direction of the movements; and,
if susceptible of tension or disintegration, will be elongated or drawn out in
the same direction. In illustration of this law, specimens of marbled paper
were produced, being impressions from superficial films of colored matter
floating upon water in circular or irregular forms, after they had been sub-
jected to motion in one or more directions by lateral pressure, the appear-
ances produced bearing a very exact resemblance to those presented by the
lamination and occasionally sinuous or contorted structure of the ribboned
lavas of Ponza, Ischia, the Ascension Isles, etc., as well as that of the gneiss
and mica-schist. The author proceeded to state that the expansion of a sub-
terranean mass of granite by increase of temperature, to which all geologists
agree in ascribing the elevation of overlying rocks, must be accompanied by
great internal movements, and consequent mutual friction among the com-
ponent parts, and even among the individual crystals; that, if a lubricating
ingredient, such as water holding silex in solution, or gelatinous silex, be
intimately mixed up with the more solid crystals (as there is great reason to
believe to have been the case in granite), the friction will be lessened,
especially in the central or inferior parts of the mass, where the expand-
ing movement, or intumescence, may be supposed nearly uniform in all
directions. But in the lateral and higher portions directly exposed to the
resistance and pressure of the overlying rocks, shouldered off on either side
by the expanding granitic axis, the movement will probably have been so
predominant and extreme in a direction at right angles, or nearly so, to the
pressure, as to give rise to a lameller arrangement of the solid crystals, in
the manner before indicated. In this manner, he supposes the foliation or
lamination of gneiss and mica-schist to have been produced through the
“squeeze and jam” of the lateral and superficial portions of a granitic mass
expanding by increase of temperature, and the giving way of the overlying
rocks, those portions being forced to move in the direction of the lamination
while subject to intense pressure at right angles, or nearly so, to that direc-
tion. The author argues that it is not inconsistent with this view to suppose
that a certain amount of recrystallization may have accompanied or followed
this lameller arrangement, in which case also the major axes of the crystals
would be likely to take a direction perpendicular to the pressure, since the
mobility necessary to the crystallific action would be freer in that, than
in any other direction. He likewise points out that the influence of internal
friction accompanying motion under extreme and irregular pressures, must
have been equally operative in the case of aqueous as of igneous rocks, under
similar circumstances of imperfect liquidity, and irrespective of changes of
temperature. And he suggests that to this cause may be attributable the
internal structure of some veined marbles, calcareous breccias, serpentines,
etc., as well as the cleavage of the slaty rocks; as, indeed, the experiments

GEOLOGY. 307

of Mr. Sorby and of Professor Tyndall have already indicated. He con-
cludes by suggesting to all geologists engaged in the examination of rocks,
the above mechanical considerations, as likely to lead to more definite views
than at present prevail as to the origin of the metamorphic schists, and the
internal structure of many of the older and more disturbed rocks of all
characters. ‘

ON A GRADUAL ELEVATION OF THE COAST OF SICILY.

At a recent meeting of the London Geological Society, Sir Charles Lyell
read a paper from Signor Gemmellaro, ‘‘ On the gradual elevation of a part
of the.Coast of Sicily, from the mouth of the Simeto to the Onobola,” in
which the author described in detail the physical evidences observed by him
along a great part of the eastern coast of Sicily, which prove: 1st. That
from the shores of the Simeto to the Onobola, undeniable characters of the
former levels of the sea, in the recent period, are traceable from place to
place. 2ndly. That great blocks of lava, with blunted angles, and rolled and
corroded on the surface, a calcareo-siliceous shelly deposit, and a marine
breccia, which are seen at different heights above the present sea-level, are
the effects of the continued and daily action of the waves of the sea at suc-
cessive levels. 3rdly. That the existence and disposition of the holes of the
Modiola lithophaga (Lamarck), in the calcareo-siliceous shelly deposit, and
the local presence of shells, both Gasteropods and lamellibranchiates, in
their normal positions, support the view of a slow and gradual elevation of
the coast. 4thly and lastly. That the lithodomous molluscs and the cale-
siliceous deposit being found on the Cyclopean Islands (Faraglioni) up to the
height of almost thirteen metres, and large rolled blocks of lava, invested
with Serpule, being also found there to the height of fourteen metres, a mean
height of thirteen metres and five decim. is established, as the greatest ex-
tent of the now undeniable gradual elevation of this portion of the coast of
Sicily during the present period.

ON THE GEOLOGICAL CAUSES THAT HAVE INFLUENCED THE SCE-
NERY OF CANADA AND THE NORTH-EASTERN PROVINCES OF THE
UNITED STATES.

The following is a resumé of a paper recently read before the Royal Insti-
tution, London, by Prof. Ramsay, on the above subject: ,

The island of Belleisle, and the Laurentine chain of mountains between the
shores of Labrador and Lake Superior, consist of gneissic rocks, older than
the Huronian formation of Sir William Logan. This gneiss is probably the
equivalent of the oldest gneiss of the Scandinavian chain, and of the north-
west of Scotland, underlying that conglomerate, which, according to Sir
Roderick Murchison, in Scotland represents the Cambrian strata of Long-
mynd and of Wales. The mountains of the Laurentine chain present those
rounded contours that evince great glacial abrasion; and among the forests
‘north of the Ottowa the mammillated surfaces were observed by the speaker
to be often grooved and striated, the striations running from north to south.
The whole country has been moulded by ice. Above the metamorphic
rocks, in the plains of Canada and the United States, south of ‘the St. Law-
rence, and around Lake Ontario, and Lake Erie, the Silurian and Devonian
strata lie nearly horizontally, but slightly inclined to the south. Consisting

308 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

of alternations of limestone and softer strata, the rocks have been worn by
denudation into a succession of terraces, the chief of these forming a great
escarpment, part of which, by the river Niagara, overlooks Queenstown and
Lewiston, and, capped by the Niagara limestone, extends from the neigh-
borhood of the Hudson to Lake Huron. Divided by this escarpment, the
plains of Canada bordering the lakes, and part of the United States, thus
consist of two great plateaus, in the lower of which lies Lake Ontario, Lake
Irie lying in a slight depression in the upper plane or table land, 329 feet
above Lake Ontario. The lower plain consists mostly of Lower Silurian
rocks, bounded on the north by the metamorphic hills of the Laurentine
chain. The upper plain is formed chiefly of Upper Silurian and Devonian
strata. East of the Hudson, the Lower Silurian rocks that form the lower
plain of Canada become gradually much disturbed and metamorphosed, and
at length, rising into bold hills trending north and south, form in the Green
Mountains part of the chain that stretches from the southern extremity of
the Appalachian mountains to Gaspé, on the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Be-
tween the plains of the lakes and this range, the steep-terraced mass of the
Catskills, formed of old red sandstone, lies above the Devonian rocks facing
east and north in a grand escarpment. The whole of America south of the
lakes, as far as latitude 40°, is covered with glacial drift, consisting of sand,
gravel, and clay, with boulders, many of which, during the submergence of
the country, have been transported by ice several hundred miles from the
Laurentine chain. Many of these are striated and scratched in a manner
familiar to those conversant with glacial phenomena. When stripped of
drift, all the underlying rocks are evidently ice-smoothed and striated, the
striation generally running more or less from north to south, indicating the
direction of the ice-drift during the submergence of the country at the gla-
cial period. The banks of the St. Lawrence near Brockville, and all the
Thousand Islands, have been rounded and moutonné by glacial abrasion dur-
ing the drift period. The submergence of the country was gradual, and the
depth it attained is partly indicated in the east flank of the Catskill moun-
tains. This range, near Catskill, rans north and south, about ten or twelve
miles from the right bank of the Hudson. The undulating ground between
the river and the mountains is seen to be covered with striations wherever
the drift has been removed. These have a north and south direction; and
ascending the mountains to Mountain House, the speaker observed that
their flanks are marked by frequent grooves and glacial scratches, running,
not down hill, as they would do if they had been produced by glaciers, but
north and south horizontally along the slopes, in a manner that might have
been produced by bergs grating along the coast during submergence. These
striations were observed to reach the height of 2,850 feet above the sea. In
the gorge, where the hotel stands at that height, they turn sharply round,
trending nearly east and west; as if, at a certain period of submergence,
the floating ice had been at liberty to pass across its ordinary course in a
strait between two islands. During the greatest amount of submergence of
the country, the glacial sea in the valley of the Hudson must have been be-
tween 3,000 and 4,000 feet deep, and it is probable that even the highest tops
of the Catskills lie below the water. In Wales, it has been shown that during
the emergence of the country in the glacial epoch, the drift, in some cases,
was ploughed out of the valleys by glaciers; but, though the Catskill moun-
tains are equally high, in the valleys beyond the great eastern escarpment
the drift still exists, which would not have been the case had glaciers filled

GEOLOGY. 309

these valleys during emergence in the way that took place in the passes of
Llanberis and Nant-Francon, and in parts of the Highlands of Scotland. It
has been stated above that the upper plain around Lake Erie, and the lower
plain of Lake Ontario, are alike covered with drift. Part of this was formed,
and much of it modified, during the emergence of the country. In the val-
ley of the St. Lawrence, near Montreal, about 100 feet above the river, there
are beds of clay, containing Leda Portlandica, and called by Dr. Dawson, of
Montreal, the Leda-clay. Dr. Dawson is of opinion, that, when this clay was
formed, the sea in which it was deposited washed the base of the old coast
line that now makes the great escarpment at Queenstown and Lewiston
overlooking the plains around Lake Ontario. It has long been an accepted
belief that the Falls of Niagara commenced at the edge of this escarpment,
and that the gorge has gradually been produced by the river wearing its way
back for seven miles to the place of the present Falls. In this case, the
author conceives that the Falls commenced during the deposition of the Leda-clay,
or near the close of the drift period, when, during the emergence of the coun-
try, the escarpment had already risen partly above water.

If the 35,000 years suggested by Sir C. Lyell as the minimum for the time
occupied in the erosion of the gorge of Niagara be approximately correct,
though probably below the reality, we have an idea of the amount of time
that has elapsed since the close of the drift-period. And, if it be ever found
possible to accurately determine the ancient rate of recession, we shall have
data for a first approach to an actual measurement of a portion of geologi-
cal time.

GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE OF SOUTHERN AFRICA.

Livingston’s theory of the structure of the southern part of the African Con-
tinent is essentially new to the great body of naturalists, misled, as they have
been since the beginning of the century, by the huge blotch of red paint by
which geologists have chosen to represent a supposed central plateau of lava,
in correspondence with a similar formation in the centre of the Peninsula of
British India. It turns out that this is a mere analogy, a fiction and mistake.
Murchison developed, in his anniversary speech of 1852, from a study of
Bain’s map, the same idea which Livingston obtained by his own experience
onthe ground. Travelling among large Cape heaths, rhododendrons and Al-
pine roses, the botanist felt himself moving over a high table land, although
under a tropical sun. Descending suddenly from the centre of Africa five
thousand feet into the land of Cassange, watered by the river Quango,
guided in his estimate of depth by the rude method of plunging his ther-
mometer into boiling water, noticing the thin red strata of mud-rocks to lie
nearly horizontal, and remembering the enormous shallow lakes and laby-
rinth of mighty rivers forming the Zambesi and issuing through a deep
gorge upon the Indian coast, he thought he saw beneath him a recently and
slowly uplifted continent, of platter shape, with broken edges on the east
and west. The great north and south valley of Congo River cuts this conti-
nental plateau to its base. Mounting the opposite or western wall of the
valley, and crossing the western division of the plateau, he descended upon
the Loango coast, over the upturned edges of the rocks. He saw at once
why the long western coast of Africa is so straight. Like that of South
America, it runs along a deep geological break in the earth’s crust, but
unaccompanied by erupted Andes and volcanic cones. It seems, however,

310 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

to haye escaped both Dr. Livingstone and Sir Roderick Murchison that the
wide north and south cleft through the plateau, at the bottom of which the
Congo meanders, must have been occasioned by just such a broad anticlinal
wave in the rocks as that which geologists in America call the Cincinnati
axis, separating the eastern and. western coal-fields, although its nearest
likeness is to the north and south valleys of the Jordan and the Nile.

CONDUCTING POWER OF ROCKS—ALTITUDE OF MOUNTAINS NOT
INVARIABLE. BY CHARLES MACLAREN.

Mr. Hopkins, of Cambridge, has made some rather interesting experiments
on the conductivity or conducting power of different substances for heat, of
which an account was laid before the Royal Society of London, in June last.
Without attempting to describe his processes, we give his more important
results, and in decimals, the conductivity of “‘ igneous rock”’ (trap or granite,
we presume), saturated with moisture, being taken as unity.

Chalk, in the ee ae Riotalelelctetat cise tore otakaterar sone ecareteste0SO
Clay, Berets wth SRE end. ctaee dates Deraeiters Siddatecsieia were nO
Sand, ee 6. eyes aes aeawiiseiden: Cette ci ei Aaae LOD
Sand coal clay, CS ee id Sesta:adeyel ches eiceercuciaie ee shoSO eyertiey ob sinaie 110

The conductivity of the following rocks is given in two states —adry, and
saturated with water:

Dry. Saturated.

Chalk ang) ockorasscnerswcies a sais ee cmisielide sels cpe age) 30
Oolite TOK .ciisisjein,cteys sfateioteiatelalsleloratalatets oleletnlelaisielslalelelopeiaie’= 30 “40
Hard compact eae: eyeirass hey « tayelataeiteteinelsia aieideiere ae eo 5D
Siliceous HEw._Ted SANASLONE «... «10 0,0.j01 0. « e10.0:010.010 0.010 siapeo “60
IBSECOSUOUME seer ors eleva iegeiaioyois (oie ceiar-ialete oistaislaleieisisialebeyera piicieials 83 “45
Hard compact sandstone (millstone grit)..... .. SBE. “76
Hard compact old sedimentary..........2cccsccesceee 50 ‘61
Tencour rockal 75.05 she Saas « ieiivisintite wes Dainaiee nse aterths 1.00

The effect of pressure on the conducting power of substances was also
tried, and proved to be almost nothing. A pressure of 7500 Ibs. on a square
inch of bees-wax, spermaceti, and chalk, had no appreciable effect. Uncom-
pressed clay, which had a conducting power of °26, had the same raised to
‘33 by a pressure of 7500 lbs.

Sandstone, with conducting power of ‘5, divided into strata each one foot
thick, when compared with a similar mass in one block, had its conducting
power diminished »';th. When the strata were only six inches thick, the
diminution was -|,th. The effect of discontinuity of substance is, therefore,
small. Saturation with moisture, on the other hand, produces generally
a great effect, as will be seen on comparing the dry and saturated blocks of
chalk, the dry and saturated new red sandstone, and again the dry and sat-
urated “igneous rocks.”

These facts have a certain bearing on a geological question — namely, the
transmission of heat from the interior of the earth to the crust. The oolite,
for instance, conducts heat much better than the chalk, the sandstone better
than the oolite, the igneous rock better than the sandstone, and in all cases
the rock charged with moisture better than the dry rock. But Mr. Hopkins
would have added to the value of his paper, if he had ascertained by experi-

GEOLOGY. 311

ment the quantity of water absorbed by each rock at given temperatures, and
whether the conductivity is exactly in proportion to the absorption.

In illustration of the use that may be made of the tables, we would refer
to certain remarks made by Dr. Robinson, on a paper read by Professor Hen-
nessey, at a recent meeting of the British Association. The subject was
“The Direction of Gravity at the Earth’s Surface.” In alluding to certain
supposed local and temporary changes of level, he mentioned the following
curious fact: — “‘ He found the entire mass of rock and hill on which the Armagh
Observatory is erected, to be slightly, but to an astronomer quite perceptibly, tilted
or canted at one season to the east, at another to the west. This he at first attrib-
uted to the varying power of the sun’s radiation to heat and expand the
rock throughout the year; but he subsequently had reason to attribute it
rather to the infiltration of water to the parts where the clay-slate and lime-
stone rocks met. The varying quantity of this (water) through the year he
now believed exerted a powerful hydrostatic energy, by which the position
of the rock is slightly varied.’””? With the light furnished by Mr. Hopkins’s
experiments, we may pronounce the explanation satisfactory. Armagh and
its observatory stand on a hill at the junction of the mountain limestone with
the clay-slate, having, as it were, one leg on the former, and the other on the
latter, and both rocks probably reach downwards one or two thousand feet.
When rain falls, the one will absorb more water than the other; both will
gain an increase of conductive power, but the one which has absorbed most
water will have the greatest increase; and being thus the better conductor,
will draw a greater portion of heat from the hot nucleus below to the surface — will
become, in fact, temporarily hotter, and, as a consequence, expand more than
the other. In a word, both rocks will expand at the wet season; but the best con-
ductor, or most absorbent rock, will expand most, and seem to tilt the hill to one
side ; at the dry season tt will subside most, and the hill will seem to be tilted in the
opposite direction.

The fact is curious, and not less so are the results deducible from it. First,
hills are higher at one season than another, a fact we might have supposed,
but never could have ascertained by measurement. Second, they are highest,
not as we would have supposed at the hottest season, but at the wettest.
Third, it is from the different rates of expansion of different rocks that this
has been discovered; had the limestones and clay-slate expanded equably,
or had Armagh Observatory stood on a hill of homogeneous rock, it would
have remained unknown. Fourth, though the phenomenon is in the strictest
sense terrestrial, it is by converse with the heavens that it has been made
known to us, <A variation of probably a second, or less, in the right asccen-
sion of three or four stars, observed at different seasons, no doubt revealed
the fact to the sagacious astronomer of Armagh, and even enabled him to
divine its cause; which has been confirmed as the true cause, and placed in
a clearer light by the experiments of Mr. Hopkins. One useful lesson may
be learned from the discovery —to be careful to erect observatories on a
homogeneous foundation. — Edin. Phil. Journal.

ON THE INTERNAL HEAT OF THE EARTH.

In a discussion on the above subject, at the last meeting of the British
Association, Prof. Hennessey said, that Prof. Phillips had described certain
changes in the structure of sedimentary rocks, which changes he had been
led to attribute to the influence of heat. Heat might act in some instances

312 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

only upon limited masses and in limited areas; it might also act in a more
general manner, and from as general a source as the whole interior mass of
the earth. It was necessary to refer distinctly to the possibility of the last
source of metamorphic calorific agency, as it was sometimes called in ques-
tion by gentlemen of very high authority. There are, however, abundant
reasons for believing that, at a comparatively small depth beneath the earth’s
surface, heat exists sufficient to melt the most refractory rocks. A conclu-
sion announced by Mr. Hopkins is supposed by some geologists to render
these results inadmissible. But this conclusion requires for its establishment
conditions in the structure of the earth which Mr. Hopkins does not prove,
but which he is compelled to assume, in order to reduce his equations to
numbers. Instead of assuming conditions, Mr. Hennessey was led to inquire
what would be the most probable structure of the earth, if the formation of
its solid crust followed the physical laws which are observed on the solidifica-
tion of fused masses of rock. It follows from the whole of his inquiries,
that not only do we possess no reasons for believing that the earth’s crust
has a thickness so great as that announced by Mr. Hopkins; but that its lim-
iting thickness will probably be found to depend upon the limit of fusibility
of the substances of which it is composed. There could, therefore, be no
difficulty in perceiving how, during remote geological epochs, the earth’s
crust might be so thin as to allow a very important influence to be exercised
by the high temperature of the interior fluid matter on the structure of the
sedimentary strata deposited on the outer surface of the solidified crust.

EXPERIMENT ON THE MELTING AND COOLING OF BASALT.

At arecent meeting of the Manchester Society of Engineers, Mr. Hawkes
iescribed an experiment recently made by him on the melting and cooling
of basalt. About 31 cwt. of basalt was melted in a large double reverbera-
tory furnace, and after a slow cooling during thirteen days, it presented an
upper stratum of stony vesicular matter, about one inch thick, next.a layer
of black glass, from two to eight inches deep on that side of the mass which
was exposed to the air from the door of the furnace (elsewhere, immediately
under the vesicular layer was solid stone, interspersed here and there with
air-bubbles). Mr. Hawkes added some observations relating to the results of
experiments which he had made to ascertain the temperature of melted cast-
iron, and of melted basalt.

ARCTIC GEOLOGY.

One of the most important results brought out by recent Arctic Explora-
tions, is the seeming establishment of the conclusion, long since announced,
that the sea temperature of the arctic zone in the Silurian, Devonian, and
Carboniferous ages, was not essentially different from that in the temperate
zone. The study of the geographical distribution of animals is showing that
species have but a narrow range of temperature in which they can flourish
in full vigor, and even families and tribes have often but a limited range.
20° F. (between 68° and 88°) is the whole range of the existing coral reef
corals — and species have still more restricted limits. The existence, there-
fore, of the same species of corals, molluscs and trilobites, or of closely re-
lated or representative, if not identical, species, in latitudes 40° and 75°, leads
to but one conclusion. The near uniformity of the climate is at once sug-
gested, and must be admitted until this life-thermometer reads otherwise.

GEOLOGY. oo

Whether the relative size of related species indicates a degree of difference is
yet undetermined.

The Jurassic fossils extend the same approximate uniformity onward to
the Jurassic period, or prove a recurrence of it, if it had been interrupted.

Capt. M’Clintock, in the narrative of his expedition, thus speaks of the
fossils of Prince Patrick’s Land. “ The fossils are all small, and of only a
few varieties, some being Ammonites, but the greater part bivalves.” “I
picked up also what appeared to be a fossil bone (Jchthyosaurus ?) only part of
it appearing out of the fragment of the rock.” The supposed Ichthyosaurian
bone was afterwards lost. Jurassic fossils have also been found at Katmai
Bay, or Cook’s Inlet, in northwest America (60° N., 151° W.); and Dr.
Grewingk mentions the species of Ammonites Wosnessenski, A. biplex? (the A.
biplex of Mayen from Jurassic deposits in the Andes, in latitude 34°, south of
Valparaiso, is stated to be not distinguishable from this), Belemnites pazillosus,
and Unio Liassinus. Professor Haughton of Dublin, in an addenda to Capt.
M’Clintock’s narative, remarks upon these interesting discoveries as follows:
— The discovery of such fossils én situ in 76° north latitude, is calculated to
throw considerable doubt upon the theories of climate which would account
for all past changes of temperature by changes in the relative position of land
and water on the earth’s surface. No attempt, that Iam aware of, has ever
been made to calculate the number of degrees of change possible, in conse-
quence of changes of position of land and water; and from some incomplete
calculations, I have myself made on the subject, I think it highly improbable
that such causes could have ever produced a temperature in the sea at 76°
north latitude which would allow of the existence of Ammonites, especially
Ammonites so like those that lived at the same time in the tropical warm seas
of the south of England and France, at the close of the Liassic and the com-
mencement of the lower Oolitic period.” — Abridged from Silliman’s Journal.

ON THE HABITABILITY OF THE MOON.

Sir John Herschel, in the last edition of his “ Outlines of Astronomy,”
1858, has added the following paragraph on the “‘ habitability of the moon:”

“On the subject of the moon’s habitability, the complete absence of air,
if general over her whole surface, would of course be decisive. Some consid-
erations of a contrary nature, however, suggest themselves in consequence
of a remark lately made by Prof. Hansen, viz., that the fact of the moon
turning always the same face towards the earth is in all probability the result
of an elongation of its figure in the direction of a line joining the centres of
both the bodies acting conjointly with a noncoincidence of its centre of gravity
with its centre of symmetry. To the middle of the length of a stick, loaded
with a heavy weight at one end and a light one at the other, attach a string,
and swing it round, The heavy weight will assume and maintain a position
in the circulation of the joint mass further from the hand than the lighter.
This is not improbably what takes place in the moon, and the reader may
consider the moon as retained in her orbit about the earth by some coercing
power analogous to that which the hand exerts on the compound mass above
described through the string. Suppose, then, its globe made up of materials
not homogeneous, and so disposed in its interior that some considerable pre-
ponderance of weight should exist excentrically situated: then it will be
easily apprehended that the portion of its surface nearer to that heavier por-
tion of its solid contents, under all the circumstances of a rotation so adjusted,

27

814 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

will permanently occtipy the situation most remote from the earth. Let us
now consider what may be expected to be the distribution of air, water, or
other fluid on the surface of such a globe, supposing its quantity not suffi-
cient to cover and drown the whole mass. It will run towards the lowest
place, that is to say, not the nearest to the centre of figure or to the central
point of the mere space occupied by the moon, but to the centre of the mass, or
what is called in mechanics the centre of gravity. There will be formed
there an ocean, of more or less extent according to the quantity of fluid,
directly over the heavier nucleus, while the lighter portion of the solid mate-
rial will stand out as a continent on the opposite side. And the height above
the level of such ocean to which it will project will be greater, the greater
the excentricity of the centre of gravity. Suppose then that in the case of
the moon this excentricity should amount to some thirty or forty miles, such
would be the general elevation of the lunar land (or the portion turned
earthwards) above its ocean, that the whole of that portion of the moon
we see would in fact come to be regarded as a mountainous elevation above
the sea-level. In what regards its assumption of a definite level, air obeys
precisely the same hydrostatical laws as water. The lunar atmosphere would .
rest upon the lunar ocean, and form in its basin a lake of air, whose upper
portions at an altitude such as we are now contemplating, would be of exces-
“sive tenuity, especially should the lunar provision of air be less abundant in
proportion than our own. It by no means follows, then, from the absence
of visible indications of water or air on this side of the moon, that the other
is equally destitute of them, and equally unfitted for maintaining animal
or vegetable life. Some slight approach to such a state.of things actually
obtains on the earth itself. Nearly all the land is collected in one of its hemi-
spheres, and much the larger portion of the sea in the opposite. There is
evidently an excess of heavy material vertically beneath the middle of the
Pacific; while not very remote from the point of the globe diametrically
opposite rises the great table-land of India, and the Himalaya chain, on the
summits of which the air has not more than a third of the density it has on
the sea-level, and from which animated existence is forever excluded.”

It has been very much the fashion, in works treating of the planets, to
take their actual distance from the sun, the regular formula for the diminu-
tion of radiated heat, and thence to construct theories which sound very
pretty in a lecture-room — butter would be oil in Venus and a rock of ice in
Saturn — but which will hardly bear philosophical investigation.

Sir J. Herschel throws some light on this subject by hinting at the possi-
bility of different kinds of atmospheres. ‘‘All men do not dress in flannels.
It is very probable that a dense atmosphere surrounding a planet, while
allowing the access of solar heat to its surface, may oppose a powerful
obstacle to its escape, and that thus the feeble sunshine on a remote planet
may be retained and accumulated on its surface in the same way, and for the
same reason, that a very slight amount of sunshine, or even the dispersed
heat of a bright though clouded day, suffices to maintain the interior of a
closed greenhouse at a high temperature.”’ Then, again, “the intensity
of gravity, or its efficacy in counteracting muscular power and repressing
animal activity on Jupiter is nearly two and a half times that on the earth,
on Mars not more than one half,” andso on. “ Lastly, the density of Saturn
hardly exceeds one-eighth of the earth’s, so that it must consist of materials
not heavier on the average than dry fir-wood. Now, under the various com-
binations of elements so important to life as these, what immense diversity

GEOLOGY. Slo

must we not admit in the conditions of that great problem, the maintenance
of animal and intellectual existence and happiness?” In other words, we
are in possession of but one or two facts out of a great many, and know, so
far, very little about the matter.

FORMER CONNECTION OF AUSTRALIA, NEW GUINEA, AND THE
ARU ISLANDS.

Mr. A. R. Wallace, in a paper on the Aru Islands, a group one hundred
and fifty miles South of Western New Guinea (Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist.,
xx, Jan. 1858, p. 473), shows that the zoology of the islands is closely re-
lated to that of New Guinea and Australia; and that shallow seas not only
connect the two last, as others had before stated, but that they extend and
include the Aru group. The depth of water over the whole to Australia is
very nearly uniform at about thirty to forty fathoms. Mr. Wallace says:

‘But there is another circumstance still more strongly proving this con-
nection: the great Island of Aru, eighty miles in length from north to south,
is traversed by three winding channels of such uniform width and depth,
though passing through an irregular, undulating, rocky country, that they
seem portions of true rivers, though now occupied by salt water, and open
at each end to the entrance of the tides. The phenomenon is unique, and we
can account for their formation in no other way than by supposing them to
have been once true rivers, having their source in the mountains of New
Guinea, and reduced to their present condition by the subsidence of the
intervening land.”

Nearly one-half of the Passerine birds of New Guinea hitherto described
are contained in the author’s collections made in Aru, and a number also of
species in the other tribes.

The author farther observes, on the absence of the peculiar East Indian
types: ‘In the Peninsula of Malacca, Sumatra, Java, Borneo and the Phil-
ippine Islands, the following families are abundant in species and in individ-
uals. They are everywhere common birds. They are the Buceride, Picide,
Bucconide, Trogonide, Meropide, Eurylaimide ; but not one species of all
these families is found in Aru, nor, with two doubtful exceptions, in New
Guinea. The whole are also absent from Australia. To compicte our view
of the subject, it is necessary also to consider the Mammalia, which present
peculiarities and deficiencies even yet more striking. Not one species found
in the great islands westward inhabits Aru or New Guinea. With the
exception only of pigs and bats, not a genus, not a family, not even an order
of mammals is found incommon. No Quadrumana, no Sciuridz, no Carniy-
ora, Rodentia, or Ungulata inhabit these depopulated forests. With the two
exceptions above mentioned, all the Mammalia are Marsupials ; while in the
great western islands there is not a single marsupial! A kangaroo inhabits
Aru (and several New Guinea), and this, with three or four species of Cuscus,
two or three little rat-like marsupials, a wild pig and several bats, are all the
mammalia I have been able to obtain or hear of.”

ON THE PROBABLE ORIGIN OF THE ORGANIZED BEINGS NOW LIV-
ING ON THE AZORES, MADEIRA, AND THE CANARIES.

The following letter, on the above subject, has been addressed by Oswald
Heer to M. de Candolle:
In your Geography of Plants you have adopted the opinion of Edward

3816 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

Forbes, that in the Miocene period the European continent extended to the
Azores and Canaries, and supported it by fresh proots.* In fact, the pre-
dominant European character of these islands, which occurs in their insects
as well as in their flora, proves that they were anciently joined to the con-
tinent. Nevertheless, we must not forget that, as compared with Europe,
these islands are very different from those of the Mediterranean. They are
distinguished, in the first place, by a much greater number of peculiar species,
which constitute a third or a fifth of the plants; and in the second, by some
American types, which make their appearance in all these islands. There
are not only certain American species which might have reached them acci-
dentally by the agency of the winds and currents, or of man, but American
genera which are represented by peculiar species. I will instance the genera
Clethra, Bystrobogon, and Cedronella, as also the unique pine of the Canaries
(Pinus canartensis, Sm.), which belongs to the American forms with acicular
ternate leaves. The relaiions of the laurels is very remarkable in this re-
spect; they form a great part of the forests of Madeira and the Canaries,
dividing into four species, and playing an important part. Two species
( Oreodaphne fetens and Persea indica) are essentially American types; the
third (Phebe Barbusana, Webb) belongs to a genus which occurs in India and
America; and the fourth (Laurus canariensis, Webb) corresponds with the
European species. By the possession of these laurel forests the islands of
the Atlantic differ greatly from the African continent, where they are entirely
wanting, and approach America rather than Africa, notwithstanding the
proximity of the latter.

These facts obtain great importance by the observation that the foi of the
Atlantic islands has much resemblance to the Tertiary flora of Europe.

In my “Flora Tertiaria Helvetiz,’ I have proved that a considerable
number of plants of the Tertiary epoch corresponded with species peculiar
to Madeira and the Canaries, in such a manner that there must be a relation
between the two floras. On the other hand, our Tertiary flora indicates a
great resemblance to the flora of the southern United States. Many per-
fectly characteristic genera, such as Taxodium, Sequoia, Liquidamber, Sabal,
ete., were distributed over the whole of our tertiary country, and composed
partly of species very closely allied to those which now grow in America;
other genera belong equally to America and Europe (such as Quercus, Corylus,
Populus, Acer, ete.), and occur in the European Tertiary epoch, composed of
species corresponding with the American forms. We find similar cases
amongst the terrestrial mollusca and insects, although this is not so positive
as with regard to plants.

These remarkable circumstances are explicable, if we suppose that during
the Tertiary epoch a terrestrial formation united the continents of Europe
and America, and that this surface was extended by some projection to the
Atlantic islands. A glance at the map of the depths of the ocean by Maury,
shows that the bottom of the Atlantic forms a longitudinal valley, of which
the deepest parts are between the twentieth and fortieth degrees of north
latitude, nearly at an equal distance from Europe and Africa; but that on
the two sides of this deep valley there is a vast maritime plateau, which
includes the Atlantic islands, as well as the whole space between the Euro-
pean continent, Newfoundland, and Acadia. SGeyond this space another long

>

* DeCandolle, Géographie Botanique raisonnée, p. 1810.

GEOLOGY. ole

valley, but of less depth, takes its rise, in a direction from south to northeast
between Madeira and the Azores; it loses itself close to the coast of Oporto.
If we may attribute any importance to these very gencral data, we must
admit that during the miocene period the maritime plateau above indicated
was solid ground. This country, this ancient Atlantis, would have had the
same plants as central miocene Europe, of which the remains are found in
the molasse of Switzerland in such astonishing profusion, that I shall be able
to give descriptions and figures of about six hundred species in my “Flora
Tertiaria.”’” On the coast of this country the marine shells presented a great
conformity in America and Europe; and this remarkable phenomenon is still
reproduced, that Europe has more littoral than deep-sea species of shells and
fishes in common with America; which proves that at one period a band of
firm ground must have united these two parts of the world. The Atlantic
islands had already risen towards the south coasts of this continent at the
diluvian period. That this country was at the bottom of the sea during the
miocene epoch, is shown by the fossil shells of Porto Santo and St. Vincent
in Madeira and those of the Azores; but that it had emerged at the diluvian
period is proved by the terrestrial mollusca of Canical, and the fossil plants
of St. Jorge in Madeira.

The islands formed at this epoch would have received their vegetation
from the Atlantis in the diluvian period, and consequently at an epoch when
this continent had entered upon a new phase of development. If we suppose,
that then, by a subsequent depression of the soil, the connection with
America was destroyed, and subsequently that which existed with Europe,
we shall obtain the elements for the explanation of the existing flora of
these islands. We there find the remains of the flora of the ancient Atlantis,
and, in consequence, many types of the Tertiary flora are retained there
whilst they have disappeared in Europe. These remains, with a certain
number of other species, form the peculiar plants of these isles, correspond-
ing in part with the American species, because they have issued from the
same centre of formation. But it is with Europe that these islands have the
most species in common, probably because their connection with this conti-
nent lasted longer.

At the diluvian period the flora of central Europe was displaced by great
changes of climate (extension of glaciers, etc.); and as by the depression of
the Atlantis the connection with America was destroyed, the new European
vegetation could not extend on that side, but only towards the east. It is
thus that the characters of the new vegetation would be explained, particu-
larly that of the lower countries, whilst the Alps and the north have under-
gone less change. This also is the reason of the great analogies which occur
between the north of Europe, Asia and America. [ arrive, therefore, at this
same conclusion with yourself as regards these latter countries, namely, that
the alpine vegetation is certainly the most ancient in our country, and that
subsequently, when the climate became warmer, after the glacial epoch, it rose
from the low countries to the mountains and Alps. — Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist.

ON THE REMAINS OF DOMESTIC ANIMALS DISCOVERED AMONG
POST-PLEIOCENE FOSSILS IN SOUTH CAROLINA,

The above is the title of a pamphlet recently published by Prof. F. 8.
Holmes, the well-known paleontologist of South Carolina, adducing evi-
dence to show that, among the fossils collected in South Carolina, from beds

27%

318 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

of the Post-Pleiocene (Tertiary) Age, a number have been found apparently
belonging to animals having specific characters in common with recent, or
living species not considered indigenous to this country, such as the horse,
hog, sheep, ox, ete. These remains, although apparently belonging to recent
species, Prof. Holmes believes to be true fossil remains, inasmuch as they
were obtained not only from the banks and deltas of rivers, but also in large
number from excavations several feet below the surface, and at a distance
from any stream, creck, pond, bog or ravine; and in some cases from exca-
vations below the high sandy land of cotton-fields.

Prof. Leidy, of Philadelphia, who has examined the collections made by
Prof. Holmes, and others, from the recent geological formations in South
Carolina, and also the localities from whence the most interesting specimens
were obtained, writes as follows: ‘‘ The collections consist of a most remark-
able intermixture of remains of fishes, reptiles and mammals, from the
eocene, and post-pleiocene formations, and consist usually of teeth, often well
preserved, but frequently in small fragments, more or less water-worn. Most
of the fossils are stained brown or black. By far the greater portion of these
are obtained from the post-pleiocene deposit of the Ashley river, about ten
miles from Charleston. The country in this locality is composed of a base
of whitish eocene marl, containing remains of sgualodon — sharks, and rays —
above which is a stratum of post-pleiocene marl, about one foot in thickness,
overlaid by about three feet of sand and earth mould.

“The post-pleiocene marl contains great quantities of irregular, water-worn
fragments of the eocene marl rock from beneath, mingled with sand, black-
ened pebbles, water-rolled fragments of bones, and more perfect remains of
fishes, reptiles, and mammals, belonging to the post-pleiocene and eocene
fossils.

“On the shores of the Ashley river, where the post-pleiocene and eocene
formations are exposed, the fossils are washed from their beds, and become
mingled with the remains of recent indigenous and domestic animals, and
objects of human art; so that when a collection is made in this locality, it is
sometimes difficult to determine whether the animal remains belong to the
formations mentioned or not. Generally, however, we have been able to as-
certain where the fossils belong, which we have had the opportunity of exam-
ining, from the fact that the greater number were obtained from the deposits
referred to in digging into them some distance from the Ashley river.

“The collections contain remains of the horse, ox, sheep, hog, and dog,
which, I feel strongly persuaded, with the exception of many of those of the
first-mentioned animal, are of recent date, and have become mingled with
the true fossils of the post-pleiocene and eocene formations, where they have
been exposed on the banks of the Ashley river and its tributaries. In regard
to the remains of the horse, from the facts stated in the account given of
them in the succeeding pages, I think it will be conceded that this animal in-
habited the United States during the post-pleiocene period, temporarily with
the mastodon, megalonyx, and the great broad-fronted bison.

“Many of the mammalian remains are of recent animals, or, at least, are
undistinguishable from the corresponding parts of the latter; and if they are
not accidental occupants of the post-pleiocene deposit, are highly interesting,
as indicating their contemporaneous existence with many species and genera
now extinct.*

* Remains of the tapir, peccary, and capybara, present a similar association of
life to that now confined to South America,

GEOLOGY. 319

“‘Tt appears to be quite well authenticated that the horse, which is now so
extensively distributed, both in a wild and domestic condition, throughout
North and South America, did not inhabit these continents at the time of
their discovery by Europeans. With this fact in view, in conjunction with
the circumstance that animal remains of late periods may become accidental
occupants of earlier geological formations, we should require strong evidence
to be advanced before it is admitted that the horse belonged to an ancient
fauna of the western world. At the present time the evidence appears ‘to be
sufficiently ample to justify the latter conclusion, and it is further sustained
by the discovery, in the same part of the world, of the remains of two spe-
cies of the closely allied genus Hipparion.

“Remains of the horse, discovered in Brazil, Buenos Ayres, and Chili, have
been indicated by Dr. Lund, Prof. Owen, M. Weddell, and M. Gervais. These
remains exhibit no well-marked characters distinguishing them from corre-
sponding portions of the skeleton of the recent horse; and from a comparison
of the figures and descriptions which have been given of most of them, to-
gether with some remarks of the latter author, it is doubtful whether they
belong to more than a single species, the Equus neogeus of Dr. Lund.

“ Prof. Buckland and Sir John Richardson have described remains of the
horse, discovered in association with those of the elephant, moose, reindeer,
and musk-ox, in the ice-cliffs of Eschscholtz Bay, Arctic America.

“In the United States, remains of the horse, chiefly consisting of teeth,
have been noticed by Drs. Mitchell,* Harlan,j and DeKay;{ but these gen-
tlemen have neither given descriptions nor figures by which to identify the
specimens. Some of the latter are stated to have been found in the vicinity
of Neversink Hills, New Jersey ; others in the excavation for the Chesapeake
and Ohio Canal, near Georgetown, District of Columbia; and some in the
later tertiary deposit on the Neuse River, in the vicinity of Newbern, North
Carolina. Dr. DeKay, in speaking of such remains, says, ‘they resemble
those of the common horse, but from their size apparently belonged to a
larger animal,’ and he refers them to a species with the name of Lquus
major,

“Dr. R. W. Gibbes § has given information of the discovery of teeth of
the horse in the pleiocene deposit of Darlingtony South Carolina; in Rich-
land District, of the same State; in Skidaway Island, Georgia, and on the
banks of the Potomac river. He further observes that he obtained the tooth
of a horse, from eocene marl, in the Ashley river, South Carolina; but the
researches of Prof. Holmes || indubitably indicate the specimen to have been
an accidental occupant of the formation.

“Specimens of isolated teeth, and a few bones of the horse, from the post-
pleiocene and recent deposits of this country, have frequently been submit-
ted to my inspection. Many of these I have unhesitatingly pronounced to
be relics of the domestic horse, though I feel persuaded that many remains
of an extinct species are undistinguishable from the recent one.

“Whether more than one extinct species is indicated among the numerous
specimens of teeth I have had the opportunity of examining, I have been

* Catalogue of Organic Remains, 1826, 7, 8.
+ Med. a Phys. Researches, 1835, 267.

+ Zoslogy, New York, pl. 1, Mammalia, 108.
§ Proc. Amer. Assoc. 1850, 66.

|| Ibidem, 68.

| nw.

320 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

unable satisfactorily to determine. The specimens present so much differ-
ence in condition of preservation, or change in structure; so much variation
in size, from that of the more ordinary horse to the largest English dray
horse; and such variableness in constitution, from that of the recent horse
to the most complex condition belonging to any extinct species described, —
that it would be about as easy to indicate a half-dozen species as it would
two.

“ Under the circumstances, I would characterize the extinct horse of the
United States as having had about the same size as the recent one, ranging
from the more ordinary varieties to the English dray horse, with molar teeth,
frequently comparatively simple in construction, but with a strong disposi-
tion to become complex.

“ Among the number of teeth of the horse in Prof. Holmes’s collection,
labelled as coming from the post-pleiocene deposit of Ashley river, there are
several, which, from their size, construction, and condition of preservation,
I feel convinced are of recent date; and these, no doubt, became mingled
with the true fossils of that formation where it is exposed on the Ashley
river, in which position I personally found undoubted remains of the recent
horse, and other domestic animals, and objects of human art, mingled with
remains of fishes, reptiles, and mammals, washed by the river from the
banks, composed of eocene and post-pleiocene deposits.

“Teeth of an extinct species of horse, however, undoubtedly belong, as
true fossils, to the post-pleiocene formations in the vicinity of Charleston.
These are usually hard in texture, stained brown or black from the infiltra-
tion of oxide of iron, sometimes well preserved, but more frequently in a
fragmentary condition and water-worn. Generally, they are not larger than
the teeth of the more ordinary varieties of the domestic horse, and some-
times are quite as simple in the plication of their enamel; but usually are
more complex, and sometimes exceedingly so.

““Among the specimens collected by Prof. H., is a first superior molar
tooth, neither larger nor more complex in structure than the corresponding
tooth of the recent horse. This specimen, which is dense and jet-black in
color, was obtained from a stratum of ferruginous sand, two inches thick,
exposed on the side of a. bluff, on Goose Creek, about twelve miles from
Charleston.

“Having expressed a desire to see the locality from which the tooth just
mentioned was obtained, Prof. Holmes afforded me the opportunity of doing
so. The bluff is about thirty feet high; its base is formed of a pleiocene
limestone, about fifteen feet thick, and composed of the debris of marine
shells; above this is the stratum of ferruginous sand, of post-pleiocene age,
containing numerous pebbles and rolled fragments of bone, all blackened like
the tooth obtained from the same position. Overlying the latter stratum
there is a layer of stiff blue clay, about two feet in thickness, and above this
there are about twelve feet of sand and earth-mould.

“ A remarkably well-preserved specimen of an upper molar tooth, jet-black
in color, and an incisor, yellow and quite friable in texture, both belonging
to the extinct horse, from North Carolina, have been submitted to my in-
spection by Professor Emmons. Among the most interesting of the fossils
discovered by Prof. Holmes, in the post-pleiocene beds of the Ashley river,
are two molar teeth of a species of the equine genus Hippotherium. These
are the first remains of the latter discovered in America, and they indicate
the smallest known species. Both specimens are from the upper jaw; and

GEOLOGY. 321

they are well characterized, not only by the isolation of the internal median
enamel column, but also by the complex plication of the interior or central
enamel columns. The larger specimen is firm in texture; has the enamel
stained jet-black, and the dentine and cement gray. Tecth of the beaver,
jet-black in color, have likewise been obtained from the post-pleiocene deposit
of Ashley river.

“The collections contain numerous specimens of blackened molar teeth,
together with a few incisors and fragments of jaws, from the Ashley post-
pleiocene deposit, which neither differ in form nor size from the correspond-
ing parts of the recent musk-rat.

‘Remains of Lepus sylvaticus— common gray rabbit — have been found,
in association with those of other rodents and of the extinct peccary, near
Galena, Illinois. A few specimens of molar teeth, black in color, apparently
belonging to this species, were obtained from the post-pleiocene beds of the
Ashley river.

“Several small fragments of teeth of the Megatherium, in Prof. Holmes’s
collection, were obtained from the post-pleiocene bed of the Ashley river.
Previously to the discovery of these specimens, remains of the Megatherium
had been found in no other locality of North America than in the State of
Georgia.”

As regards specimens of human art found in connection with these fossils,
Prof. Holmes remarks, that this is the case at only one locality, — Ashley
Ferry, — which is adjacent toa farm-yard. At other localities, where similar
fossils are found, no relics of art have ever been noticed.

The fossils from Ashley Ferry present, as a group, the same appearance as
those procured inland at some distance from the river, by digging from three
to five feet below the surface. Many specimens from the ferry were con-
sidered as recent by Prof. Leidy; they appear quite fresh and unchanged in
color, and their texture not in the slightest degree altered. To one familiar
with the fossils of the South Carolina post-pleiocene, this excites no surprise,
as itis of common occurrence, more especially among the shells; for exam-
ple, the olive shell — Oliva literata—is found as fresh and highly polished
as the recent ones from the sea-beaches along the coast; and Cardium mag-
num retains often the delicate yellow and brown markings common to the
species.

The color or texture of a fossil, therefore, does not always absolutely
determine its relative age; as Professor Leidy has himself remarked in a
foot-note to his letter alluded to above, viz.:

*“* Fossilization, petrification, or lapidification, is no positive indication of
the relative age of organic remains.

“The Cabinet of the Academy of Natural Sciences, of Philadelphia, con-
tains bones of the megalonyx, and of the extinct peccary, that are entirely
unchanged; not a particle of gelatin has been lost, nor a particle of mineral
matter added, and, indeed, some of the bones of the former even have por-
tions of articular cartilage and tendinous attachments, well preserved.”

From the foregoing it would appear that of the ancient fauna of America,
which included representatives of many of our present domestic animals,
some species have undoubtedly become extinct; but I confess [am not yet
prepared to admit, from any evidence yet adduced, or from my own exami-
nations, that all of the living species are distinct from those found fossil in
the post-pleiocene. The teeth and bones of the rabbit, raccoon, opossum,
deer, elk, hog, dog, sheep, ox, and horse, are often found in these beds; and

eee ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY

though associated with those known to be extinct, such as mastodon, mega-
therium, hipparion, etc., need not necessarily be referred to extinct races
also; since their remains cannot be distinguished from the bones and teeth
of the living species.

Of the mollusca from the same beds, about ninety-five per cent. are, to my
mind, identically the same with species now living on the coast of South
Carolina. Two species of these shells, though extinct, or not in existence
here, are now living in numbers on the coast of Florida and the northern
shores of the Gulf of Mexico; and two have no living representatives that
we can discover.

The question, therefore, naturally suggests itself — Are the living horses,
dogs, hogs, raccoons, opossums, deer, elk, tapirs, beavers, etc., and the one
hundred and fifty living shells of the coast, the descendants of the animals
whose remains we find fossil in the above-named beds?

It has been just remarked that about ninety-five per cent., or nearly all of
the one hundred and fifty shells of. molluscous animals from these beds, are
specifically identical with the recent or living species of the coast, — two are
found only at the south of this, and two are extinct. Of the vertebrates
from the same bed, the tapir, peccary, raccoon, opossum, deer, musk-rat,
rabbit, beaver, and elk, have still their living representatives, generically, if
not specifically; and even of the identity of species there seems to be no
doubt, as no anatomical differences can be discerned. Two of these species,
like the mollusca just alluded to, no longer live in South Carolina; the tapir
and peccary are only found in South America and Mexico; the musk-rat,
elk, and beaver, though extinct on the Atlantic coast, are still living in the
interior of the country. And though it has been acknowledged that the
mastodon, megatherium, elephant, glyptodon, and two species of Equine
genera, etc., are entirely extinct, yet the discoveries made of the remains
even of some of these, would indicate that they still existed at a period so
recent, that, in the language of Prof. Leidy, “it is probable the red man
witnessed their declining existence.”

The peccary, or Mexican hog, an animal common in Mexico, is not indi-
genous to the Atlantic United States; but his bones have been found asso-
ciated with human remains in caves used as cemeteries by the Aborigines.
“A tomb in the city of Mexico,” according to Clavigero (?), “was found to
contain the bones of an entire mammoth, the sepulchre appearing to have
been formed expressly for their reception.”’ And “ Mr. Latrobe relates that,
during the prosecution of some excavations near the city of Tezcuco, one
of the ancient roads or causeways was discovered, and on one side, only
three feet below the surface, in what: may have been the ditch of the road,
there lay the entire skeleton of a mastodon. It bore every appearance of
having been coeval with the period when the road was used.”

Again I extract from Prof. Leidy’s letter:

“The early existence of the genera to which our domestic animals belong,
has been adduced as presumptive evidence of the advent of man at a more
remote period than is usually assigned. It must be remembered, however,
even at the present time, that of some of these genera only a few species are
domesticated; thus of the existing six species of Equus (horse) only two
have ever been freely brought under the dominion of man.

“The horse did not exist in America at the time of its discovery by Euro-
peans; but its remains, consisting chiefly of molar teeth, have now been
so frequently found in association with those of extinct animals, that it is

GEOLOGY. 323

gencrally admitted once to have been an aboriginal inhabitant. When I
first saw examples of these remains I was not disposed to view them as
relics of an extinct species; for although some presented characteristic dif-
ferences from those of previously known species, others were undistinguish-
able from the corresponding parts of the domestic horse, and among them
were intermediate varieties of form and size. The subsequent discovery of
the remains of two species of the closely allied extinct genus Hipparion, in
addition to the discovery of remains of two extinct Equine genera of an
earlier geological period, leaves no room to doubt the former existence of the
horse on the American continent, contemporaneously with the mastodon
and megalonyx, and man probably was his companion.”

The result of the whole seems to be, that of the animals found fossil in
the post-pleiocene beds, all the mollusca of the present day are undoubtedly
a perpetuation of the same species; that of the higher order of vertebrata,
the tapir, peccary, raccoon, opossum, deer, elk, and musk-rat, are equally
entitled to be considered the descendants of this ancient race. And if the
claims of the mollusca to this distinction rest upon a secure basis, because
they are peculiar to this country, and not obnoxious to suspicion of foreign
immigration, it must be recollected that this is equally true of the above-
named animals.

Those which have hitherto been regarded as of recent and European ori-
gin, are the horse, sheep, hog, and ox; and it must be reserved perhaps for
future consideration to determine how far the negative proof of the non-
existence of these animals in the country at the time of its discovery may
be regarded in each individual case sufficiently strong to settle the question
of his extinction and reintroduction, when so many of his associates and
contemporaries have succeeded in maintaining an unbroken line of descent
down to the present day.

Prof. Agassiz’s opinion in relation to these relics is expressed as follows:
There is hardly anything of interest in the bones themselves, since they all
belong to well-known types; yet their simultaneous occurrence in the same
beds, showing that they lived together at a time when the white man had
not yet planted himself upon this continent, render their association undis-
puted.

How does it happen that horses, sheep, bulls, and hogs, not distinguish-
able from our domestic species, existed upon this continent, together with
the deer, the musk-rat, the beaver, the hare, the opossum, the tapir, which
in our days are peculiar to this continent, and not found in the countries
where our domesticated animals originated? The whole matter might seem
to admit of any easy solution by supposing that the native American horse,
sheep, bull, and hog, were different species from those of the Old World, even
though the parts preserved show no specific differences; but this would be
a mere theoretical solution of a difficulty which seems to me to have far
deeper meaning, and to bear directly upon the question of the first origin of
organized beings.

The circumstances under which these remains are found, admit of no
doubt but the animals from which they are derived existed in North Amer-
ica long before this continent was settled by the white race of men, together
with animals which to this day are common in the same localities, such as
the deer, the musk-rat, the opossum and others only now found in South
America, such as the tapir. This shows, beyond the possibility of a contro-
versy, that animals which cannot be distinguished from one another, may

$24 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

originate independently in different fauna; and I take it that the facts you
have brought together, are a satisfactory proof that horses, sheep, bulls, and
hogs, not distinguishable at present from the domesticated species, were
called into existence upon the continent of North America prior to the com-
ing of the white race to these parts, and that they had already disappeared
here when the new comers set foot upon this continent. But the presence of
tapir teeth among the rest, show also that a genus peculiar to South America
and the Sunda Islands existed also in North America in those days, and that
its representative of that period is not distinguishable from the South Amer-
ican species.

It would be desirable, in this stage of the inquiry, to compare your tapir
teeth with those of the species from Central America, which is considered
distinct from the Brazilian species. This circumstance leads naturally to
the question of the specific identity of all these animals with those now
living in the same locality, and with the domesticated species. And here I
confess the difficulty to be almost insuperable, or at least hardly approach-
able in the present state of our science, when the views of naturalists are so
divided as to what are species among the genera bos, ovis, capra. For my-
self, I entertain doubt respecting the unity of origin of the domesticated
horses. But whatever be the final result of this inquiry, this much is already
established by the fossils you have collected, that horses, hogs, bulls, and
sheep, were among the native animals of North America, as early as the
common American deer, the opossum, the beaver, the musk-rat, etc.

Fossil Remains of the Horse in New York.— At a recent meeting of the
Boston Society of Natural History, Dr. A. A. Gould announced, on the
authority of Dr. Skilton, of Troy, N. Y., the discovery of a number of teeth
of the fossil horse, in Brunswick, Renssalaer County, N. Y., during the trench-
ing of aspot of marshy ground. The whole number of teeth obtained was
seventeen.

INTERESTING EXPLORATION OF A BONE CAVERN.

At the last meeting of the British Association, Leeds, 1858, Mr. W. Pen-
gelly read a paper in the geological section, describing a recently discovered
bone cavern at Brixham, near Torquay, which yielded, on exploration, up-
wards of 2,000 bones of the rhinoceros, bos, horse, reindeer, cave bear, and
hyena, with which were mingled well-marked specimens of the remains of
savage men, in the shape of flint-knives and arrow-heads. There is so
great a disposition felt, however, in England, as well as in this country,
to dislike, upon theological grounds, the obvious consequences of such
discoveries, to carry back the life of man upon the earth beyond the re-
motest era of any known history or any calculated chronology, that the
paper, when read, excited not only its due interest, but earnest discussion.
As it is acknowledged to be now no longer possible to separate the remains
of man from those of extinct animals, and some new line of defence must be
adopted by holders of the old ideas, the effort was made to bring the era of
the animals down into the commonly accepted era of mankind.

Prof. Owen said he was glad that means had been taken for the careful
exploration of this cave, but it would be premature to raise any hypothesis
until the whole of the facts were before him. He had not seen any of the
bones, and, indeed, was entirely indebted for what he knew on the subject
to the paper which Mr. Pengelly had read, and he should refrain, therefore,

GEOLOGY. ole

from expressing any opinion; but he wished to caution them against com-
ing to conclusions as to the antiquity of these remains which were not really
warranted. He proceeded to show, from the remains of tigers, elephants,
and other animals found in this country, in Siberia, and other parts of the
world, where the climate was much colder than was supposed to be compat-
ible with their existence, that there was undoubted evidence that these ani-
mals could adapt themselves to cold and temperate climates as well as to
torrid ones, and remarked, that the conditions of animal life were not those
of climate, but of food and quiet. Wherever there was the prey undisturbed
by man, there also would be the destroyer. They had evidence from the
writings of Julius Cxsar of the existence in England, 2,000 years ago, of
three distinct species of animals, including two gigantic species of ox, and
one of the reindeer, and he was himself satisfied that they had once had a
native British lion, all of which, however, were now extinct in this country;
and he saw nothing in the remains which had been discovered at Brixham
to lead him to suppose that the animals lived before the historic period, or
which was inconsistent with the concurrent existence of a rude race of bar-
barians. At the same time he was open to conviction, and should be very
glad to see a good fossil human being, which should prove that man had
been much longer upon the earth than historical evidence had led them to
suppose.

Professor Owen, with reference to this part of the subject, said that some
time ago he was sent for to the North, to examine a fossilized tree, which
had been found in digging the Jarrow dock, which bore undoubted evidence
of having been cut by human hands. It was supposed to be a most impor-
tant discovery, as showing the antiquity of the human race, and at first
everything appeared satisfactory. On prosecuting his inquiries, however, he
learned that one of the navvies, not then on the works, was said to have dis-
covered a similar tree in another part of the dock, which he cut to lay down
a sleeper. The man was sent for, and on his arrival he declared that the
tree pointed out was the one he had cut. It was endeavored to be explained
that that was impossible, as the place had not been excavated before; but,
looking with supreme contempt upon the assembly of geologists and engi-
neers, the man persisted in the identification of- his own work, and exclaimed,
“the top of the tree must be somewhere,” upon which he (Professor Owen)
offered half-a-crown to the first navvy who would produce it. Away ran
half a dozen of them, and in a few minutes they returned with the top.
This explained the mystery. The man had cut off the top with his
spade, the stump afterwards got covered up with silt, and on being again
uncovered it was supposed to be a great discovery. Never had he so narrow
an escape from introducing a “‘new discovery ” into science, and never had
he a more fortunate escape.

Mr. Teale brought to the notice of the same section fine specimens of cle-
phant and hippopotamus bones from the clays of Aire Valley. Glacial clays
he considers them, resting on the upturned edges of the coal measures. The
lowest is blue clay deposited by glacial waters in an era of submergence; on
it a yellow clay also deposited by ice, but in an era of emergence. On this
again a “warp,” with angular and also rolled stones, the debris of the blue
and yellow clays and ‘gravel from distant hills, subsequent to the glacial period
in England, and containing the animal remains.

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326 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

EVIDENCES OF THE ANTIQUITY OF THE HUMAN RACE.

In a memoir published in the proceedings of the Royal Society, England,
for 1857, Mr. Horner gives a detailed account of a series of researches re-
cently undertaken near Cairo, in Egypt, with a view of throwing light upon
the geological history of the alluvial deposits of the Nile. The researches
were made by sinking shafts in rows from the foot of the Lybian rocks
across to the banks of the Nile, around the lonely obelisk of Heliopolis, and
alongside of the equally solitary statue of Rameses II.; and they have re-
vealed the following facts:

That the alluvium consists of desert sand and river mud, alternately, all
the way down, the bottom layer of mud being exactly like the top; that
no extinct organic forms are present in it, but only microscopic infusorial
shells, and recent land-shells and bones of domestic animals; that no rock
was touched by any of the shafts, the deepest of which was sixty feet; and
that fragments of burnt brick and pottery were interspersed throughout the
whole deposit. Mr. Horner states that he has in his possession a fragment
of pottery, an inch square and a quarter of an inch in thickness, the two sur-
faces being of a brick-red color, which had been obtained from the lowest
part of a boring, near the statue of Rameses II., and thirty-nine feet below
the surface of the ground. Now the statue of Rameses II. has been deter-
mined by Lepsius to date between 1394 and 1328 B.C. Yet its foundation
rests on a bed of sand but twelve feet beneath the surface, while the borer
brought up a fragment of pottery from a mud layer twenty-seven feet fur-
ther down. The French engineers of the last century decided the rate of
vertical increase of the delta to be five inches in a century. The researches
at Heliopolis give 3°18 inches to a century. But the statue of Rameses fixes
it within a small fraction of 3} inches to a century. Allowing this last esti-
mate to be correct, the fragment found at the depth of thirty-nine feet is a
record of the existence of man 13,375 years before A. D. 1858 —11,517 years
before the Christian era—and 7,625 years from the beginning assigned
by Lepsius to the reign of Menes, the founder of Memphis — of man, more-
over, in a state of civilization, so far, at least, as to be able to fashion clay
into vessels, and to know how to harden it by the action of strong heat.

FOSSILS OF NEBRASKA.

Messrs. Meek and Hayden have recently published, in the proceedings of
the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, a complete catalogue of all
the remains of invertebrata hitherto described and identified from the inter-
esting Cretaceous and Tertiary formations, generally known as the Bad
Lands of Nebraska.

In glancing over this catalogue (we quote from the authors), the palzon-
tologist will not fail to be struck with the great preponderance of Lamelli-
branchiata, Gasteropoda, and Cephalopoda over all the other invertebrate forms
of life. Among all the collections we have yet seen from this region, the
Bryozoa are represented by but one rare species of Reticulipora, and the Bra-
chiopoda by only one species of Caprinella and one of Lingula, both so rare
that but a single specimen of each has been found; while of the whole great
class of Echinodermata, which existed in such vast numbers, and presented
such an infinite variety of beautiful forms, during these epochs in some parts

GEOLOGY. ood

of the world, we have yet only seen, from this region, a single fragment, too
imperfect to give any clue to its generic relations. The paucity of some,
and entire absence of others, of the more common genera of JMoliusca, such
as Ostrea, Gryphea, Exogyra, etc., in these collections is worthy of notice.
Future investigations, it is true, may add more species to our present meagre
list of these rare forms, yet it is probable we have here something like an
expression of the numerical proportions in which many of the lower types of
life existed in these ancient seas.

Of the one hundred and ninety-one species enumerated in this catalogue,
forty-four belong to the Tertiary system, and one hundred and forty-seven to
the Cretaceous. None of the former are known to occur in the States, or on
the other side of the Atlantic, while, of the Cretaceous species, nine appear
to be common to the Nebraska formations and those of the States, and four
are identical with forms occurring in the Old World. Of these nine species
having so great a geographical range, six, or nearly one-third of all that
class of Mollusca contained in the list, belong to the Cephalopoda, while nearly
all the remaining one hundred and seventy-six species, which appear to be
restricted to the north-west, belong to the Lamellibranchiata and Gasteropoda,
This, however, is not so surprising when we bear in mind the fact that the
habits and organization of these ancient Mollusca must have been such, from
what we know of their existing analogues in our present seas, that the for-
mer depended on accident, or feeble locomotive organs, for their gradual
distribution over the world from their various centres of creation, while the
Cephalopoda, owing to their superior locomotive powers, were capable of
wandering freely far out over the most profound parts of the ocean.

It would, perhaps, be premature to attempt, at the present time, the task
of tracing out in much detail the parallelism of the various members of the
Cretaceous system in Nebraska, with those of New Jersey and other well-
known districts in the States, or with those of the south-western territories ;
yet the occurrence of several of the more common and characteristic fossils
of the upper two Nebraska formations, such as Ammonites placenta, Scaphites
Conradi, Bacculites ovatus, Nautilus Dekayi, etc., in the first and second Green
Sand beds and intervening ferruginous stratum of New Jersey, as well as
in the “ Rotten Limestone” of Alabama, clearly indicates the synchronism
of these deposits, notwithstanding their widely separated geographical posi-
tions.

That these beds, or formations of the same age, are widely distributed
over a vast area of country, extending from near the great bend of the Mis-
souri, in lat. 44° 15/’, long. 99° 20’, westward to, and perhaps beyond, the
eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains, and far south into Texas and New
Mexico, is highly probable, from the occurrence of their characteristic fos-
sils at many widely separated localities in this region.

ON THE EXISTENCE OF POTSDAM SANDSTONE ON THE EASTERN
SLOPE OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.

Messrs. Meek and Hayden, in a paper published in the Proceedings of the
Academy. of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, March, 1858, announce the exist-
ence of the Potsdam Sandstone on the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains,
—a discovery made during Lieut. Warren’s expedition to the Black Hills, in
the summer of 1857. These hills seem to have furnished the key to its exist-

828 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

ence in the Far West, where it is found to contain quite numerous well-pre-
served fossils, as Lingula (L. antiqua), Trilobites, etc., similar or identical
with those characterizing the same formation in Minnesota and New York.

New Fossils from the Potsdam Sandstone. — At a recent meeting of the
Boston Society of Natural History, Mr. Daniels, State Geologist of Wiscon-
sin, presented some minute Trilobites, and other fossils, from the base of the
Potsdam Sandstone of Wisconsin. The localities were various: the valley
of the Black River, in the north-western part of the State, the mouth of
Black River, and a spot sixty miles up the same river. He stated that they
were interesting, being the oldest fossil forms yet found in this country, the
sandstone resting directly upon the upturned edges of the Azoic rocks.
Upon a small island in Black River he had found perfect impressions of
Crustaceans, consisting of double rows of parallel tracks, precisely like
those in Montreal.

PERMIAN ROCKS IN KANSAS.

According to the researches of Prof. Swallow, of Missouri, the Permian
rocks of Kansas are 820 feet thick — 263 of the whole being separated as the
upper Permian, and the rest the Jower Permian. The rocks are limestones,
with some shales or clay layers, some of the limestones also containing horn-
stone. Above the Permian, in Kansas, there are 420 feet of sandstone, with
some calcareous and argillaceous layers, and occasional beds of gypsum.
These rocks are referred, with a query, to the Triassic, but may be Jurassic
or Cretaceous. <A trilobate exogenous leaf is mentioned as the only observed
fossil plant, and this would favor the last conclusion. Above these beds,
there are in the section two feet of Cretaceous rocks, and 169 of ‘‘ Quarter-
nary.”

The Permian is a direct continuation, apparently, of the Coal Measures,
without unconformability. The Carboniferous rocks have a thickness in
Kansas of 1070 feet, and are supposed to be higher in the series than the
Upper Coal Series of Missouri. Between the Permian and the overlying
strata there appears to be an entire unconformability.

Of the seventy-five species of fossils found in the Permian rocks, and pub-
lished by Prof. Swallow, only sixteen occur also in the Carboniferous; yet,
while the majority of the species are peculiar to the Permian, the majority of
the individuals are Carboniferous. |

THE TERTIARY CLIMATE.

Professor Unger, of Vienna, has found genuine reef-forming Corallidz in
the Tertiary strata of the Pannonian basin (south-east from Vienna) in lati-
tude 47°, while at present the northern limit of such corals in the Red Sea
and Persian Gulf is at 29°, thus furnishing a new proof of the higher tem-
perature which prevailed in Europe at the Tertiary period. — Edin. New
Phil. Jour.

ON THE FOSSIL REMAINS OF THE GENUS ELEPHAS.

The following is an abstract of a paper recently read before the Geological
Society, London, by Dr. Falconer, on the remains of elephants and other

GEOLOGY. 329

Proboscidea from the drift and upper tertiary deposits. The author re-
viewed, in a brief but comprehensive manner, the labors of Cuvier, De
Blainville, Blumenbach, Kaup, Nesti, Owen, and others, pointing out the
very wide range which had in the first instance been assigned by Cuvier to
the Elephas primigenius, or great Siberian mammoth. The author believed
that many teeth belonging to other species, and even to other subgeneric
forms, had been confounded with those of Elephas primigenius, and
owing to such erroneous and improper determination, nearly one half of the
whole world had been yielded as the habitat of this peculiar elephant;
whereas he hoped to show that these teeth belonged to distinct species, and,
_ in some cases, even to distinct sub-genera of the Proboscidea. Most of the
subsequent writers had followed Cuvier in his erroneous determinations on
this subject. The author referred to a valuable synopsis which he had pre-
pared, and which was suspended in the room, showing that the Pro-
boscideans, or mammals with prehensile trunks, were divisible into three
great genera, namely, the dinotherium, the mastodon, and the elephant.

The genus Dinotherium contained two species. The mastodon was divisi-
ble into three sub-genera, namely, the trilophodon, containing seven spe-
cies; the tetralophodon, containing six species; and the pentelophodon, of
one species. The genus Elephas he has divided also into three sub-genera,
namely, the stegodon, containing four species; the loxodon, four species;
and the enelephas, or elephants proper, containing six species.

All the preceding genera and sub-genera are now extinct, except two
species of enelephas, namely, the Asiatic or Indian elephant, and the
African elephant.

The Dinotherium is an extinct genus of the Proboscidea, established by
Professor Kaup from remains which were abundantly met with at Eppel-
sheim, in Hesse Darmstadt, in beds which the continental geologists con-
sider equivalent of the mioscene of Lyell. The restoration, by Professor
Kaup, of the Dinotherium giganteum, represents an enormous amphibious
animal, with a head nearly four feet in length, extreme length of body
about eighteen feet, head furnished with a long oblique proboscis, and with
two remarkable incurved tusks like those of the walrus, and the general
form resembling that of a gigantic tapir.

The mastodon is distinguished from the elephant by the structure of the
molar teeth. The ridges of dentine, surrounded by enamel, which pass
transversely across the tooth, are further apart, are more wavy in their
outline, and in young specimens are broken into little isolated conical eleva-
tions. When these wear down, the hard ridges, or ridge-plates as Dr. Fal-
coner terms them, resemble more the lozenge shapes on the teeth of the
African elephant than the elongated narrow laminz of Elephas indicus.

The sub-genera of mastodon had been named from the number of trans-
verse crests or ridges on the teeth (lophodon, tooth-crested, from Addos,
crest, Odous, tooth); hence trilophodon, teeth three-crested; tetralophodon,
teeth four-crested; pentelophodon, teeth five-crested, ete.

Pictet and other palzontologists nave long complained of the way in
which the remains of mastodon have been confounded with Elephas. The
genus mastodon appears to have had a wide range, although no remains
have yet been met with in Britain except in the marine crag of Norfolk,
from which Mr. Morris quotes M. angustidens. The remains of the mas-
todon are abundant near Eppelsheim; they have also been found in the en-
virons of Zurich, in Auvergne, in Bavaria, and Saxony. Species of masto-

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aa0- . ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

don have also been described by Mr. Clift, from the banks of the Irawadi in
Birmah, and by D’Orbigney and Humboldt, from South America.

The sub-generic distinctions of Elephas were also founded on peculiarities
in the teeth, the stegodon having crown ridges increasing in each tooth as
the numbers two, five, seven; the loxodon having three, six, and seven; while
in Enelephas the increase was much more rapid, as four, eight, twelve, etc.,
up to twenty-four. The Enelephas primigenius, or fossil elephant of Siberia,
was designated as the true mammoth, with rhomboidal shaped crown
ridges, placed close together, the enamel surrounding the dentine, thin, and
without waviness, crimping, or festooning. The most perfect remains of
this elephant are to be seen in the museums of Mannheim and Darmstadt.
They are to be found abundantly in the loep of the Rhine and in the drift of
northern Germany. In England they are found in the boulder clay of Nor-
folk, in the marine crag of Norwich, in the valley of the Thames, and other
glacial deposits. The author believes the true mammoth did not extend
south of the Alps, as he has never found it in the museums of Italy.

The teeth of the loxodon have a thick transverse digitation, without any
rhomboidal form in the ridge-plates. The enamel surrounding the dentine
is thick, and sections of the teeth present an intermediate form between that
of the elephant and the mastodon.

The Loxodon priscus is found abundantly in the Val d’Arno, in Italy, also
in Britain and Auvergne.

Dr. Falconer glanced at the various localities for remains of Proboscidea
in England, and took some objections to the subdivisions which had been
introduced into British geology by the terms pliocene, newer pliocene, and
post-pliocene. He observed that whatever evidence of distinction and sepa-
ration was afforded by the mollusca, the mammalian evidences drawn from
these beds failed entirely to support their separation and subdivision. Mam-
malian remains, which were found isolated and at considerable distances
apart in England, had been met with on the Continent in the same deposit,
and all associated on the same spot—a fact which went to prove that the
corresponding deposits in England belonged to one and the same age.

The author insisted, also, on the separation of the genus Elephas into the
three sub-genera above indicated, and these again into the several species
represented in his synopsis. The paper was profusely illustrated with a
magnificent series of colored diagrams, representing teeth of all the known
forms of proboscidea from all parts of the world, including those with
which the author had become acquainted during his residence in India.

Professor Owen paid an eloquent and well-deserved compliment to the re-
markable research and ability which Dr. Falconer had exhibited in this
communication. He hailed the paper as a great contribution to the history
of the fossil mammalia—a branch of natural history which Dr. Falconer
had made peculiarly his own. Notwithstanding the clear and able manner
in which Dr. Falconer had marshaled his evidence on the subject, he was
not prepared to admit all the generic and specific distinctions which Dr.
Falconer relied on in subdividing his genus Elephas. The Professor pointed
out many changes which age, sex, habits, etc., would effect in the grinding
surfaces of the molar teeth, and he thought the evidence in support of sepa-
ration on such grounds was to be received with great caution. The paper of
Dr. Falconer would clear the way of many difficulties for future observers,
and would doubtless lead to a more close observation and accurate determi-
nation of the larger mammalian remains.

GEOLOGY. 331

DEVONIAN TREES.

Fossil wood is announced, by J. W. Dawson (Proceedings Amer. Assoc.,
tenth meeting, p. 174), as occurring in the Devonian standstones of Gaspé.
The wood was black and silicified, being a trunk four feet long, and seven to
nine and a half inches in diameter. <A cross section exhibited a distinct cel-
lular tissue, with circular, not crowded, cells; and there were well-defined
rings of growth, averaging about a line in breadth. In a vertical section,
the cells were seen to be elongated, and to terminate in conical points; they
showed traces of transverse and diagonal fibres, sometimes decussating, but
no medullary rays or disk structures were visible. The tree was referred to
the Conifer, but stated to differ materially from any previously observed
form. The author adds that it may be related to fossil trees of the Devonian
“‘Cypridina schists ” of Saalfield in Meiningen, described by Professor Unger
as of very singular organization, as if the prototypes of the “‘ Gymnosperms.”

ON THE PLANTS OF THE COAL SERIES OF PENNSYLVANIA.

A memoir, published in the Journal of the Bost. Soc. Nat. His. vol. VI., by
Messrs. Rogers and Lesquereux, contains descriptions of one hundred and
six new species of coal-plants from the coal-fields of Pennsylvania. Prof.
Rogers, in his introductory observations, states that M. Lesquereux has found
that, out of over two hundred species examined by him, one hundred are
“identical with species already recognized in the European coal-fields, and
some fifty more of them show differences so slight that a fuller comparison
with better specimens may result in their identification likewise ;”’ moreover,
“‘those new species, which seem to be restricted to this continent, are every
one of them in close relationship with European forms.” The new species
are of Calamites 2, Asterophyllites 5, Annularia 1, Sphenophyllum 2, Noeg-
gerathia 3, Cyclopteris 5, Neuropleris 13, Odontopteris 2, Sphenopteris 8,
Hymenophyllites 3, Pachyphyllum (new genus) 5, Asplenites 1, Alethopteris
5, Callipteris 1, Pecopteris 7, Crematopteris 1, Scolopendrites 1, Caulopteris
2, Stigmaria 5, Sigillarea 9, Lepidodendron 10, Lepidophyllum 6, Brachyphyl-
lum 1, Cardiocarpon 3, Trigonocarpum 1, Rhabdocarpus 1, Carpolithes 3;
and Pinnularia 5 (named but undescribed).

FOSSILS FROM TEXAS.

At alate meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, Prof. Jeffries
Wyman gave an account of some fossil bones, presented to the Society by
Dr. Chas. Martin, U. S. N., which were purchased by him while attached to
the Coast Survey during the winter of 1855-6, at the mouth of the Brazos
river. They were discovered in the bed of the river, during its low stage,
about fifty miles from the coast. The collection is very valuable and inte-
resting, not only as representing three distinct races of gigantic quadrupeds,
but as indicating a new locality in the geographical distribution of the ani-
mals to which they belonged. It is not a little remarkable that three such
genera as Mastodon, Elephant, and Megatherium, should be represented in a
collection of no more than eight specimens taken at random. Six of the
eight appear to have undergone similar changes of density and mineraliza-
tion; these are the symphysis of the lower jaw, and ultimate molar, and the
femur of an elephant, the tibia of megatherium, and the two molars of a

332 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

mastodon. The others are lighter colored, and much less dense. Coming
as they do from the bed of a river, it is impossible to determine how far they
were originally associated in the same geological formation. Itis not impos-
sible that those first mentioned were from the same locality.

The dimensions of the tibia of the megatherium from the Brazos indicate
that it must have belonged to a much larger animal than the one whose re-
mains are preserved in the museum of Madrid: — thus, the circumference of
the bone around the lower extremity, without the fibula, is two feet seven
inches; that of the Madrid specimen, with the fibula, is two feet six inches
and a quarter. The breadth of the Madrid specimen, with the fibula, is
twelve and a half inches, and that of the specimen from the Brazos river,
without the fibula, is thirteen inches. In North America the megatherium
has hitherto been found only in two localities, viz., Skiddoway Island on the
coast of Georgia, and on the banks of the Ashley river in South Carolina.

ON THE MUD VOLCANOES OF THE COLORADO DESERT.

The following is an abstract of a paper communicated to the California
Academy of Natural Science, by Dr. John Veatch, descriptive of a visit to
the Mud Volcanoes of the Colorado Desert, in the month of July, 1857.
Among the numerous objects in California inviting the investigation of the
scientific and the attention of the curious observer, none are more conspicu-
ous than the “‘ Salses ” or “‘ Mud Volcanoes ”’ of the Colorado Desert. Hid-
den amidst the burning sands of a frightful waste, few persons have had the
temerity to encounter the labor and risk of visiting them. Even the Indians,
inhabiting the border of this Western Sahara, do not willingly venture so
far into its midst, unless it be during the annual rains. At any other period,
to miss one of the few springs of brackish water, or to find the place occu-
pied by drifting sands — a not unusual occurrence — would entail the certainty
of the horrors of thirst, if not loss of life. From personal experience I can-
not blame the repugnance of the natives to visit a district, which, in addition
to its physical repulsiveness, they suppose to be the abode of dark and
malignant spirits.

The striking peculiarities of this wild region are, however, too striking to
remain long unsubjected to thorough exploration. The entire desert is sup-
posed to have been the bed of a great brackish or fresh-water lake, and is
said to lay many feet below the level of the ocean. The part I lately visited
showed deep lacustrine deposits, inclosing, in myriads, the conchological
records of the former sea.

It was in the month of July that I had occasion, in the progress of a min-
eralogical excursion, to visit one of the above-named Salses. It 1s situated
about one hundred and fifty miles from San Diego, and sixty miles, in a
north-easterly direction, from the Indian village of San Felipe — the nearest
inhabited habitable place.

Starting from the above-named village, with an Indian guide, and horses
carrying provisions and water, the route for two days lay for the most part
over a desert track of sands and clays, thickly covered in some places with
forest of prickly cacti. On the morning of the third day, the white clouds
of steam arising from the Salse became apparent at a distance of about ten
miles, while the dull roar of the eruption could occasionally be heard. Ap-
proaching on horseback as near as was prudent, Dr. V. dismounted, and
proceeded on foot, over a soft and muddy ground, to the Salses. The scene

9

GEOLOGY. 833

here, he says, is difficult of description, and the effect can only be known by
one who has heard the wild rush of steam, the rude sounds of the mud ex-
plosions, and the dull murmur of the boiling cauldrons of slime. The space
occupied by the Salses is a parallelogram, 500 yards long and 350 broad — a
table of hardened bluish clay, a little elevated above the surrounding plain.
The adjacent ground is low and muddy, and during the rains is entirely cov-
ered with water. There is a gentle slope towards the north and east, the
mud and water of the Salses running off slowly in that direction, where a
lake of salt water exists in the rainy season, but presenting now a vast sheet
of crystalline chlorid of sodium. Into this lake the arm of the Colorado,
known as New River, discharges itself. The lake, having no outlet, would
probably soon regain its ancient area if the channel of New River afforded a
regular and more generous supply of water.

The steam-jets of the Salse issue from conical mounds of mud varying
from three to fifteen feet in height, the sides presenting various angles, some
being sharp and slender cones, others dome-shaped mounds that seem to
have spread and flattened out with their own weight, upon the discon-
tinuance of the action that formed them. Out of some of the cones the
steam rushes in a continuous stream, with a roaring or whizzing sound, as
the orifices vary in diameter or the jets differ in velocity. In others the
action is intermittant, and each recurring rush of steam is accompanied by a
discharge of a shower of hot mud, masses of which are thrown sometimes
to the height of a hundred feet. These discharges take place every few
minutes from some of the mounds, while-others seem to have been quiet for
weeks or months. During our short stay we had specimens of the rapidity
with which a sharp, conical mound could be built up and again tumbled
down. In one place a stream of hot water was thrown up from fifteen to
thirty feet, falling in a copious shower on every side, forming a circle within
which one might stand without danger from the scalding drops, unless the
wind chanced to drive them from their regular course. It issued from a su-
perficial mound, out of an opening about six inches in diameter; but the
column of steam and water, immediately upon issuing, expanded to a much
greater size. The orifice was lined with an incrustation of carbonate of lime,
and around it, and particularly on the southeast side, stood a miniature
grove of slender stalagmitic arborescent concretions of the same substance.
They were from half an inch to one and a half inches in diameter, and from
four to eight inches in height. Many of them were branched, and the tips
colored red, contrasting beautifully with the marble-whiteness of the trunk,
and resembling much a coral grove. Some were hollow, and delicate jets of
steam issued from their summits, and this seemed to explain the mode of
their formation. Some were not hollow throughout, being closed at the sum-
mit; but when detached from their base, a small orifice in the centre suffered
hot steam to pass, and some degree of caution was required to remove them
without scalded fingers. To approach the spot was a feat of some difficulty,
surrounded as it was by a magic circle of hot rain. I retreated, scalded,
from the only attempt I dared to make; but my son, more adventurous, or
more attracted by the beauty of the specimens, succeeded in bringing away
several. The falling water ran off into a pool a foot deep, but what became
of it was not apparent, as it had no seeming outlet. I brought away a bot-
tle of it for examination. It was transparent, but had an intensely bitter
and saline taste. A little beyond, on either hand, are two huge cauldron-like
basins, sunk five or six feet below the general level, and near a hundred feet

334 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

in diameter. Within these cauldrons a bluish argillaceous paste is continu-
ally boiling with a dull murmur, emitting copious sulphurous vapors, and
huge bubbles, bursting, throw masses of mud to the height of several fect.
These kettles sometimes boil over, and the matter runs off in a slimy stream
toward the salt lake. This seems to have been the case recently, as we en-
countered the track of one of these streams, not yet dry, a mile from the Salse.

The volcanic action was far more violent at some former period than at
present, as is proved by fragments of pumice scattered over the plain. Our
visit lasted only an hour and a quarter, owing to a deficiency of water. The
tempting objects in the vicinity, which would require many days for exami-
nation, could only be greeted with a farewell glance, and our horses’ heads
were turned towards the nearest point at which a supply of water could be
obtained.

For the first three or ‘four miles after leaving the Salse, the plain presented -
a smooth surface of sand and bluish clay, baked and fissured, and strewn
sparingly with volcanic cinders and obsidian fragments. Round holes
marked the escape of gas when the ground was softened by water. Soon
the plain became cut up with ravines three or four feet in depth, which José
said were the arms of “ New River,” which branched out before entering the
salt lake. The remains of a most luxuriant vegetation, now dead and dry,
proved the place to be a desert only for want of water.

Thus ended a hurried trip to a most interesting spot in the midst of a no
less interesting district. The shells obtained were submitted to Dr. Trask,
and were found to consist of two species of Amnicola (A. protea and A.
longinqua, Gould), and the Physa (P. humerosa, Gould), before named. A
large bivalve was observed, but so thin and fragile that the specimens broke
to small pieces for the want of safe means of transporting them.

The water from the volcano has the specific gravity of 1°075, and holds in
solution free boracie acid, with borates and a large quantity of chlorid of
sodium, and other salts. These matters would indicate the true volcanic
origin of the Salse, and but little doubt rests on my mind of its being so.
The evidence of former volcanic action in the neighborhood, and the testi-
mony of the boracic acid, establish its true character. The acid and its
compounds exist only in small quantities, but sufficient to be unequivocally
determined. Similar Salses exist some thirty or forty miles farther south.
One made its appearance during the earthquake of November 29, 1852, a
few miles below the line of the State. Two others exist in the same district,
as I was informed by a person who professed to have visited them. One is
represented as a single jet of steam and water from an opening, a yard in
diameter, situated in a plain of hardened clay. The other consists of several
pools of warm water, through which hot gas is continually escaping.
Another is again spoken of in the adjacent mountain, partaking of the true
volcanic character, emitting fire and smoke. I hope some one will soon have
occasion to examine these and other interesting localities at a season when
it will be practicable to pass a few days on the desert without danger of
perishing from thirst.

The real character of this desert has not been generally understood. In
its present condition it is truly a desert. But only a portion, however, of
its immense area is condemned to irretrievable barrenness, viz., the part
covered with drifting sands. The greater part, from the constituents of its
soil, must be fertile in the extreme, and only wanting moisture to produce a
wilderness of vegetation. This is proven in the case of New River, while

GEOLOGY. Jao

it continues to run. This arm of the Colorado might be made permanent,
but a far more convenient supply could be furnished by Artesian wells, or,
better still, by windmills raising water from common wells, as is now so
successfully practised throughout the fertile valley of San José.

EARTHQUAKE PHENOMENA IN SOUTHERN ITALY.

One of the most terrible earthquakes experienced in Southern Italy during
the present century occurred in the kingdom of Naples on the night of the
16th of December, 1857, a season of the year which, by a comparison of all
the known dates of earthquakes, has been ascertained to be more subject to
disturbances than any other. The sky was clear, the air still; indeed, unu-
sual stillness had prevailed the whole of that day. A sharp undulatory
shock of twenty seconds’ duration, immediately preceded, and, accompanied
by a hollow, rumbling noise, had scarcely awakened the inhabitants, who
had generally retired to rest, when, after a hardly perceptible pause of about
three minutes, a second and most violent successive shock of twenty-five
seconds’ duration crushed thousands of them under the ruins of their falling
houses. The seat of this earthquake was in the central group of mountains
in the provinces of Basilicata and Principato Citra, part of the main chain
of the Apennines, which are the watershed between the streams flowing into
the Tyrrhenian, the lonian, and the Adriatic Sea, and form the upper basins
of the Calore or Tanagro, the Sele, the Ofanto, the Bradano, the Basento,
the Sinno, and the Agri rivers. The centre of action, as far as it can be
judged from the intensity of its terrific effects, was almost in the heart of
the province of Basilicata, in a group of compact limestone mountains of
the cretaceous period, the southern branch of the said central group, which,
running from north to south between the heads of the valleys of the Sinno
and the Agri on the east, and the valley of Diano on the west, swells further
south into the lofty peaks of Monte Cocuzzo, Monte del Papa, and Monte
Pollino, on the frontiers of Calabria. On the declivities or lower peaks of
this group, which are covered with beds of tertiary marine marl, sands and
conglomerate, and within a district extending over an area of abont 216
square miles, stand, or rather stood, the towns and villages of Montemurro,
Saponara, Viggiano, Tramutola, Marsico Vetere, Marsico Nuovo, Spinosa,
and Sarconi, with an aggregate population of 35,570. Out of this number
more than 12,000, or more than one-third, in less than half a minute were
crushed to death; 2,000 severely wounded! The ground was cracked and
convulsed in the strangest manner; chasms and deep fissures were opened
in several places, fertile hills became bare rocks, valleys were raised up,
small pools formed, mountains cleft by deep ravines. The towns of Monte-
murro and Saponara, especially, were nearly entirely swept away; the former
lost 5,600 out of 7,000, and the latter 3,000 out of 4,000 inhabitants. Sapo-
nara, which rose in the Middle Ages out of the ancient Grumentum, where
Hannibal sustained a slight defeat by the Consul Claudius Nero, was almost
entirely levelled with the ground; there remain only a few shattered houses
standing. Of Montemurro, originally a Saracenic settlement of the tenth
century, literally nothing was left but a heap of rubbish. On the morning
of the 17th of December, 5,600 of its inhabitants were dead or dying under
the ruins, 685 disabled by wounds; the few remaining unhurt found them-
selves torn from their dearest ones, houseless, amidst a mass of ruins, with-
out means of subsistence or help, and exposed to all the inclemency of a

336 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

severe winter on a high peak of the Apennines! <A few days later the stench
of the dead human beings under the ruins made life unbearable to the few
surviving ones. Both at Montemurro and Saponara, most of the houses
standing on beds of conglomerate had been overturned, or shuffled in the
strangest manner, and the ruins deposited in the ravines beneath; the con-
tents of the lower stories were, in several instances, thrown up into the
stories above, or scattered in different directions, as if propelled by a central
force. The scenes of misery and horror that took place in those doomed
towns exceed what imagination can fancy. Viggiano came next, a town
whose inhabitants from time immemorial have been in the habit of wander-
ing with their harps over different parts of the world, and returning home
with their savings insummer. It lost 1,700 out of 6,634 inhabitants, and had
most of the houses and churches overthrown. At this place an extensive
fire added to the horrors of the night. From the centre of a triangle formed
by these three towns, on which the fury of the convulsion was more violently
wreaked, the distances, in a direct line, are—to the Gulf of Policastro, 24
miles; to Prstum, on the Gulf of Salerno, 58 miles; to the mouth of the
Agri, on the Gulf of Tarentum, 47 miles; to the extinct volcano of Mount
Vulture, 55 miles; to Mount Vesuvius, 94 miles; to Bari, on the Adriatic, 80
miles; and to Mount Etna, 195 miles. Beyond this district, the terrific effects
of the earthquake extended, though somewhat diminished in intensity, over
an area of more than 3,000 square miles, destroying or injuring, more or
Jess, about 200 towns and villages, with an aggregate population of more
than 200,000 inhabitants, of whom no less than 10,000 were killed. The
whole number of persons destroyed by this earthquake in a few seconds has
been carefully estimated as 22,000; and it also appears, from reliable data,
that in the course of 75 years, from 1783 to 1857, the kingdom of Naples has
lost by earthquake agencies at least 110,000 inhabitants, or more than 1,500
per year, out of an average population of 6,000,000.

CURIOUS PHENOMENON ACCOMPANYING EARTHQUAKE MANIFES-
TATIONS.

Dr. C. Forbes of Chili, 8. A., in a letter to the London Geological Society,
states, that for some time previous to the occurrence of a severe earthquake-
shock, on or about the 30th August, 1857, the Bay of Payta swarmed with
crabs, of a kind not generally observed, and ten days after the earthquake
they were thrown up on the beach, in a raised wall-like line, three to four
feet wide, and to the height of about three feet, along the whole extent of
the bay, and above high-water mark. At the same time as the upheaval of
the crabs took place, the water of the bay became changed, from a clear blue,
to a dirty blackish-green color, much resembling that off the Island of Chiloe,
Concepcion, and the southern parts of Chili. Ten days afterwards, Dr. C.
Forbes found that living specimens of the crabs were still numerous in the
bay; but all appeared to be sickly, and numbers came ashore to die. There
were no appearances of any alteration of the relative position of sea and land
in the vicinity, nor had any ebullition of gases been observed; although prob-
ably, to both these causes combined, the phenomenon described was due.

SUBMARINE EARTHQUAKE.

A submarine earthquake was observed on 25th of November, 1857. Wil-
liam Cook, master of the British schooner stremadura of Glasgow, thought

GEOLOGY. 337

he perceived a squall abaft the beam, but this turned out to be a warm mist,
or steam. Where the mist was, the sea boiled or surged up from the bottom.
It was in those seas that the island of Salerina appeared in 1811.

ON CERTAIN CONNECTING POINTS BETWEEN LUNAR AND TERRES-
TRIAL VOLCANOES.

The following paper was recently read before the Royal Astronomical
Society, by Prof. C. Piazzi Smith:

In a recent publication of our Society the upper parts of Teneriffe were
described as a most moon-like region. The expression is not a little de-
scriptive; and why? Because, at those elevations the air is thin and trans-
parent; no cloud floats therein during a large part of the year; vegetation is
reduced to a minimum; sharp jagged rocks rear their naked forms around,
brilliantly, and even blindingly illumined by the intense rays of an un-
dimmed sun on one side, while they throw on the other shades as remarkable
for their darkness; and, finally, all these rocks, plains, and slopes, are thor-
oughly and purely volcanic. Every astronomer will at once understand and
allow the connection, but would yet do unwisely were he to overlook the opin-
ions of several eminent geologists, who affirm that the telescopic features
made out on the lunar surface are not volcanic at all. However positively
this view is maintained in conversation, I have not yet been fortunate enough
to meet in print with anything that could, with due respect to geologists of
standing, be considered a full exposition of their reasons. Rather, then,
than attempt to discuss opinions evidently weak and confessedly imperfect,
and without entering into the extensive subject of volcanoes generally —
though for their natural development and proper action, pur et simple, the
moon might perhaps be shown to be a fitter region than the earth —I will
at present merely bring forward some few facts, equally acceptable, I trust,
as facts to either party, and calculated to supply, in some measure, a short
link in that large gap which intervenes between the methods of observation
hitherto employed on lunar or terrestrial volcanoes, real or imaginary. An
immense difference of this sort must always prevail; for whereas actual
eruptions, and chemical analysis of the materials erupted, are the most
powerful of proofs for earthly craters, we can never hope to employ them in
the moon. There are naught but extinct volcanoes, so distant from us, too,
that rare indeed it is to find a man who can completely realize what he sees of
figure and surface with the telescope, so as to form in his mind as rational
an idea of them as he does of an earthly mountain that he has actually
walked over. To approximate these respective methods of research, and in
that way eliminate their peculiar sources of error, we may evidently, with
much advantage, leave the active volcanoes of the earth (say Vesuvius)
where the fire and fiery smoke, and devastations of the last or present erup-
tion, force themselves too prominently on the eyes and nerves of all behold-
ers, and turn rather to some extinct specimen, where we may contemplate
the traces of successive eruptions during myriads of years, and the last of
them as impassively as the first; always provided that such instance be not
overlaid by any geological changes consequent on our dense and watery
atmosphere, and that its features can be viewed from such heights and dis-
tances as in the naked eye to subtend something like the same angles that
those of the moon do in the telescope. Had we to search over the whole
breadth of the earth for such an example, we could hardly find a better one

29

¢
338 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

than the colossal Peak of Teneriffe, of which, through the liberality of the
Admiralty, I am enabled now to lay some particulars before the Society.
First I would request attention to the fine model, on the scale of =5)}g 5th,
kindly prepared for the occasion by my friend, Mr. James Nasmyth, who,
while employing upon it all that artistic skill for which he is so well known
to all present, has yet conformed most faithfully and conscientiously to all
the measurement, particulars of length, breadth, and height, that I could fur-
nish him with. The space thus represented is about sixteen miles square,
and embraces part of the northern coastline of the Island of Teneriffe, to-
gether with the Peak, the great crater, and all the most elevated parts of the
interior. The coloring is according to nature; the green near the sea-level
representing the vegetation, abundant at and below the summer-cloud level,
or four thousand feet; above that line the hues of the lava rock predominate;
the oldest, light and bright yellow, are the most extensive; the latest, black,
are chiefly confined to the upper part of the Peak, and tosome special crater
mouths in the other parts; while the intermediate are red or brown. By
throwing a strong ray of side light on the model,* the variations of form
may be brought out prominently; and amongst them the huge size of the
“elevation crater’ is most remarkable, being somewhat more than eight
miles in diameter. It is on the floor of this crater that has been formed the
central cone, known as the Peak of Teneriffe. From the brink of tl e south-
ern wall of the great crater, eight thousand nine hundred feet above the sea,
and two thousand feet above the crater-floor, and again, from a station on
the flanks of the central cone, at an elevation of ten thousand seven hundred
feet, excellent birds-eye views were obtained, during the two months we
spent there, over features of the volcanic landscape; which then, seen in
the thin transparent air above the clouds, and under a vehement solar illu-
mination, assumed very much indeed of a lunar look. In comparing these
features with lunar volcanoes, the first remark may be, that our great crater,
eight miles in diameter, is still nothing to compare with many in the moon,
some fifty or sixty miles in diameter, Are those great lunar circles, then,
therefore, not craters? To this end we may answer:—Jst. That the fre-
quency with which small craters break through the walls of large ones in
the moon, and never large through small, indicates that the earlier volca-
noes there were, on the whole, always the larger; and this practical result
is quite agreeable to the theory of volcanic action, which ascribes its lead-
ing features to the remains of heat due to the mode of planetary formation.
2d. That, so far as Teneriffe is concerned, the large volcano was the earlier,
as, too, it should be, according to the theory just mentioned, which is equally
applicable to the earth as to the moon. The distance, however, which we
can go back in the volcanic history of the earth, is as nothing compared to
its actual age, or compared to what we can in the moon, for this very simple
and patent fact, the presence of an ocean on the earth, combined with sec-
ular variations of land and sea surface. These variations, which are still
going on, have been in force for such immense periods of time, that geolo-

* This was done at the lecture by means of a Drummond lime-ball light, which
was afterwards employed in magnifying and exhibiting, by optical pictures, a series
of thirty-six photographs of volcanic features, at from 7,000 to 12,200 feet above
the sea-level. Mr. Nasmyth had also very kindly allowed six of his large and un-
equalled drawings of the moon’s surface to be suspended in the room, for the pur-
pose of contrast and comparison.

GEOLOGY. 309

gists have found no part of the earth whatever, save new volcanoes recently
thrown up, which has not been more than once beneath the ocean, so long
and at such a depth as to have sedimentary strata thrown down upon it
to a depth of many thousands of feet. There is no part of the world, not even
the giant chain of the Andes, which seems to have escaped this submersion
and precipitation. What, then,can have been the fate of the earlier and
more powerful volcanoes of our globe, than in their turn to have sunk under
the sea, and had all their irregularities first rasped and removed by the de-
structive action of ages of surf and waves gradually creeping over them, and
then having them covered under such depth of strata of hard rock, that,
when once more lifted up into the atmosphere, no quarrying by man can
ever expose their full proportions. When we go back from Chajorra or
Rambleta, at present unextinct, and some three quarters of a mile in diame-
ter, to the great crater of Teneriffe, eight miles in diameter, and extinct
during the human period, or equally from Vesuvius, at present active, and a
quarter of a mile in diameter, to Somma, two miles in diameter, and per-
fectly quiet ever since Italy has been dry land, — we find the older craters
to have been the larger; and if they are not very large as compared with
those of the moon, it is because their age is, after all, quite in the mod-
ern times of geology, and as shown by the shells found in the lower slopes
of either volcano to belong to the post-pliocene period. The grand vol-
canic circles, then, of the older “‘ primary” and “secondary” days can
never be seen by man; but would he form some idea of their mighty propor-
tions, when the crust of the earth was thin, its whole interior fluid with heat,
and its more volatile materials going off in oceans of vapor, agitating the
whole globe, and reacting against the weak exterior with terrific violence, let
him look to the surface — our surface — of the moon, never yet depressed
under an ocean, and there, as in a glass held up to us for our instruction,
may be seen what must have been the throes endured by the earth, and
what the size of volcanic mouths in its early history of fiery ordeal. Many
further differences may be found, on close observation, between lunar and
terrestrial volcanoes, as dependent on the infinitesimal atmosphere around
the former, and the smaller force of gravity acting on them. To assist in
investigating the nature of such modifications, we have, happily, in Tene-
riffe, specimens of volcanoes which, at the time of their activity, were
some of them submarine and some subaérial; and when we look to the
smooth slopes of the former, some 12°, increasing to 28° in the latter, with
extreme roughness of surface, we can hardly but allow that this is a strong
approach to the still steeper and more jagged forms in the moon. In short,
with its rare atmosphere (22 mercurial inches), so dry that the rocks do not
disintegrate, vegetation does not spread, and a slow change of color is all
that marks the lapse of successive centuries, the little volcanic world of the
great crater of Teneriffe, raised high above the clouds, is a most important
region to be studied and mapped with reference to lunarinvestigations. To
map this region correctly would be a work of years; and all that I have
done is to point out the character of the phenomena visible from two points
of the circle, viz., the stations established on Guajara and Alta Vista. The
terrestrial part of the problem is thus still only begun, and the greater part
remains still to do; while the astronomical portion, or the telescopic part,
will have more and more work prepared for it, as often as any character-
istics of form are made out by theory or earthly analogy as necessary to
volcanic action. Amongst them may be already placed the dynamic waves

340 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

and wrinkles of lava streams; and though no telescope has yet seen them,
nor perhaps can expect to do so, unless mounted on such a peak as Tene-
riffe, high above the clouds and the tremors of the atmosphere, yet the secu-
rity which the discovery of such a fact would give to investigations into the
moon’s physical history, might render the attempt well worthy of attention.

GEOLOGY OF CRYSTALS.

An interesting paper on this subject was recently read before the Geolog-
ical Society of London, by H. C. Sorby, F. R. 8., in which his experience in
the microscopical examination of crystals was given. In some of these, dry
cells are found; in others there are water cavities. Crystals having cavities
with water, he concludes, were formed from aqueous solutions; crystals con-
taining dry cavities were formed from matter in a state of igneous fusion;
crystals containing both water and dry cavities were formed under great
pressure, by the combined influence of highly heated water and melted rock.
The amount of water in some of these cavities may be employed to deduce
the temperature at which the crystals were formed; those containing few
cavities were formed more slowly than those containing many.

Applying these general principles to the study of natural crystalline rocks,
minerals, etc., it appears that the fluid cavities in rock-salt, in some calcare-
ous spar, in limestone, and in some gypsum, indicate that these minerals
were formed by deposition from solution in water, at a moderate temperature,
and the same conclusions apply to other minerals in veins in various rocks.
The constituent minerals of mica-schist and the associated rocks contain
many fluid cavities, which indicate that they were metamorphosed by the
action of heated water, and not by mere dry heat and partial fusion, as the
plutonist geologists have taught.

The structure of minerals in erupted lava proves that they were deposited
from a mass in a state of igneous fusion, like the crystals in the slags of fur-
naces; but in some blocks projected from volcanoes there are water as well
as dry cavities, which indicate that they were formed under pressure at a dull
red heat, when both water and liquid rock were present. Quartz in veins
has a structure proving that it has been rapidly deposited from a solution in
water, and sometimes at a high heat (about 329° Fah.), and when the tem-
perature was greater, mica, tinstone, and even felspar were deposited. Solid
granite, far from contact with stratified rocks, sometimes contains fluid cay-
ities; this is especially the case with coarse-grained quartzoze granites, in
which the water constitutes two per cent. of the volume of the quartz, and the
cavities are so numerous and minute as to number thousands in a cubic inch;
felspar and quartz in this granite contain dry cavities, thus showing that
these minerals were formed with water under fusion of high temperatures.
The conclusion arrived at from this is, that granite is not a simple igneous
rock, formed as geologists have generally taught, when the earth was a mass
of fire, and when no water could be found resting upon its surface.

ON SOME PECULIARITIES IN THE ARRANGEMENT OF MINERALS IN
IGNEOUS ROCKS.

In a paper on the above subject, read before the British Association, 1858,
by Mr. H. C. Sorby, he stated, “that very often, in igneous rocks, infusible
minerals had been formed upon such as were far more fusible; which was a
very unintelligible peculiarity, if they supposed that the temperature at

GEOLOGY. 341

which they crystallized was the same as their own fusing-point, when heated
alone. This fact, however, as well as several important peculiarities in the
microscopical structure of the minerals, may be readily explained by sup-
posing that the fused rock is simply a liquid that melts at a high temperature,
capable of dissolving various minerals, in the same manner as salts are dis-
solved in the very fusible substance, water. On cooling to a certain extent,
the crystals are deposited from solution, and thus crystallize out at a temper-
ature which must be somewhat lower than the fusing-point of the mineral
when heated alone, and may be much lower than that. This supposition
completely explains why a fusible mineral may act as a nucleus for one that
is much less fusible; and it was shown that this peculiarity may be imitated
artificially, for when saline aqueous solutions are cooled so as to solidify,
crystals of very infusible salts are actually deposited on previously formed
crystals of ice.”

GIGANTIC CRYSTALS OF BERYL.

At a late meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, Mr. Francis
Alger spoke of the great Beryl formation in the town of Grafton, New Hamp-
shire, describing its crystals of gigantic dimensions which had been discoy-
ered there. One of these crystals, which he had caused to be removed and con-
veyed to Boston, weighed nearly two and one-fourth tons, and was five feet in
length. Another, the largest single crystal in the world, as far as is known,
is nine feet in length, being a six-sided prism, the several faces of which
measure respectively in width through the greatest diameter of the crystal,
two feet eight inches, two feet, one foot eleven inches, one foot ten inches,
one foot six inches, and one foot nine inches — thus giving it a cireumfer-
ence of twelve feet. This crystal yet remains at the locality, but the quartz
and feldspar surrounding it have been carefully removed by ehisels, so that
its position in its native bed can be readily observed. Three weeks labor of
two men was expended in this process, as ordinary blasting by gunpowder
would have destroyed the crystal. Its weight is probably not less than five
tons.

THE CASPIAN SEA.

A new map of the Caspian Sea, has recently been published in St. Peters-
burg, by Lieutenant Jwatschintson, a naval officer in the Russian service,
who was employed by the government to take soundings and examine the
shores of this important lake. According to his measurement, the Caspian
Sea covers an area of three hundred and fifty-two thousand square versts.
Its greatest length is six hundred and fifty geographical miles, and the ex-
treme breadth three hundred miles.

ARTESIAN WELL AT NIONDORF, GERMANY.

This well has reached a depth of 2247 Parisian feet, having passed through
04°11 metres of lias, 206°02 keuper, 142°17 muschelkalk, 311°45 varicgzated
sandstone, 16°24 older slates and grauwacke. The temperature at bottom is
27°63° C., equivalent to an increase of 1° C., in depth for every 31-04 metres.
Walferdin, in Compt. Rend. xxxvi. 250.

20*

342 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

TIN ORE FROM AUSTRALIA.

At a recent meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, Dr. A. A.
Hayes exhibited a specimen of octohedral tin ore from the gold washings of
Owen’s river, on the way from Melbourne to Sydney, Australia. The ore is
accompanied by titaniferous and chromiferous iron ores, garnets, and yellow
quartz. In this connection, he stated that he had examined the black sands
of many of the gold washings of California, in which, besides garnets and
topazes, cinnabar is generally found, without detecting tin ore. Some of the
titaniferous iron crystals yield the slight traces of oxide of tin, often found
in the ore, but no crystals of pure oxide of tin have been found. Although,
in general, a resemblance exists between the sands of Australia and those of
California, the heavy ores found are not the same in both.

ON THE REMAINS OF THE GIGANTIC ELK, CERVUS EURYCEROS.

M. de Morlot, in the Journal of the Geological Society, London, announces
the discovery of the remains of the gigantic elk, in association with works
of human industry, during the draining of a small lake in the Canton of
Berne, Switzerland. In the bed of the lake, in connection with fragments
of pottery, stone-chisels, arrow-heads, cut-wood, etc., were found many frag-
ments of the bones both of domesticated and of wild animals, viz., horned
cattle, horses, swine, dogs of various size, goats, sheep, cats, elks, stags,
aurochs, bears, wild boars, foxes, beavers, tortoises, several birds, and other
animals still undetermined. An atlas and jaw, however, sent by M. Trogon
to Prof. Pictet, of Geneva, were ascertained by this eminent palzontologist
to belong to Cervus euryceros. The length of the atlas, is 0°265 metre, and
its breadth 0-088 metre; both differing only by > 35g from the measure-
ments stated by Cuvier.

BOTANY.

STATISTICS OF VEGETATION.

Prof. Henfrey, F. R. S., in a recent work on Botany, furnishes the follow-
ing curious and interesting statistics of vegetation:

“ Theophrastus (390 B. c.) enumerated 500 kinds of plants, and Pliny (a.
Db. 79), in his ‘Historia Naturalis,’ increased the number to double. The
researches of the Greek, Roman, and Arab naturalists made known no more
than 1400 species, and even in the beginning of the seventeenth century the
discrimination of the different kinds had only raised the number of distin-
guished forms to 6000.

Humboldt, at the commencement of the present century spoke of 44,000
plants, Phanerogamous and Cryptogamous.

“De Candolle (‘ Essai Elémentaire de Géographie Botanique,’ 1820) next
calculated that the writings of botanists and the various European collec-
tions of dried specimens, might be assumed to contain, together, upwards of
56,000 species of plants. In 1820, however, the number of species in the
herbarium of the Jardin des Plantes was estimated at the same number, and
the collection of M. Benjamin Delessert of Paris was supposed to contain at
the time of his death, in 1847, as many as 86,000 species, a number which,
about ten years previously, had been conjectured by Lindley to represent the
whole of the species existing on the globe (‘ Introduction to Botany,’ second
edition, 1835). The Royal Herbarium at Schonberg, near Berlin, is estima-
ted by Dr. Klotsh to contain 74,000 distinct species.

“Humboldt (‘ Aspects of Nature’) has entered into some interesting cal-
culations to prove how far all these figures fall short of the number of spe-
cies of plants which may be supposed to exist. The number of species of
flowering plants named in Loudon’s ‘ Hortus Britannicus’ (1832), as at that
time, or within a moderate period before, cultivated in Britian, was 26,660;
the catalogue of species actually under cultivation in the Berlin Garden,
carefully prepared by Kunth, gave rather more than 14,060 species, 375 of
which were Ferns, leaving 13,685 flowering plants. Among these the follow-
ing important Orders were represented : the Composite by 1,600 species,
the Leguminosz by 1150, the Labiatz by 428, the Umbelliferze by 370, the
Orchidex by 460, the Palms by 60, and the Grasses and Cyperacez by 600
species.

““When these numbers are compared with those of the species of their
Orders described in recent works, we find that this Garden contains only
1-7th of the Compositz (about 10,000, De Candolle and Walpers), 1-8th of
the Leguminosz (8068), and 1-9th of the Grasses (Grasses 3544, Cyperaceze
2000, Kunth), and of the smaller Orders of Labiatz (2190) and Umbelliferzs
(1620), about 1-5th or 1-4th.

344 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

“Supposing all the flowering plants cultivated at one time in all the botanic
gardens of Europe to amount to 20,000, and assuming from the foregoing
comparisons that the cultivated species amount to about the eighth of those
described and preserved in collections, the latter would amount to 160,000
species. Large as this number is, it will scarcely be thought excessive,
when we recollect how small a proportion of many large Orders are to be
found in our gardens, scarcely 1-100th part, for example, of the Guttifers,
Malpighiacese, Melastomacez, Myrtacex, and Rubiacee.

‘If we apply this mode of calculation to the number of species given by
Loudon (26,660), the estimate of 160,000 rises to 213,000 species.”

These deductions, based upon Kunth’s inferences, refer to the species that
have been described, and are now existing in herbaria. It remains to esti-
mate the whole number of species upon the globe, judging by the proportion
under the cultivation of art and the examination of science. The following
statement exhibits the principle on which the calculations are based:

““ Walpers’ ‘ Repertorium,’ supplementary to De Candolle’s ‘Prodromus,’
brings the number of Leguminosz up to 8068 species in 1846. The propor-
tion of the number of the Leguminosz to that of the entire Phanerogamous
flora is 1-10th within the tropics, 1-18th in the temperate, and 1-35 in the
north frigid zone; so that we may assume the mean proportion of this fam-
ily to be 1-2ith. The 8068 described Leguminosz would therefore lead us to
suppose that there existed only 169,400 species of flowering plants upon the
surface of the globe, whereas the Composite, as stated above, indicate, by
Kunth’s mode of deduction, more than 160,000 already known species.

“Of the Composite, Linneus was acquainted with only 785 species, while
10,000 are now known. The greater part of these appear to belong to the Old
World, De Candolle describing only 3590 American, with 5093 for Europe,
Asia, and Africa. But this seeming abundance of the Compositx is to a
certain extent deceptive and only apparent. The proportions of this Order
are 1-15th between the tropics, 1-7th in the temperate, and 1-13th in the
frigid zones, giving a mean of 1-12th, which shows that even more species of
Composite than of Leguminose have escaped investigation hitherto, since a
multiplication by 12 would give us the improbably low number of 120,000
Phanerogamia.

“The Grasses and Cyperacez give still lower results, as comparatively fewer
still of these have been collected and described. The mean proportion of
the Grasses seems to be about 1-12th. Taking the number of known spe-
cies of plants according to the above calculations at 160,000 or 215,000, the
Grasses ought to amount to 13,333 in the first case, and 17,750 in the second,
while only either 1-4th or 1-5th of these numbers is known. When’ we
reflect what enormous extent of plain still remains unexplored in almost all
parts of South America, and in Northern and Central Asia, this deficiency
does not appear extraordinary; and, indeed, it becomes by no means diffi-
cult to believe that we are so deficient of knowledge of species of Grasses,
that the total number of flowering plants might be taken at double the num-
ber known, which would lead to the conclusion that only 1-8th or 1-10th of
the Grasses had as yet been discriminated.”

ON THE GROWTH OF PLANTS.

At the Dublin meeting of the British Association, Prof. Buckman, from
the committee appointed to experiment “On the effect of external con-

BOTANY. 345

ditions on the growth of plants,” reported, that he believed he had success-
fully proved that many species of plants regarded as species by botanists,
were only varieties or hybrid forms. Thus, he had produced Avena sativa
from Avena fatua, Symphytum officinale from Symphytum asperrimum, and
many others. He had not succeeded in producing wheat from any species
of Aigilops.

NEW ENGLAND MYCOLOGY.

For the last four years Mr. Charles J. Sprague, a member of the Boston
Society of Natural History, has been engaged in collecting and describing
the various species of fungi belonging to New England. The number of
spectes thus far enumerated and catalogued in the publications of the Boston
Society of Natural History is 678, of which a large number are entirely new
to science.

ON THE PROTECTION OF PLANTS FROM THE FROST.

M. Boussingault has devoted a long article in the Annales de Chimie et de
Physique to the preservation of plants from frost, by filling the air with
smoke. This is not recommended on nights when the thermometer at a dis-
tance above the soil indicates a temperature below 32°, for it would then
have no effect, nor on windy nights, for then there is no frost; but it may
possibly be found of service in protecting fruit-trees and delicate plants
from the late frosts of spring, by which their blossoms are so often destroyed.

ON THE VITALITY OF SEEDS.

It has long been a disputed question among botanists, whether the uni-
formity existing in the vegetation of different islands and continents having
no other communication with each other but a wide expanse of ocean, is ow-
ing to aspecial creation in each instance, or to an interchange of seeds trans-
ported from one shore to another by the waters of the sea. M. Ch. Martens,
professor at Montpellier, in a letter to M. Flourens, recently communicated
to the Academy of Sciences, gives an account of certain experiments he has
instituted for the purpose of ascertaining — First, whether many kinds of
seeds are specifically lighter than sea-water, so as to swim on the surface ;
and, secondly, whether, after having undergone the action of sea-water
for a certain length of time, they are still in a condition to germinate. With
regard to the first question, M. Martens has found that out of a certain num-
ber of different kinds of fresh seeds, chiefly of a large size, taken at random,
two-thirds will swim on the waters of the Mediterranean, the density of
which is 1°0258. To ascertain the second question, M. Martens caused a
large box of sheet-iron to be made, divided into one hundred compartments.
Ninety-eight of these compartments received a certain number of seeds of
different kinds, and the apparatus thus prepared was fastened to a buoy. A
large number of minute holes pierced in the side of the box allowed the
water free ingress and egress, without any danger of the seeds being washed
away. After a lapse of six weeks, the box was taken out of the sea and
opened, when, out of the ninety-eight kinds of seeds, forty-one were found
completely rotten. The remaining fifty-seven kinds were immediately sown
in pots filled with earth taken from a heath. Of these, thirty-five kinds
only germinated, including seventeen of those which are specifically heavier

346 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

than sea-water, and could not therefore be transported to any distance ; so
that, out of ninety-eight species, eighteen only might germinate after a six
weeks’ voyage, under the most favorable circumstances. Repeating the ex-
periment with the thirty-five kinds which had resisted the action of sea-watcr
for this space of time, M. Martens left them for three months exposed to its
action, and then found eleven in a rotten state; of the other twenty-three,
only nine germinated, two of which were specifically heavier than sea-water;
so that, after a three months’ sojourn in the sea, a period most likely to be
the usual one, seven kinds only out of ninety-eight might have some chance
of germinating. The Ricinus communis and Cucurbita pepo are among the
number. Now, if all the dangers be taken into consideration to which a seed
must be exposed during a long voyage, as well as the difficulties it must
meet with to find a congenial soil on landing, with other circumstances
calculated to promote its germination and subsequent preservation from
destruction, M. Martens concludes, with M. Alph. De Candolle, that the
transportation of seeds by sea must have had a very small share in the pro-
pagation of plants to other shores, and that the hypothesis of simultaneous
creations in different parts of the world acquires much probability.

ON THE BOTANY OF THE SORGHUM VULGARE

Mr. C. J. Sprague, in a recent communication to the Boston Society of
Natural History, stated that a suite of specimens of the Sorgho sucré, Imphee
Dourrha, and Broom Corn, had been placed in his hands for examination by
Mr. Olcutt, of Westchester County, New York, with a request that the fol-
lowing points of interest might be examined:— Whether these plants are,
or are not, of the same species? whether they will hybridize? and whether
they are likely to lose their peculiarities by careless planting and manage-
ment? Some varieties possess more of the saccharine secretion than others.
Is this excess a specific peculiarity, or the result of varied cultivation of the
same species in different localities? Will these peculiarities continue fixed,
or will the varieties lose their distinctiveness when grown in company with
one another?

The specimens consist of portions of the panicles of eighteen varieties of
Zulu Kaffir /mphee, grown in South Carolina, from seeds ripened in France,
and received from Mr. Wray. These specimens were gathered in a field,
where they grew promiscuously, by Mr. Olcutt himself, in company with
Mr. Wray, who identified the varieties, and furnished the Kaffir names.
There are four specimens of Dourrha, the seeds of which were received from
France in the same package with the /mphee, and planted in the same field.
Also, four specimens of Dourrha, Broom Corn, and their hybrids with Sorgho
sucré, grown by Mr. Olcutt in Westchester. I have added to these four
specimens of Jmphee, grown in the District of Columbia, that the suite of
specimens may be yet more full. My remarks upon these specimens will be
confined to the fruit alone, as I have not seen the growing plants, and can-
not, therefore, speak of the differences which may exist in their foliage and
port.

Steudel, in his synopsis of the grasses, enumerates the following allied
species of Andropogon growing in Asia and Africa: — A. Sorghum, Auct.; A.
rubens, Willd.; A. subglabrescens, Steud.; A. Saccharatus, L. (sub. Holcus);
A, verticilliflorus, Steud.; A. niger, Kunth; A. cernuus, Roxb.; A. bicolor,
Roxb.; and he implies that most of these may be varieties of the Andropogon

BOTANY. 347

Sorghum. Besides these, is A. Drummondii, Nees, from New Orleans. These
so-called species are, in all probability, founded on permanent varieties of
the grass which has been grown for its grain and foliage for centuries in the
East Indies and Africa. It was placed first in the genus Holcus by Linneeus,
but has been separated from it and ranked in that of Andropogon. It is still
kept there by some of the best botanists of the day; but by others it is
placed in that of Sorghum, a genus separated from Andropogon mainly from
its paniculate inflorescence and coriaceous glumes. The species named for
Drummond, by Nees, is probably a form of the same plant which had estab-
lished itself at New Orleans. An authentic specimen in Dr. Gray’s herba-
rium does not appreciably differ from some of the varieties grown in South
Carolina.

The thirty-one specimens laid before you are thought to represent four
species, and many varieties. The seeds came from France, but the plants
furnishing them originally came from widely separated localities. The dif-
ferences which they exhibit are in the color, shape, and hairiness of the
glumes; the color, shape, and prominence of the corn beyond the glumes;
and the open or compact growth of the panicle. If these differences were
constantly exhibited together,—if the difference of shape were always
attended by a difference in color, and that color always accompanied by the
same hairiness and exsertion of corn, —there would be strong ground to
establish specific differences. But such is not the case. The specimens,
placed side by side, exhibit a complete gradation between the extremes of
the series. Those which vary most in shape are similar in color. Those
which differ in color are identical in shape. The hairiness and the degree of
exsertion are co€xistent with the extremes of shape and color. There are
four which are especially interesting. Mr. Olcutt grew Broom Corn and
Dourrha in rows on each side of Sorgho sucré. The result was a plant partak-
ing equally of the characteristics of the parents on each side. The eighteen
varieties of Imphee, thought to be so distinct that different native names
have been given them, exhibit every intermediate form imaginable. Some
glumes are nearly white; some are specked with brown and black; some
are all brown; others all black. Some have ovate pointed glumes of every
hue; others have obtuse glumes, with a broad, scarious point, or rounded
glumes with no point, through the same series of color. The corns are
either enclosed or exserted through the whole series, irrespective of color or
form. Some of the varieties of Imphee present a peculiar appearance, from
the persistence and prominence of the sterile spikelets; some, differing in no
other respect, have these scarce visible; and some have them not at all.
Color and hairiness are among the least reliable of botanical characters, and
should have but little weight in plants so closely allied; and the other differ-
ences are exhibited almost as prominently in different panicles of the samc
acknowledged variety.

The question of the hybridity of species of plants has lately received close
and careful attention. M. Charles Naudin has recently made a series of
interesting experiments on the cultivated pumpkins and squashes. He has
arrived at the conclusion, that nearly all those grown in our gardens may be
referred to one single species. He has particularly examined the changes .
which artificial impregnations will produce. We often hear that cucurbita-
ceous plants should not be grown together, or they will injure each other.
This gives rise to the question, whether the fruit of the same season can
acquire another’s peculiarities without first being grown from the seed, the

348 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

result of such impregnation. Such has proved to be the case. The influence
of the pollen on the fruit of the same year is such as to communicate to it
the characteristics of the plant furnishing the pollen. But M. Naudin finds
that true species, undoubtedly distinct, can scarce be made to hybridize,
and that extensive and ready hybridation takes place only among varieties
of one species. Dr. Gray has shown me recently an ear of corn exhibiting a
hybridation more or less common. It was sweet corn, in which kernels of
hard, smooth, yellow corn were irregularly distributed, contrasting with the
white, wrinkled kernels of the sweet. Here the mere impregnation of the
germ of white corn by the pollen of the yellow had been sufficient to convert
those grains which it touched into perfect yellow corn.

The sports and varieties of corn have a strong bearing upon the question
of the specific identity of these varieties of Sorghum. Though some bota-
nists have made species out of the varieties of Indian corn, it is generally
believed that these are all the results of cultivation on one species. One pe-
culiarity of one form claims attention here. The plant has been found grow-
ing, apparently wild,-with the grain entirely covered by the glumes, which
project far beyond it. But it is said that, after a little cultivation, these
glumes disappear, or become so abbreviated as to allow the grain to be
entirely uncovered, as in our garden growths. This same difference is to be
seen in the varieties of Sorghum under consideration. The Dourrha most
exhibits this abbreviation of glume and prominence of grain, and this vari-
ety is that which is known to have been longest under cultivation.

The question, then, arises, whether plants would so freely hybridize and
exchange peculiarities, were they of different species. Does not this hybrid-
ity point to identity? We do not see other grasses, which grow broadcast in
our fields, hybridizing naturally, and so perfectly as to become diversified in
an inextricable series of graduated forms. The Poas, Panicums, and Fes-
tucas, which abound in our fields and meadows, do not interchange their
specific peculiarities, but grow side by side and maintain their identity. But
the Sorgho is no sooner placed side by side with Broom Corn and Dourrha,
than the three hybridize, and produce an offspring combining the peculiari-
ties of all.

The Sorghum vulgare has been cultivated for untold centuries as a forage
plant, and as food for animals and man. The question of its production of
syrup and sugar is by no means a recent one. Experiments were made
upon it more than half a century ago in Europe, and one of its names arose
from the saccharine secretion of its culm. Its native country is unknown;
but it is supposed to originate in the same places where it has been so long
cultivated. Its grains have been found in Egyptian sarcophagi; and these
are said to have produced plants identical with the modern Dourrha or Juari.
After this long cultivation in all kinds of soil and climate, and under such
varied treatment, it would be strange indeed if it did not exhibit a wide
departure from its normal type. If the Indian corn has become so astonish-
ingly changed in a shorter period of time, we may well understand that the
Sorghum should wander into all the varieties upon which botanists have
sought to found distinct species.

I am induced to believe, therefore, that Broom Corn, Sorgho sucré, Imphee,
and Dourrha, are varieties of one primitive species, the Andropogon Sorghum
of authors, or, allowing the wenus Sorgum to stand, SORGHUM VULGARE.

The establishment of this fact will answer many of the questions which
have been asked regarding its economic value. If they be one species, they

BOTANY. 349

will of course hybridize and exchange whatever properties they possess.
The saccharine secretions of one variety will be diminished by hybridation
with another not possessed of an equal amount. And the saccharine quali-
ties peculiar to one may be lost by planting in a soil or climate differing
from that which has brought them forth in unusual quantity. If their culti-
vation as a forage plant, and a syrup or sugar-producing plant, shall prove
profitable, the use of the grain in the form of flour, as well as food for cattle
and poultry, may considerably diminish the cost of cultivation.

ON THE DURATION OF THE LIFE OF PLANTS.

The. following paper was recently read before the Botanical Society of
Edinburgh, by Prof. Fleming:

The phrases ordinarily employed to express the duration of life in plants
are annuals, biennials, and perennials. Viewing the subject, however, in refer-
ence to function rather than seasons, divisions much more consistent with
the phenomena must be resorted to. Thus, in the case of annuals, it may
happen, in an unfavorable season, that the plant may outlive the winter,
flourish during a portion of the following season, and thus become a bien-
nial. But in many cases those plants termed biennials merely extend them-
selves during the first season, and in the following flower, ripen their seeds,
and perish. But in both cases the plant dies after having once executed the
function of reproduction. Those plants have their vitality completely ex-
hausted by the seed-producing process, and, in consequence of this functional
character, they constitute a very distinct group, to which the somewhat
ambiguous term Monocarpous has been applied by De Candolle and Lindley.
It suggests the idea of the plant producing only one carpel or seed-vessel.
As defined by Lindley, however, it may be conveniently employed. Hesays:
““Monocarpous, bearing fruit but once, and dying after fructification, as
wheat. Some live but one year, and are called annuals; the term of the
existence of others is prolonged to two years, — these are biennials; others
live for many years before they flower, but die immediately afterwards, as
the Agave americana.”

In proof that it is the production of the seed which consumes the vitality
of the plant, it will be found that by destroying the flower-buds the life of
the plant will be prolonged until new flower-buds be produced, or those
already existing but in an imperfect state become developed. Thus, I have
kept the common oat, Avena sativa, for four seasons by cutting off the flow-
ering stem. The annual bean may be easily converted into a biennial. The
tree mallow, Lavatera arbore, usually considered a biennial, in one case out-
lived the greater part of the second winter with me, but perished by the
severity of the frost in the spring of 1855, having a stem displaying spurious
annual rings of growth, about eighteen in number, marking intermittent
action, irrespective of the dead or winter season, and well calculated to give
a salutary warning to the vegetable paleontologist. The circumstance of
monocarpous plants having their life prolonged by being prevented from
flowering, and the production of new parts for flowering purposes, give no
countenance to the assertion of Knight, in his paper ‘‘ On the Reproduction
of Buds:” ‘‘ Nature appears to have denied to annual and biennial plants (at
least to those which have been the subject of my experiments) the power
which it has given to perennial plants to reproduce their buds.’ This charac-
ter of the individual plant being capable of reproduction only once, was well

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390 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

known to Ray, who states that such plants may live even five years. The
second physiological group, to which I shall now direct your attention, has
this property in common with the preceding, that the stem, after flowering
and ripening the seed, perishes, together with the root by which it is nour-
ished. In this respect it may be termed an annual; and as examples, may
be quoted the tulip, onion, monkshood, and very many of the plants termed
herbaceous. These differ, however, from the ordinary annuals, or once-flow-
ering plants, by the production, at the base of the stem of the present year,
of a bulb or tuber, destined in the following spring to form its own roots,
independent of the parent bulb or tuber, now exhausted and dead. This
mode of secondary reproduction or extension is well illustrated by the com-
mon orchids, as the common Orchis mascula, where the bulb which is to give
rise to the stem and flowers of next season may be observed of a paler color
and firmer texture than the one in the course of being exhausted and ready
to die. In the case of the two bulbs of the Neottia spiralis, or ladies’ traces,
Keith, in his “‘ System of Physiological Botany,” i. 38, states: “‘ If a pair of
these knobs is taken and separated, and then immersed in water, the one
will be found to sink, and the other to swim. This is a phenomenon which
seems also to have puzzled the simplists of antiquity not a little, and to have
given rise to a great deal of idle and superstitious conjecture. It was thought
that the knob that swims must necessarily have possessed some peculiar and
potent properties, and accordingly some potent properties were liberally
ascribed to it. If prepared in a particular manner, and worn about any one’s
person; it was believed to have the singular property of exciting, by means
of proper management, a violent attachment to the wearer in the breast of
any one he pleased. And this belief,’ he adds, “is still a vulgar error
among the ignorant and superstitious.”” The group to which we have now
referred, has been, in a great measure, overlooked by more recent botanists,
although its characteristics were known to Ray, and confounded by them
with the group we now proceed to consider, This third group was denomi-
nated by Linneus Suffrutices, and thus defined, ‘‘ truncis sublignosis quo-
tannis fere supra radicem pereuntibus.” (Phil, Bot. 74.) Lindley has a di-
vision of plants which he terms Polycarpous, “ having the power of bearing
fruit many times without perishing,” and a subdivision of this group he
terms Rhizocarpous, “or those whose roots endure many years, but whose
stems perish annually, as herbaceous plants,” (Introd. to Bot., 475.) The
modifications of this group exhibit considerable variety of character. The
following may readily be distinguished: 1. Where the flowering-stem and
leaves perish, while the collar and root remain, for the benefit of the buds to
be evolved from the former in the following spring, such as strawberry and
horseradish. 2. Where the flowering-stem perishes together with the collar,
but where rhizomes are produced with buds of an equally monocarpous
character as the parent, as mint. 3. Where the stem, collar, and root, per-
ish after reproduction, having given rise to a stem with its roots capable of
outliving the winter, and producing flowers and fruit during the following
season. The common rasp is a good example of this group. 4. Where the
whole plant dies after maturing the seed, and forming from the stem a tuber,
as in the potato. Here we have an aggregation of flower-buds destined to
produce individuals with the annual or monocarpous character. These
groups of rhizocarpous plants do not seem to have occupied, to any extent,
the consideration of botanists, although, in a physiological point of view, of
great interest. The field, indeed, may be regarded as in a considerable

BOTANY. Ty |

degree unoccupied by our botanical writers. The last great group, in refer-
ence to the term of life, denominated Perennial, or, in the phrase of Lindley,
Caulocarpous, are those “ whose stem endures many years, constantly bear-
ing flowers and fruits, as trees and shrubs.” In this group the efforts of life
are of two kinds — the production of buds of extension and those of fruit.
The fruit, flower, or seed buds, resemble in some degree, in their function, an
annual or monocarpous plant. Death follows the reproductive process. It
is otherwise with the extension buds. Both, however, are greatly under the
influence of external circumstances. An abundant supply of nourishment
makes a tree generate extension buds almost exclusively; whereas a scanty
supply of food prqmotes the reproductive efforts, and fruit buds predomi-
nate, a process the reverse of that which prevails in the animal kingdom,
where it has long been alleged ‘‘ sine Cerere et Libero friget Venus ’’(Hor-
ace). By many vegetable physiologists it has been supposed that the life of
a tree is confined to its buds; that the stem is a sort of dead soil, or, rather,
support; and farther, that the bud, when it evolves in spring, acts like a seed,
sending downwards certain vessels to act as roots, and another set upwards,
for extension of the individual and the formation of new buds for devel-
opment in the following season. In this view of the matter, the tree, with _
the exception of the buds, is an aggregation of dead cells. The authors
who have adopted this notion have been chiefly influenced by considering
the power which buds possess of developing themselves in certain circum-
stances, even when detached from the stem, as in the act of budding, and
even by the more ordinary process of extension by slips. To this view of
vegetable life there have ever appeared to me to be grave objections, which,
to save the time, I shall state very briefly. 1. I shall not here dwell on the
fact, that, by particular processes, the leaves, stem, and roots can be made to
produce buds, or the parts supposed only subservient to vitality can exercise
living functions from vital centres, nor on the action of poisons. 2. When a
tree is grafted —say a cultivated apple on a crab stock —the buds of the
graft may extend into a lofty tree, and yet its downward roots, although be-
coming continuous, never embracing the stock and reaching the soil. The
stock remains the same in its bark, wood, and pith, and, after many years,
if it produces buds and suckers, these invariably retain the characters of
their crab original. The practice of dwarfing fruit trees would prove a fail-
ure if the buds contained the whole life of a tree. A slow-growing stock is
selected, on which is inserted a fast-growing graft, or one inclined to gen-
erate extension rather than fruit buds. If the buds of the graft annually
sent down their roots to the ground, the influence of the stock should cease
by the second year, an event which does not occur. 3. The difference
between summer and winter felled wood is equally hostile to the notion that
the life of a tree is limited in winter to its buds. The cells of the newer lay-
ers of wood are storehouses of nourishment: the sap, when beginning its
ascent, is nearly pure water; as it ascends it becomes more and more loaded
with the contents of the cells through which it has travelled, and the buds
are thus supplied with nourishment by the living agency of the former year,
which made the buds and provided for its development. Hence the com-
parative lightness of timber felled after the bud has evolved its leaves. The
stem of a tree is the common support of all the organs, the receptacle of the
peculiar juices, and the storehouse of nourishment. The buds evolve sim-
ultaneously or successively according to a law of asymmetry and coopera-

352 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

tion, as among the composite zoophytes, giving to the individuals of a spe-
cies their characteristic expression.

NEW VARIETY OF WHEAT.

At one of the meetings of the French Academy, during the past year, M.
Guerin-Meéneville produced a number of wheat-halms of more than seven
feet in height, each of them bearing several splendid ears. This fine spe-
cies of wheat derives its origin from five grains that were found in an Egyp-
tian tomb, and thus had for thousands of years been preserved from all
external influence. Sown out in 1849, they grew up luxuriantly, and yielded
twelve-hundred-fold produce, — in consequence of which M. Drouillard made
various comparative experiments in Southern and Central France, as well as
in Brittany. In 1850, these experiments were made on a large scale, and
assumed a more important character. Since then they have been regularly
continued, and the results have been officially confirmed. One half of a
field was sown with the Egyptian, the other half with our common wheat;
the former gave sixty-fold, the second a fifteen-fold produce, while com-
monly a seven or eight-fold produce is considered a fair one. Sown out by
single grains, the Egyptian wheat yielded a five-hundred-and-fifty-six-fold
harvest. The experiments are now made in always increasing extension,
and not less than 1,000 kilogrammes of “ mummy-wheat”’ have been sown
this year in the arrondissement of Morlaix.

NORTHWARD AND SOUTHWARD RANGE OF HERBACEOUS PLANTS
IN THE UNITED STATES.

Of the 1745 phznogamous herbaceous plants of the Flora of the Northern
United States, diminished to about 1690 by the exclusion of the alpine and
subalpine species, here left out of view —

843 species, or 50 per cent., range southward to the borders of the Gulf of
Mexico.

538, or not quite 32 per cent., extend northward into the Saskatchawan
basin, or to Labrador.

107 of these reach or cross the Arctic circle.

24 species, or less than 1} per cent., range from the Gulf of Mexico to the
Arctic circle.

180, or 10+ per cent., range from the Gulf of Mexico to the Saskatchawan,
or Labrador.

248 species, or over 14} per cent., range from the Gulf of Mexico to the
Great Lakes, or the St. Lawrence. — Prof. Asa Gray.

THE WILD INDIGO PLANT OF THE SOUTHERN STATES.

Mr. Niesler states that the common wild indigo plant of the Southern
United States (Indigo fera Caroliniana) is commonly used by the country
people in Georgia, in place of J. tinctoria, and it yields an indigo which, to
all appearance, is equal to the commercial article. ‘“‘ Just when it is begin-
ning to bloom, the old wives collect from the woods as much of the plant as
they can procure; they steep it in water some twenty-four hours, until it
assumes a greenish tinge, when the liquid is drawn off and churned until it
assumes its proper blue color; it is then curdled by the addition of a small
quantity of lye from wood ashes, and allowed to settle; the sediment is then

BOTANY. 353

collected, put into coarse bags, and drained dry, and it is then used in the
same way as the ordinary commercial article. Those who have used it most
insist that the color is better and more permanent than that of the exotic
indigo, and that the same quantity of the plant will yield much more than
I. tinctoria. They are in the habit of cutting it three or four times in the
season from the same root. Sometimes they gather the seed and sow it in
convenient places, where it will flourish and yield a supply for years. It
seems likely that this wild indigo might be made a profitable crop in the
South; with this great advantage, that it would be produced on lands now
waste and useless for any other purpose.— Prof. Asa Gray, Silliman’s Jour-
nal, quoted.

ON THE ORIGIN AND DISTRIBUTION OF SPECIES IN PLANTS.

' Dr. Hooker, of England, in his recently published work on the “ Botany
of the Antarctic Voyage,” in discussing the relations and distribution of spe-
cies in plants, lays down the following propositions as axioms:

“1. That all the individuals of a species have preceeded from one parent
(or pair), and that they retain their distinctive (specific) characters. 2. That
species vary more than is generally admitted to be the case. 3. That they
are also much more widely distributed than is usually supposed. 4. That
their distribution has been effected by natural causes; but that these are not
necessarily the same as those to which they are now exposed.”

“Hybridization has been supposed by many to be an important element
in confusing and making species. Nature, however, seems effectually to
have guarded against its extensive operation and its effects in a natural
state, and as a general rule the genera most easily hybridized in gardens are
not those in which the species present the greatest difficulties. With regard
to the facility with which hybrids are produced, the prevalent ideas on the
subject are extremely erroneous. Gartner, the most recent and careful
experimenter, who appears to have pursued his enquiries in a truly philo-
sophical spirit, says that 10,000 experiments upon 700 species produced only
250 true hybrids. It would have been most interesting had he added how
many of these produced seeds, and how many of the latter were fertile, and
for how many generations they were propagated. The most satisfactory
proof we can adduce of hybridization being powerless as an agent in pro-
ducing species (however much it may combine them), are the facts that no
hybrid has ever afforded a character foreign to that of its parents, and that
hybrids are generally constitutionally weak, and almost invariably barren.
Unisexual trees must offer many facilities for the natural production of
hybrids, which, nevertheless, have never been proved to occur, nor are such
trees more variable than hermaphrodite ones.”

ON THE TRANSMUTATION OF WHEAT INTO CHESS.

It is a popular and widely-extended belief, that the purest and best wheat
may be planted — that it may germinate, grow, and form a plant — but that
the occurrence of certain casualties —as sudden freezing and thawing while
the ground is wet — will, by some mysterious process, transmute the plant
into a widely different species, viz., chess. A similar belief prevails, less
extensively, in regard to the change of barley into oats.

The advocates of the transmutation of wheat into chess have been repeat-

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304 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

edly called on to demonstrate the alleged change, and as an inducement for
them to do this, premiums have actually been offered.

A late revival of the transmutation controversy induced Benj. Hodge,
Esq., of Buffalo, New York., to offer a premium of one hundred dollars to
any one who should prove that wheat had turned to chess, — the premium
to be awarded under the supervision of a committee appointed by the New
York State Agricultural Society. The premium has been claimed by Samuel
Davidson, of Greece, Monroe County, New York. The society appointed a
committee of investigation, Prof. Dewey, of Rochester, chairman, the result
of whose examination is thus detailed in the New York Country Gentleman:

“The experiment to prove transmutation was the following: A quantity
of earth was passed through a fine sieve, to separate all chess seeds. It was
placed in a pan, and several heads of wheat planted in it. When the wheat
came up, it was subjected to all the hard treatment that usually produces
winter-killing, viz., flooding with water, and alternately freezing and thaw-
ing for several times. Late in the spring, the whole contents of the pan
were removed and set out in open ground. When the plants of wheat threw
out their heads, there appeared chess heads also. This mass of wheat and /
chess plants was brought in and placed before the committee. Stalks of
chess were shown, the roots of which were found to proceed directly from
the planted heads of wheat, which yet remained entire, and in some instan-
ces they were found to issue from the half-decayed grains of wheat them-
selves. This was looked upon as conclusive.

“The roots were taken by the committee and first soaked in water, and
afterwards gently washed, by moving them backwards and forwards slowly
through it. They were then carefully examined by microscopes. The roots
of the chess were now perceived to issue, not from near the end of the grain
of wheat, as is usual in sprouting, but from the side, and, in fact, from
almost any part. Further examination showed that they merely passed
through crevices in the decayed wheat grains, and they were separated from
the grains without tearing, being merely in contact, without adhesion or con-
nection. Some of the more minute chess fibres were observed by an achro-
matic microscope to extend over the inner surface of the bran, where they
had gone in search of the nourishment (which is known to abound just within
the bran), in the same way that grape roots have been observed to spread
over the surface of a rich decaying bone. But they easily separated, and
had no connection with the grain. It was satisfactorily proved that the
chess plant could not have come from these grains, by the fact that the same
single stalk of chess was thus connected with five or six different grains,
which could no more have originated it than five or six cows could have one
calf. The examination, therefore, did not prove anything in favor of trans-
mutation; and as there were many possible ways in which the chess might
have become scattered on the soil, the whole experiment was admitted by
all parties to be inconclusive.”

ZOOLOGY.

ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF THEORIES IN PHYSIOLOGY.

THE facility with which theories are extemporized by many who have
little or no knowledge of the nervous structure, is only surpassed by the
facility and confidence with which men attribute phenomena to electricity.
It may be well, therefore, to state that our knowledge of the nervous system
is at present in its infancy; we have not even established a secure basis; we
have not established the primary data. To quote the emphatic language of
one who has given his life to the subject, ‘Our knowledge even of the
coarser framework of the nervous system is still too much in its infancy to
permit us to venture, with any success, on the construction of theories
respecting the functions of its various elements.” —SrT1iLiine, Ueber den
Bau der Nerven-primitivfaser.

ON THE SO-CALLED CHOLERA CORPUSCLES, OR FUNGI.

Dr. Lander Lindsay, of England, in a recent publication, makes the follow-
ing remarks on the fungus origin of cholera:

“The isolated or disintegrated individual cells of the tissues probably
include many, if not most, of the ‘annular bodies,’ ‘ cholera corpuscles,’ or
‘fungi,’ which so startled the histological and medical world during the
cholera epidemic of 1848-9. At least the ultimate elements of these tissues
or substances, as observed by myself, correspond in their character to those
published as delineative of the bodies in question by their original discover-
ers. I believe that potatoes, oatmeal, bread, and the vegetables of common
broth, will furnish most of the forms of the once famed ‘annular bodies ;’
that they are not, therefore, fungoid in their nature or origin; and that they
have no essential or causative relation to cholera. I have found them
equally in other diseases — as in the stools of diarrhoea and dysentery. * *
It will be evident, then, that I can see no satisfactory groundwork for the
fungus-theory of cholera, which, I am not a little surprised to find, still pos-
sesses powerful advocates.”

CURIOUS INSECT DEPREDATIONS.

At a recent sitting of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, Marshal Valliant
drew attention to the fact that a number of balls in the cartridges brought
from the Crimea had been pierced partly or entirely through by an insect, be-
longing apparently to the tribe Hymenoptera. As the piercings are evidently
not made for the purpose of shelter, and as no fragments from them could be
found, the inference is that the insect eats the lead —and yet French ento-

356 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

mologists assert that such a thing is not likely. The insect being entirely
unknown to French savans, the Marshal announced that he had, in the name
of the Academy, writtten to the Russian Embassy, to ask if Russian ball-
cartridges in the Crimea had ever been noticed to have been pierced by
insects; and, if so, if Russian entomologists can give any details respecting
the insect and its way of living. The Marshal adds, that it seems not to
have any similitude with the Cetonia aurata, which pierces through lead, but
casts aside the lead it cuts away. M. Dumeril, in the course of some obser-.
vations on the subject, said that examples existed of balls having been
pierced through by insects at Toulon, and that the insect which had attacked
those from the Crimea was undoubtedly a Urocera.

NOTES OF EXPERIMENTS ON DIGESTION.

Dr. Harley, in a communication to the British Association, Leeds meet-
ings, stated that, contrary to an opinion lately published by Bernard, the
distinguished French physiologist, he had found that the human saliva con-
tains both sulphocyanide of potassium and iron. The latter substance,
howeyer, can only be detected after the organic matters contained in the
secretion are destroyed by burning. Dr. Harley had ascertained that a per-
son of nine stone secreted between one and two pounds of saliva in twenty-
four hours. The gastric juice, the author said, does not destroy the power
possessed by the saliva of transforming starch into sugar; consequently, the
digestion of amylaceous food is continued in the stomach. The gastric juice
has the property of changing cane into grape sugar. The author made
some remarks upon the cause of the gastric juice not digesting the living
stomach; and said that his experiments showed that it is not the epithelium
lining the organ which prevents its being digested, but the layer of thick
mucus which covers its walls. When the latter substance is absent, the gas-
tric juice attacks the walls of the living stomach, and digests them, causing
perforation and death. As regards the bile, it seems that this secretion takes
an active part in rendering the fatty matters of our food capable of being
absorbed into the system. The most curious of all the digestive fluids, how-
ever, is the pancreatic secretion, for it unites in itself the properties of all
the others. It not only transforms starch and other such substances into
sugar, but it emulsions fat, and even digests protein compounds. As a rem-
edy in indigestion, pancreatine should be greatly superior to pepsine, which
can only digest one kind of food, namely, protein. The author said he had
been laboring to obtain pancreatine in a perfectly pure state, and had been
to a certain extent successful. With pancreatine we should be able to digest
any kind of food we pleased; and, therefore, the obtaining of it in a state of
purity would prove an invaluable boon to suffering humanity.

THE SALIVARY GLANDS.

The saliva appears to possess three most important properties; firstly, it
destroys vitality in all animal and vegetable matter; secondly, it loosens the
tissues, thereby preparing them to receive the saliva itself, and ultimately to
admit the gastric juice; and thirdly, it mechanically softens and dilutes hard
or dry food. When a cow fills her paunch with grass, she places there a
large amount of living vegetable material; lying in that organ, or transfer-
ring it to the second stomach, no way affects its vitality; but when thrown

ZOOLOGY. aan

back into the mouth, and it comes in contact with the saliva, then it instant-
ly dies, and becomes materially altered in appearance. Examine the con-
tents of the first three stomachs of a cow, or a sheep; in the two first the
food is evidently living grass, but in the third it has the appearance of a
thoroughly well-boiled vegetable — more nearly allied in color and appear-
ance to spinach, and, as yet, it has only come in contact with the saliva,
which must be held responsible for its changed condition. Arrest a caterpil-
lar in the act of eating a leaf of a cabbage; kill it instantly, open its crop,
and examine the leaf you saw it consume but a minute before; it wili have
lost its bright green color, and be reduced, in every respect, to the appear-
ance of the grass in the third stomach of the cow. As it cannot have come
in contact with any other material than the salivary secretion, it is surely
justifiable to attribute its altered appearance to the action of that fluid.
When man eats raw, ripe fruits, he eats living vegetables, and if he put
them into his stomach in that state, there they will remain, for no stomach
has the power to destroy the vitality of anything, as, if it had, assuredly it
would destroy and digest itself, a contingency that always happens in death.
Nothing is more common, at post-mortem examinations, than to find that
a portion of the stomach has actually thus acted upon itself.

To show the universality of this particular chemical property of destroy-
ing life, let us see what takes place among the lower animals. Bulk for
bulk, weight for weight, can anything exceed the pain of a mosquito bite, to
say nothing of the long continued after consequences ?

What gives rise to this extreme suffering? Surely it cannot be the inser-
tion of its tubular sheath and tiny jaws, because if the flesh were stabbed at
the same time with a dozen large stocking needles, the pain would not be
nearly so great, and the wound would sooner heal. When a spider bites a
fly, why does the insect die instantly, and its body swell up prodigiously?
If a rattlesnake, or other, so-called, poisonous serpent bite a man, why is the
wound almost universally fatal? If a dog, not rabid, bite a man, or if a cow,
horse, hog, raccoon, fox (and many other animals), do the same thing, or if
one man bite another, why, in any or all these circumstances, should the bitten
person be liable to hydrophobia? To these questions, which might be
greatly extended, there is but one answer, namely, that the person bitten
has been in every instance inoculated with the saliva of the other animal,
and that one of its chief properties is to destroy life. To them and to us it is
a natural secretion, and so harmless is it, under some circumstances, that a
man may drink any quantity of the poison (saliva) of a rattlesnake, and it
will have none other effect than to help him to digest his food! But if inoc-
ulated into the circulation of the blood, it becomes a virulent, a fatal poison.
Who can doubt that, if a mosquito were as large as a good sized dog, its sali-
va would be as immediately and certainly fatal as the bite of a rattlesnake?
The pain that we share with domestic and other animals, from the bite of par-
asitic insects, is solely due to this cause — inoculation by their saliva. The
division of the salivary glands among the reptiles would appear to throw
some light on the function of each, or certainly some of them; thus: the
poisonous reptiles possess only parotid glands, the secretion of which descends
by the channels of the fangs of the upper jaw; the use they make of them
would seem to establish the function and properties of these particular glands.
The boa constrictor (Python Tigris) has no parotid glands, neither can he
destroy his prey by a bite, but he entwines his body around his victim, and
kills him as a bear would, by an embrace. But what-is now to be done? he

358 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

has no grinding teeth to enable him to insalivate the food and loosen the tis-
sues, by partially decomposing the body of the goat he has killed, and so
prepare it for the action of the stomach; in other words, how can he per-
form the important function of insalivating it?

He does it in this way: he licks it all over, and wherever the tongue, cov-
ered with saliva, touches it, the flesh becomes almost rotten under its influ-
ence. Now, as it is well known that persons have been bitten by a rabid
dog and escaped hydrophobia, while other persons have been bitten by
sound and healthy dogs and yet this fearful disease has supervened, how is.
this to be explained unless we admit the differing chemical property of the
salivary glands respectively ?

If the teachings of the rattlesnake and the boa constrictor have any prac-
tical value, it would appear that the parotid glands alone possess the power of
destroying life, and that the secretion of the other glands can only be em-
ployed upon already dead matter, to effect its speedy decomposition. If this
theory be true, it is very easy to explain the bites and their consequences of
the two dogs; in the case of the rabid dog, whose bite proved innocent, the
saliva of inoculation may have come only from the submazillary and sublingual
glands, and consequently it was harmless; whereas, in the case of the sound
dog, the saliva came from the parotid glands, and was therefore fatal. This
view is sustained by the following considerations: The ducts of the parotid
glands are situated, as we have seen, in immediate proximity to the molar
teeth, and the secretion is only evolved by their action; the probability is
that the incisor teeth, used in biting, and the interior of the mouth, are usu-
ally lubricated by the secretion of one or both of the other pairs of glands,
while the parotid glands are reserved for mastication alone. —Goadby’s Ani-
mal and Vegetable Physiology.

ON THE FEEDING AND GROWTH OF THE AMERICAN ROBIN.

At a recent meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, a commu-
nication was read from Prof. Treadwell, of Cambridge, giving a detailed
account of the feeding and growth of the American robin ( Turdus migrato-
rius, Linn.), during a period of thirty-two days, commencing from the oth
of June.

When caught, the two birds experimented on were quite young, their tail-
feathers being less than an inch long, and the weight of each about twenty-
five pennyweights, less than half the weight of the full-grown bird; both
were plump and vigorous, and had evidently been very recently turned out
of the nest. He began feeding them with earth-worms, giving three to each
bird that night; the second day he gave them ten worms each, which they
ate ravenously; thinking this beyond what their parents could naturally
supply them with, he limited them to this allowance. On the third day, he
gave them eight worms each in the forenoon; but in the afternoon he found
one becoming feeble, and it soon lost its strength, refused food, and died.
On opening it, he found the crop, gizzard, and intestines entirely empty, and
concluded, therefore, that it had died from want of sufficient food — the effect
of hunger being perhaps increased by cold, as the thermometer was about
60°. The other bird, still vigorous, he put in a warmer place, and increased
its food, giving it the third day fifteen worms, on the fourth day twenty-four,
on the fifth twenty-five, on the sixth thirty, and on the seventh thirty-one
worms. They seemed insufficient, and the bird appeared to be losing plump-

ZOOLOGY. 309

ness and weight; he began then to weigh both the bird and its food, and
the results were given inatabular form. On the fifteenth day he tried a small
quantity of raw meat, and, finding it readily eaten, increased it gradually to
the exclusion of worms; with it the bird ate a large quantity of earth and
gravel, and drank freely after eating. By experiment it appears that though
the food was increased to forty worms, weighing twenty dwt., on the eleventh
day, the weight rather fell off; and it was not until the fourteenth day, when
he ate sixty-eight worms, or thirty-four dwt., that he began to increase —
on this day the weight of the bird was twenty-four dwt.; he therefore eat
forty-one per cent. more than his own weight in twelve hours, weighing
after it twenty-nine dwt., or fifteen per cent. less than the food he had eaten
in that time; the length of these worms, if laid end to end, would be about
fourteen feet, or ten times the length of the intestines. To meet the objec-
tion that the earth-worm contains but a small amount of solid nutritious
matter, on the twenty-seventh day he was fed exclusively on clear beef, in
quantity twenty-three dwt.; at night the bird weighed fifty-two dwt., but
little more than twice the amount of flesh consumed during the day, not
taking into account the water and earth swallowed. This presents a won-
derful contrast with the amount of food required by the cold-blooded verte-
brates, fishes and reptiles, many of which can live for months without food ;
and also with that required by mammalia—a man, at this rate, should eat
about seventy pounds of flesh a day, and drink five or six gallons of water.
The question immediately presents itself, how can this immense amount of
food, required by the young birds, be supplied by the parents? Suppose a
pair of old robins with the usual number of four young ones — these would
require, according to the consumption of this bird, two hundred and fifty
worms, or their equivalent in insects or other food daily — suppose the par-
ents to work ten hours, or six hundred minutes, to procure this supply; this
would be a worm in every two and four-tenths minutes; or each parent
must procure a worm or its equivalent in less than five minutes during ten
hours, in addition to the food required for its own support. He was unable
to reconcile this calculation with actual observation of robins, which he had
neyer seen return to their nests oftener than once in ten minutes. After the
thirty-second day the bird had attained its full size, and was entrusted to
the care of another person during his own absence of eighteen days; at the
end of that period the bird was strong and healthy, with no increase of
weight, though its feathers had grown longer and smoother. Its food had
been weighed daily, and averaged fifteen dwt. of meat, two or three earth-
worms, and a small quantity of bread each day; the whole being equal to
eighteen dwt. of beef, or thirty-six dwt. of earth-worms; and it has contin-
ued to eat this amount to the present time. The bird having continued, in
its confinement, with certainly much less exercise than in the wild state, to
eat one-third of its weight of clear flesh daily, he concludes that the food it
consumed when young was not much more than must always be provided
by the parents of wild birds. The food was never passed undigested; the
excretions were made up of gravel and dirt, and a small quantity of white
semi-solid urine.

He thought that every admirer of trees may derive from these facts a
lesson, showing the immense power of birds to destroy the insects by which
our trees, especially our apples, elms, and lindens, are every few years
stripped of their foliage, and often many of them killed. The food of the
robin, while with us, consists principally of earth-worms, various insects,

360 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

their larvee and eggs, and a few cherries; of worms and cherrics they can
procure but few, and those during but a short period, and they are obliged
therefore to subsist principally upon the great destroyers of leaves, canker-
worms, and some other kinds of caterpillars and bugs. If each robin, old
and young, requires for its support an amonnt of these equal to the weight
consumed by his bird, it is easy to see what a prodigious havoc a few hun-
dreds of them must make upon the insects of an orchard ora park. Is it
not, then, to our advantage, he asks, to purchase the service of the robins at
the price of a few cherries? There has lately been some improvement in
preserving our birds, and with a little more protection, he thinks that such
an increase of them might be obtained as would save us from all the labor
required for the appliances of tar, oil, zinc plates, and all other methods by
which we seek, with very imperfect success, to destroy our. mischievous
insects.

Dr. C. T. Jackson observed, that it was the opinion of Mr. Townend
Glover, now engaged by the U. 8. Patent Office in studying the insects inju-
rious to cotton and other American crops, that among the most inveterate
foes to noxious insects are insectivorous insects themselves.

ON THE CHANGE OF COLOR IN BIRDS AND ANIMALS.

At a late meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, Dr. D. F.
Weinland called attention to a question now discussed in the European
journals of Ornithology, viz., The cause of the change of color in the
feathers of birds, and in the hairs of mammalia, and the manner in which
this change is effected.

It is a well-known fact that many birds, particularly the males, have a
very differently colored plumage in different seasons; for instance, that the
male of many singing birds has a far more beautiful plumage in the repro-
ductive season than during the rest of the year: furthermore, that many
northern birds and mammalia become pure white in winter, while they are
yellow, red, brown, gray, or of a still darker color in summer.

Till within the last few years, this change of color was supposed to be
effected simply by the production of a new feather or hair; but there are on
recerd several instances which are entirely at variance with this supposition;
and Dr. Weinland was of the opinion, that, although this change is gener-
ally produced by molting, many instances are proved, by past and recent
observations, in which it has taken place without loss of the feather.

Human Pathology has shown many cases, in which the hair of men, from
sudden terror or from grief, has turned gray or white in so short a time (some-
times in one night) that there was no possibility of a change of the hair
itself. A case is known in Ornithology, in which a starling in one day
became white all over, after being rescued from the claws of a cat.

These facts, however, seemed to be exceptions only, till quite recently
some distinguished ornithologists — Schlegel in Leyden, and Martin in Ber-
lin — at the same time affirmed that many birds get their wedding plumage with-
out molting.

Experiments were made by many ornithologists; some affirmed the new
statement, others denied it. But the most striking observation which had
come to the knowledge of Dr. Weinland, was made by a friend of his, Mr.
Junghaus, of Berlin, on a blue-throated warbler (Sylvia suectca), which he
had in a cage. From June, 1854, till the middle of February, 1855, the

ZOOLOGY. 361

throat of this bird, from the bill down to the breast, was pure white, over
the breast ran three bands, blue, black, and yellow, the black one being the
narrowest. In the middle of February, the blue band became darker, and
spots of the same color appeared all over the white throat, with the excep-
tion of a small spot in the centre. On the 21st of February, all the throat
was blue except that spot, which remained pure white till the 23d, when it
became reddish, On and after the 24th, this reddish color also changed to
blue; but on the 1st of March there appeared again, in the midst of this
blue, a lighter spot of beautiful silvery appearance; and it is worth remark-
ing, that this new.color began at the basis of the feather, and proceeded
outwards. Meanwhile, the black band on the breast had become larger, and
shaded insensibly into the blue, while the yellow band remained unchanged
through all these mutations. Thus the bird had got its wedding plumage,
without losing one feather, and this it kept through all the reproductive season.
At the same time, Dr. Gloger, of Berlin, showed that a very similar obser-
vation had been previously made in this country by Audubon, on a male
gull, which changed the color of its head, in a fortnight, from gray to the
purest black, and, as he supposed, without changing a feather.

There can be no longer any doubt about the fact; but the question is, how
can a feather change its color, when its blood-vessels and nerves are dried
and dead, as is the case with every feather soon after it has reached its full
growth. Dr. Weinland had only heard of one explanation, viz., that the
wearing away of the fine lamin of the veins of the feather, the so-called
pinnule, might produce the change of color. This seemed to him not only
an unphysiological view of the subject, that a bird should get its wedding plu-
mage by such a kind of decay of the feather, but, in the cases which he had
observed, the changed feathers showed no traces of such a wearing process.
The following explanation of the fact seemed to him the most natural:

Conservators of museums very frequently notice that certain birds in the
collections bleach, particularly when exposed to light. A red-breasted Mer-
ganser (Mergus merganser) which Dr. Weinland saw, when just shot, with a
red breast, and which, after having been deposited in the museum for some
time, presented a pale whitish breast, showed this very remarkably. He
afterward obtained a bird of the same kind, and, when fresh, examined its
breast-feathers with a high power of the microscope, and found all the pin-
nulz filled in spots with dacunes of a reddish fluid, which, from the dark
appearance of their margins, seemed to be of an oily character. Some
weeks afterwards the same feathers, having been exposed to the light, had
become nearly white, and he found in the pinnulz, instead of the reddish
lacunes, only air-bubbles, which it is known produce a white color, as in the
case of the lily, which is rendered white by the air in its cells. This obser-
vation led him to the conclusion, that in this case the evaporation of the
reddish fluid, and the filling of the spaces with air, produce the change of
color. If this fluid is an oily matter, as there is reason to suppose, it will be
readily admitted, physiologically, that it may be furnished by the organism,
by imbibition through the tissues, in consequence of a certain disposition of
the nerves leading to the skin and to the sac of the feather in the skin,
(even if the vessels and the nerve in the feather itself should be dried), for
fat goes through all tissues without resistance, and also through horn.
Thus the fat coloring matter may flow out into the feathers during the time
of reproduction, which is the richest season in every living organism; and
then again, from want of food, cold temperature, weakness, decrepitude,

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362 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

or from strong emotions of the central nervous system, from sudden ter-
ror or grief, —the same coloring fat may be called back to furnish the suf-
fering organism.

This process, effected by different physiological conditions of the organ-
ism, seems to be a reasonable explanation of the fact, that many northern
mammalia and birds become white in winter, while they are dark-colored in
summer}; that the hair of men or mammalia, or the feathers of birds, may
become suddenly gray or white from sudden terror, hard labor, or debility,
while they are dark-colored in mature life or in the more vigorous seasons
of the organism. And if we add the hypothesis, that in the oily fluid there
may take place still other chemical processes effected by different conditions
of the nervous system, such as oxidation, or deoxidation, we may explain
in this way still other changes of color; for instance, from yellow, through
red to black; which, from observations made during the last winter, seems
to be really in certain turtles (mys picta, and marginata).

THE LAW OF TYPES IN THE ANIMAL CREATION.

Dr. George Ogilvie, in a recent (English) work, “The Master-Builder’s
Plan,” thus sketches the law of typical formation in Zoology.

‘In each division of animals, we can point out a very definite type, ac-
cording to which the several species are constructed — a type, the essentials
of which are never violated, even when it seems in a manner incompatible
with the habits of particular animals—the necessary conformity being
obtained in such cases, not by a departure from the type, but by a compara-
tively slight modification of some parts of the organization, and that in a
way quite consistent with its general character. Obviously the organic
creation is constructed upon a great systematic plan: it is not to be com-
pared to an overgrown village, in which the houses —commodious and well
constructed as they may be, each in itself— are scattered about without any
order, every man having built as was good in his own eyes; it answers
rather to our notion of a well-planned town, with the houses in regular
streets, in each of which a certain uniformity prevails, while the streets
themselves are arranged in that particular order which to the founder of the
city seemed the most appropriate.”

And in this view it will not be claiming too high a position for the conclu-
sions arrived at, to contend, with the author, that,

“‘Late as may be its discovery, the law of typical conformation will not
yield in importance, as a fundamental principle in Zoology, to that of the
circulation of the blood in Physiology, or that of the revolution of the
planets round the sun in astronomical science, for it gives the character of
an inductive science to one which was previously only descriptive; and it
admits of being applied to the elucidation of phenomena before — beyond
all others —incapable of explanation: those of the production of mon-
strous forms.”

ON THE FORMATION OF THE CELLS OF BEES.

The following is an abstract of a paper on the above subject, presented to
the British Association, 1858, by Mr. W. B. Tegetmeir:

Having recently been engaged in making a series of experiments with a
view to determine the typical form of the cells of bees, and having arrived

ZOOLOGY. 363

at some interesting results, [ am desirous of bringing them before the Asso-
ciation. My first experiment consisted in placing a flat parallel-sided
block of wax in a hive containing a recent swarm. In this, cells were exca-
vated by the bees, at irregular distances. In every case where the excava-
tion was isolated, it was hemispherical, and the wax excavated was added at
the margin so as to constitute a cylindrical cell. As other excavations were
made in contact with those previously formed, the cells became flat-sided,
but, from the irregularity of their arrangement, not necessarily hexagonal.
When the block was colored with vermilion, the employment of the exca-
vated wax in the formation of the sides of the cells was rendered more evi-
dent. The experiment has been repeated, with various modifications as to
the size and form of the block of wax, but always with the same results, —
namely, that the excavations were in all cases hemispherical, — that the
wax excavated was always used to raise the walls of the cells, — and that the
cells themselves, before others were formed in contact with them, were
always cylindrical. Mr. Charles Darwin, to whom I communicated these
facts, has repeated the experiments with similar results. When these exper-
iments are taken into consideration, in connection with the facts, that, in
the commencement of a comb, the rudiments of the first formed cells are
always hemispherical, and that in a small extending comb the outer sides
of the bases of the external cells are always circular, they appear to lead
to the conclusion, that the typical form of a single cell is cylindrical, with a
hemispherical base; but that, when the cells are raised up in contact with
one another, they necessarily become polygonal, and if regularly built, hex-
agonal. On this supposition alone can those numerous cases be accountéd
for in which one half of a cell is cylindrical, the other polygonal. In all
such cases it will be found that, in the cell adjacent to the cylindrical side,
there is not room (owing to some irregularity of the comb) for a bee to
work, —consequently, the cylindrical development is not interfered with.
The formation of the small cylindrical cells surrounding the queen-cell
appear to admit of no other explanation. The mode in which the circular
bases, situated at the thin edge of a comb in the process of enlargement,
become converted into polygonal cells as new bases are formed on their
outer sides, has been beautifully shown by Mr. Darwin. In repeating, with
many ingenious modifications, my original experiments, he colored, with
vermilion and wax, the circular edges of the bases of the external cells in a
small comb. On replacing this in the hive, he found that the walls of the
cells were not raised directly upon these circular bases, but that, as other cells
were built external to them, the colored wax was remasticated and worked
up into the polygonal sides of the cells, — consequently, the color, instead of
remaining as a narrow line, became diffused over a considerable portion of
the sides of the cells. These observations have been much facilitated by
the employment of a hive having each side formed of four parallel plates of
glass, with thin strata of air between. As thus formed, the escape of heat
is so effectually prevented that the bees work without the necessity of cover-
ing the hive with any opaque material, and thus they are always open to
observation without being disturbed by the sudden admission of light into a
hive previously dark. Crude and imperfect as these experiments may be,
they appear to me to have an important bearing on the theory of the form-
ation of cells, and my desire that they may be repeated and extended by
other observers must plead my excuse for bringing them before the notice
of the Association.

364 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

Dr. Whewell communicated some observations from Mr. Ellis, ‘On the
Cause of the Instinctive Tendency of Bees to form Hexagonal Cells.” He
supposed that the bee was led to the exercise of this instinct by the use of
their organs of sight. It was well known that, in addition to their facetted
eyes, they had three single eyes; and he supposed that these eyes were
placed in such a position as to enable them to work within such a range as
to give the walls of their cells an angle of 120 degrees.

Mr. J. Lubbock gave an account of the experiments by Mr. Darwin, in
which he had found that bees made circular cells in the circumference
of their combs, but. that these were always worked again into an hexagonal
form when another row was placed beyond them. That the material of the
circular cell was removed for this purpose, he had ascertained by painting
the outside of the external row of cells with carmine, indigo, and other sub-
stances, which were invariably worked up into the next row of cells. In
answer to Mr. Ellis’s theory of the eyes, he could state from observation
that bees, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, worked in the dark. Wasps
made hexagonal cells from the beginning. He believed the tendency of
bees to make hexagonal cells was acquired, and that originally bees made
circular cells, but from a deficiency of material had at last acquired the
habit of making hexagonal cells.

Mr. Bayldon stated that he kept a large number of bees, and that he had
seen them make hexagonal cells at first. The outer cells alone were circu-
lar. Dr. Lankester said it was an interesting physiological question as
to whether the eye or some other organ was the first recipient of the im-
pression which induced the movements that resulted in the bees’ work. An
impression must be made on some organ of the animal, as all the actions of
the lower animals were excito-motory, and probably the antennz were the
organs acted on. Dr. Edwards suggested that the materials with which
the bee worked were sufficiently receptive of light to act upon their organs
of vision, and thus the eye might be still the excitor of the instinctive ac-
tions.

PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEWS OF THE MOTIONS OF ANIMALS.

The following paper, on the above subject, has been published in the pro-
ceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, by Dr. David Weinland:
There 1s hardly any part of the science of natural history which has been so
little studied as the psychology of animals. The ability to descend to the
level of the mental constitution (pix) of animals, to understand their
feelings, thoughts, and desires, seems to have diminished in proportion to the
progress of civilization; or at least, in proportion as cultivated minds of civ-
ilized nations have secluded themselves from free nature in cities and stu-
dents’ closets. Still, we think the psychology of animals is by no means the
least interesting subject of human thought. It is acknowledged that man is
the crowning work of creation, and this has been proved and illustrated
often enough by comparison of the structure of his body with that of other
vertebrates; by showing that there exists an ideal series of development
from the horizontally moving fish to the erect man. Now, may not this truth
be as clearly, or more clearly traced, in following out the degrees of devel-
opment of the psychical element, from the low, feeding, and propagating fish,
to man as made in the image of God —that is, thinking in the same catego-
ries with him. Undoubtedly such a series of psychical development exists,

ZOOLOGY. 369

but its steps have never been marked out, though many matcrials have been
collected in regard to the subject. In the effort to attain a method of study-
ing this part of the science of nature, the following considerations have
occurred to me,

We know the condition of a man’s soul, or of its representative in an ani-
mal, only by external manifestations. Thus, in order to have a standard of
comparison for the different degrees of psychical development of animals,
we may start from an analysis of what is called the characteristic of animals,
in opposition to plants, namely, voluntary motion.

In considering closely the motions of a dog, we recognize in them two
entirely different kinds. One, and that by far the most common, serves only
and immediately the animal itself as the means by which to obtain whatever
it desires and enjoys (food, for instance), and to shun whatever it dislikes.
This kind of motions we may call subjective; that is, selfish motions;
because they serve only the subject itself. But again, we sce another kind
of motions. Thus, the dog plays with other dogs, with other animals, and
with man. It makes many movements with the head, eyes, ears, and tail,
which serve no other purpose than to show to other animals, or to man, the
present condition of its inner nature; to show them what it feels, what it
thinks, and what it seeks. These motions are not subjective; they are made
in relation to the inner natures of others, and therefore may be properly
called sympathetic motions. Which of these two kinds of motions is the
higher? Undoubtedly the latter. All animals have the first; the second are
not common to all. Does an hermaphrodite worm, for instance, know that
another being lives and feels? If not, it has no sympathetic motions.

Having considered how to view the motions of an animal, let us return to
our problem, namely, to find a standard for the comparison of the different
degrees in which, in the series of animals, the mental constitution is devel-
oped; and to show that the greater or less degree of development of the sym-
pathetic motions in an animal, and of its organs to perform them, exhibits,
at the same time, the degree of its psychical development. That such is the
case is because no degree of this development, beyond eating and drinking,
can possibly exist, except in society with, and in regard to, fellow-beings.
All those animals of higher mental organization, are social animals, or, at
least, are connected by certain psychical relations, with other animals.
Thus, among insects, the hymenoptera rank psychically very high. The
greater part of them live in communities; that is to say, each individual
lives and cares not only for itself, but also for its fellow-citizens. It knows
that it belongs to a certain community, has certain duties there, ete ; and
whenever we admire the sagacity of a bee or an ant, it is its working and
thinking in relation to other beings that we admire Moreover, only animals
which are social by their nature can be domesticated, that is, made friendly
to man. Man himself becomes human only when in society with fellow-men.
Children lost in forests when young, growing up there, resemble beasts.
The higher the civilization of men, the closer and more complicated are the
relations between them Now, if this be so; if the social life is the only field
where, in men or in animals, a higher growth of the spirit is possible; and if
with man the social life is far more developed than with any other member
of the animal kingdom, — we may draw our final conclusion, namely, that we
can determine the psychical rank of any animal, from a knowledge of the
degree of its ability to manifest itself to its fellow-beings, or, what is the
same thing, of its organs for sympathetic motions.

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366 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

An example may illustrate the truth more fully. Let us look at these
organs in a fish, alizard,andin man. The fish rests horizontally in the water;
the head, neck, and trunk form one bulky mass; the dorsal column itself is
the locomotatory organ; the four limbs, fins, are used for balancing the
body; the ears are rudimentary; the eyes stiff, cold, without eyelids, and
thus without expression, and from their position and slight mobility, of a
very narrow horizon; there is no voice with which to call a companion.
What means has this animal, by which to show to another being what it
feels? Now, as we see in fishes hardly any organs for sympathetic motions,
or senses for sympathetic perceptions, we think we are justified in saying,
that there must be also in them very httle sympathetic feeling or thinking.
Let us rise some steps further in the series of vertebrates, to the lizard, —
that quick, lively, sagacious animal. While in fishes, the greater part of the
body, and all four limbs, are used in locomotion, we find here four developed
legs, the body nearly exempt from the function of locomotion, and thus
capable of further differentiation; and the head, neck, trunk, and tail are
distinct. With the distinct neck, and consequent ability to turn the head,
are immediately connected, not only a larger horizon, but also many motions
which manifest whatever moves or excites the animal. Together with the
larger horizon, the eyes are very well developed, and the play of the eyelids
(which are wanting in fishes and even in snakes) gives expression; so much,
indeed, that I have been able to tell from a glance at the eyes alone of some
lizards which [ once kept alive for a long time, and which were tame,
whether they felt well or not. The ears, also, the organs of the real social
sense, are well developed in lizards; and though the animals themselves have
no voice, still they seem to like music. The tongue, which rarely exists in
fishes, and when present, is a mere organ for swallowing food, has here not
only become an organ of touch, but a means of expressing sympathy; for I
have seen them licking each other in play. In turtles, which are higher than
lizards, we find already a voice; and even the fore feet are used as organs
for sympathetic motions. Prof. J. Wyman, in observing two of our common
pond turtles at the breeding season, saw the male gently stroke the head of
the female for some minutes.

tising a step higher, we find in birds the voice developed to a high degree,
but yet confined to a narrow range of modulated sounds. In mammalia,
the organs for sympathetic motions are more developed than in birds,
except, perhaps, those connected with the voice, although even this point
remains to be settled. In mammalia, we find the first hints of what shall
come inman. The first idea of an arm, we find in the bear, —1t embraces;
and this idea of an arm is connected with the ability to stand erect upon the
flat of the foot. In mammalia, too, we first find the idea of a hand, hinted
at already in the bear, but carried out more fully in the monkey. The fea-
tures of the face we find remarkable in the dog, and still more so in the
monkey. We could find a like series in the organs of reproduction, which,
from this merely natural view, must be considered organs of sympathy. It
is interesting to consider hermaphroditism from this stand-point: it will be
evident that it cannot occur in any animal of high psychical endowments.
We will, in addition, merely call attention to the fact, that fishes have no
organs of copulation, or very rudimentary ones; that in many species the
male does not know the mother of the eggs which it fecundates; while, on
the other hand, some reptiles, many birds, and most mammalia live in pairs,
or, at least, their males and females go together throughout life, helping and

ZOOLOGY. 367

taking care of each other. All the family life, the only fountain of moral
and intellectual beauty, rests in the distinction and voluntary union of the
sexes, and this distinction and union only make possible the highest unity
of two beings which exists.

We will dwell no longer on these steps, but consider man himself. If our
principle of coincidence of the degree of psychical development, with the
degree of the development of the organs of sympathetic motions, be true,
we must find these latter in their highest condition in man. And so it is.
Man, standing upright on his feet, has all his body free for sympathetic
motions; and the organs by which they are performed are here in perfection.
What we saw in the fish as a balancing instrument, in the lizard as a mere
locomotatory organ, is in man an arm which embraces the child, the friend.
With the hand, of which we saw no sign in the fish, which is a foot and a
locomotatory organ in the lizard, and the same in all mammalia, even mon-
keys, man grasps the hand of his fellow-man, and shows him what he feels,
and with it he emphasizes his language. Here are the features of the face,
expressing, by the most diversified play of motions, the varying conditions
of the spirit, — telling Jove and hate, joy and pain. Here are the eyes, the
mirror of the soul. All these organs we find in a lower condition in the
higher mammalia, especially in monkeys. But there is one kind of sympa-
thetic motions, which man alone enjoys,— those employed in language, —
the power to express fully his ideas, his emotions to other men, by modu-
lated sounds, produced by the complicated motion of the larynx, the tongue,
the lips, ete. Many animals, it is true, have a voice, but none of them can
express a series of thoughts or feelings. The cry of an animal is always the
last concluding word of a sentence. It may be the result of a series of
thoughts, but this series itself is never expressed. Men have also this kind
of sounds — the sounds of laughing, crying, and many others: thus the war-
cry of the Indian is no language; it is an animal sound, like the cry of a
wolf, when it calls others to help. But all men have, beyond these animal
sounds, the free, flexible language. They not only show to each other some
of the points of their thinking, and feeling, and willing; they show, or can
show, all the process which goes on within; that is, their inner natures can,
by means of language, communicate with each other freely. We recognize
in language the highest kind of sympathetic motions.

Conclusions. Firstly, when trying to study the psychical endowments of
animals, we have to start from the study of their motions, as the only man-
ifestation of their mental constitutions (wix) which we can perceive.
Secondly, there are to be distinguished in animals two kinds of voluntary
motion, — the subjective and the sympathetic. The latter furnish the prin-
cipal data for the study of the psychical rank; for every higher endowment
flows from the sympathy of one feeling and thinking being with another.
Sympathy is only a flowing forth of love, and love is the fountain of all
moral and intellectual beauty in man,

ON THE MODE OF FORMATION OF SHELLS OF ANIMALS, BONE, ETC.

Dr. George Rainey, of London, the Lecturer on Microscopic Anatomy at
St. Thomas’s Hospital, has been recently instituting a series of experiments,
with a view of producing, by artificial means, structures analogous to, or
identical with, the shells of molluscs and crustaceans, and the bones of other
animals. The results he claims to have arrived at are given as follows:

868 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

“Firstly, a process by which carbonate of lime can be made to assume a
globular form, and the explanation of the nature of the process, ‘molecular
coalescence,’ by which that form is produced. Secondly, the explanation
of the probable cause of crystallization, and the manner in which the rectili-
near form of crystals is effected. Thirdly, the discovery of a process of
‘molecular disintegration’ of the globules of carbonate of lime, by invert-
ing the mechanical conditions upon which their previous globular form had
depended. Fourthly, the recognition, in animal tissues, of forms of earthy
matter analogous to those produced artificially. And, fifthly, the deduction
from the above fact, and considerations of the dependence of the rounded
forms of organized bodies on physical and not on vital agencies.”

The experiments, which are minutely described in a recently published
treatise by Dr. R., consist principally in the introduction into a glass phial
— first, of a viscid substance, as gum arabic, saturated with carbonate of
potash; secondly, of a couple of pieces of glass, to catch and fix the glob-
ules; and, lastly, of a solution of gum arabic and common water. After a
certain time, the pieces of glass are removed, and are found to have become
covered with clusters of globules or spherical molecules, which, on careful
examination by a powerful microscope, are found to be identical in al! stages
of their development with those of which microscopic dissection shows that
the calcareous structures met with in living creatures are ultimately com-
posed. He compares carefully the results of these experiments with those
which demonstrate the principles and process of crystalline formation, and
shows that when the carbonate of lime is formed in pure water, its first form
is crystalline; but when formed in the same manner in water containing a
viscid substance in solution, its form is globular. The reasons for these fun-
damental or elementary differences in form are discussed and exemplified
with much care and great acumen; but a reference to the diagrams and
microscopic sketches, with which the book is illustrated, is necessary in
order to follow the author through them. His final deduction, however, as
regards the probable form of matter when it first came into being, is thus
summed up:

“It has been shown —I think I may say demonstrated —that matter,
immediately it comes into existence in some new state of combination, as-
sumes one or other of two forms, according to the predominant force acting
upon its ultimate molecules. If that force be attraction, the first forms are
curvilinear; 1f impulsion, they are rectilinear. But I am aware that these
first forms, being made up of alternate particles, are not themselves atoms,
or ultimate molecules. Now, in order that the first portions of matter may
have a definite form, they must either come into existence in separate places
or at separate times, that is, they must not be within the sphere of each
other’s attraction or impulsion, for they would then be formed into globules
or crystals before they had time to acquire their specific form. Now, as no
experimental or natural process can be conceived by which a molecule is
formed alone, this condition seems to be impossible. . . The idea of a definite
form of the nascent particles of matter is unsupported by any kind of proof,
and, therefore, is entirely untenable; and the only inference is, that when
matter first comes into existence in some fresh state of combination, as, for
instance, carbonate of lime combined with a viscid substance, it has no defi-
nite form until gravity has given it one. . . . Consequently, it may be
inferred that all molecules are amorphous, and that, 1f there ever was a.
period when matter existed unacted upon by attraction or impulsion, it must

ZOOLOGY. 369

have been in a chaotic or amorphous state—a something ‘ without form,
and void.’ ”

THE SPINAL CORD, A SENSATIONAL AND VOLITIONAL CENTRE.

The following paper, by Mr. 8S. H. Lewis, was read at the Leeds Meeting
of the British Association, by Prof. Owen:

The spinal cord, the author stated, was formerly believed to be nothing
but a great nerve-trunk; and even now its functions have been limited to
the transmission and reflection of impressions. It can conduct impressions
to the sensorium and reflect them on motor nerves, producing muscular con-
traction; but this is all that physiologists are willing to allow. Doubts
having long rested on his mind upon this point, he had made a series of
experiments which had led him to a clear conviction; and that conviction
and this experimental evidence, he proposed to present. Before detailing the
evidence, however, for the sensorial functions of the cord, it will be neces-
sary to fix on some broad and palpable signs, such as unequivocally indi-
cate the presence of volition. We have such signs in spontaneity of actions
and choice of actions. It will scarcely be disputed that an animal manifests
volition, and its act is voluntary, when the act occurs spontaneously; I
mean, prompted by some inward impulse, and not excited by an outward
stimulus. Spontaneity and choice are two palpable characteristics of sensa-
tion and volition, and it is these we must seek in our experiments. Those
who, for the first time, perform or witness experiments on decapitated ani-
mals, find it very difficult to believe that the animals have no sensation; but
their doubts are generally settled by a reference to the admitted hypothesis
of the brain being the exclusive seat of consciousness. On the strength of
this hypothesis the striking facts recorded by Legallois, Prochaska, Volk-
mann, and others, have been explained as simple cases of the reflex actions
of the cord. Against this hypothesis of the brain being the exclusive seat
of consciousness, I have for some years gathered increasing strength of con-
viction, preferring the hypothesis of the sensorium being coéxtensive with
the whole of the nervous centres; and I have been able, by experiment, to
constitute three separate and entirely independent seats of consciousness in
the same animal. From the mass of evidence furnished by experiments, all
bearing on the same point, the sensational function of the cord acquires, in
my mind, the force almost of ademonstrated truth. From that mass, a few
cardinal cases may be selected. If they do not carry conviction, there can
be little hope in any accumulation of such cases. Place a child of two or
three years old on his back, and tickle his right cheek with a feather, he
will probably first move his head aside, and then, on the tickling being con-
tinued, he will raise his right hand, push away the feather, and rub the tick-
led spot. So long as his right hand remains free, he will never use the left
hand when the right cheek is tickled, or vice versa. But if you hold his
right hand, he will rub with the left. The voluntary character of these
actions is indisputable, in spite of their uniformity; they are prompted by
sensation, and determined by volition. Let us now contrast the action of
the sleeping child, under similar circumstances, and we shall find them to be
precisely similar. Children sleep more soundly than adults, and seem to be
more sensitive in sleep. I tickled the right nostril of a three-year old boy.
He at once raised his right hand to push me away, and then rubbed the
place. When I tickled his left nostril he raised the left hand. I then softly

3870 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

drew both arms down, and laid them close to the body, embedding the left
arm in the clothes and placing on it a pillow, by gentle pressure on which I
could keep the arm down without awakening him. Having done this, I
tickled his left nostril. He at once began to move the imprisoned arm, but
could not reach his face with it, because I held it firmly, though gently, down.
He now drew his head aside, and I continued tickling, whereupon he raised
the right hand, and with it rubbed the left nostril, an action he never per-
formed when the left hand was free. The simple and ingenious experiment
of Pfliiger establishes one important point, namely, that the so-called reflex
actions in sleep are not accompanied by sensation and volition. The sleep-
ing child behaves precisely as the waking child behaves, except that his
actions are less energetic; and we are forced to assume the presence of dim
cerebral consciousness to escape the conclusion that the spinal cord is also
a seat of consciousness. The actions of the sleeping and the waking child
are so similar that both must be credited with sensation and volition; and if
not both, then neither must be so credited. In like manner [shall show that
the actions of animals, before and after decapitation, exhibit no more differ-
ence, as respects sensibility, than the actions of the waking and the sleeping
child; so that here again, unless both actions are credited with sensation and
volition, neither of them can put in a claim. Experiment leads decisively
to this alternative, namely, either animals are unconscious machines, or
decapitated animals manifest sensibility and will. [Having detailed a series
of experiments with a water newt, to show that the animal’s actions were
precisely the same before and after decapitation, and arguing that they dis-
played spontaneity of action] —the paper proceeded: After allowing a
quarter of an hour to elapse, in order to a more complete reinstatement of
vigor, I touched the flank as before, with acetic acid. The movements at
first were very disorderly. It ran about in great uneasiness, just as it had
done before its head was off. In vain I waited for it to rub itself against the
side of the box; it curled itself up, and seemed about to die. Some time
afterwards I again touched it with the acid; it again became disorderly, and
I then pushed it towards the side of the box; but it did not move until I
pushed it slowly forwards, so that its flank might come in contact with the
wood. This succeeded; this seemed to supply the very remedy it wanted; for
it continued crawling slowly, and with intervals of rest, its body curved out-
wards, so as to continue in contact with the wood, and its hind leg pressed
close to the tail, and thus, as before, it rubbed away the acid. There are
two points noticeable here: first, the readiness with which a sensation of
contact suggested a means of relief; secondly, that this was the only newt
which, in my experiments, ever hit upon this plan, and this one did so as
well without its head as with it. The repetition of the act precludes the
idea of its being an accident. It is unnecessary to trespass on your time by
citing the observations of numerous physiologists testifying to the sponta-
neity of decapitated animals. You will all remember such eases. I divided
the cord of a newt between the fifth and sixth cervical vertebre. The con-
vulsions which followed were almost as severe as those which follow decap-
itation; but in this case it was the fore legs which were tetanic, and the hind
legs pressed close to the body. After a few minutes, it tried to rise, but failed.
Bubbles of carbonic acid were constantly expired. After fifteen minutes, it
turned completely round, and crawled five steps forward, dragging the hin-
der segment after it like a log, the hinder legs not moving at all. This was
repeated several times. In fifteen minutes more, sensibility was detected in

ZOOLOGY. OU?
the hinder segment. Here was a case which would have been pronounced
very simple. Division of the cord had seemingly destroyed all power of
voluntary movement in the limbs below the section. The hind legs seemed
paralyzed. When the anterior segment was irritated, the animal crawled
away, dragging the motionless posterior segment after it. When this pos-
terior segment was irritated, the animal did not crawl, but simply withdrew
the limb or tail. If I touched the tail or hinder leg with acetic acid, the whole
of the posterior segment (in which volition was said to be destroyed) began
to move, and the legs set up the crawling action, attempting to push the
whole body forward, which could not be effected, because the anterior seg-
ment was perfectly motionless. The hind legs, which never moved when
the anterior segment was irritated, moved now in obedience to the spinal
volition; and the anterior segment, which before seemed so energetic in its
voluntary movements, was now perfectly unmoved. Each centre rules its
own segment. If the motionlessness of the hind legs, when the animal
crawled, is a proof that voluntary power was destroyed in those legs, the
motionlessness of the fore legs when the hind legs moved is equally a proof
that voluntary power is destroyed in the fore legs. The real truth seems to
be that each segment has its own volitional centre, and that the one is never
affected by the other. I have, at this moment, a newt with the cord divi-
ded near the centre of the back. The operation was performed four days
ago, and the animal has so far recovered from it that no spectator could dis-
tinguish between the voluntary power of its two segments. When the flame
of a wax match is brought near the cerebral segment, the fore legs set to
work, and the animal crawls away, dragging the hinder segment along.
When the flame is brought near the spinal segment, the hind legs set to work,
and the body moves sideways, the anterior segment remaining perfectly
quiescent. All other stimuli produce similar results. I venture to submit
that the explanation here proposed of two independent volitional centres is
far more consistent with the phenomena than the explanation offered by the
reflex theory; unless the actions of the posterior segment of the newt are
evidences of sensation and volition, I know of no kind of evidence for the
existence of such properties in the cerebral segment. . . . I will not occupy
the attention of this meeting with the recital of other experiments. Those
already cited suffice to indicate the nature of the evidence on which I found
my positions. And, indeed, I might rest on one simple fact as proof that the
spinal cord is a sensational centre, namely, the fact that whenever sensi-
bility is destroyed all actions cease to be coordinated. Every one present
knows how greatly our muscular sensibility aids us in the performance of
actions; but it has apparently been forgotten that if sensibility be destroyed
in a limb, by section of the posterior roots which supply that limb, the power
of movement will be retained so long as the anterior roots are intact; but
the power of codrdinated movement will be altogether destroyed. With
diminishing sensibility we see diminishing power of coordination, the move-
ments become less and less orderly; and with the destruction of sensibility,
the movements cease to have their coordinated harmony. Now, in the cases
I have cited, it is clear that this power of codrdinating movements — some-
times very complex movements — was nearly, if not quite, perfect in the
decapitated animal; therefore, if codrdination implies sensibility, the con-
clusion scems inevitable that the spinal cord is a centre of sensibility. The
whole case may be summed up thus: 1st. Positive evidence proves that, in
decapitated animals, the actions are truly sensorial. 2d. Positive evidence,

372 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

on the other hand shows that, in human beings, with injured spines, the
actions are not sensorial, but reflex. 3d. But as the whole science of physi-
ology presupposes that between vertebrate animals there is such a general
concordance, that whatever is demonstrable of the organs in one animal
will be true of similar organs in another; and inasmuch as it is barely con- ,
ceivable that the spinal cord of a frog, a pigeon, and a rabbit, should have
a sensorial function, while that of a man has none, we must conclude that
the seeming contradiction afforded by human pathology admits of reconcile-
ment. No fact really invalidates any other fact. If the animal is such an
organized machine that an external impression will produce the same actions
as would have been produced by sensation and volition, we have absolutely
no ground for believing in the sensibility of animals at all; and we may as
well accept the bold hypothesis of Descartes, that they are mere automata.
If the frog is so organized, that, when he cannot defend himself in one way,
the internal mechanism will set going several other ways; if he can perform,
unconsciously, all those actions which he performs consciously, it is surely
superfluous to assign any consciousness at all. His organism may be called
a self-adjusting mechanism, in which consciousness finds no more room than
in the mechanism of a watch.

Sir B. Brodie said the paper was most valuable, but he thought the exper-
iments might be claimed for reflex action almost as much as in favor of the
theory of Mr. Lewes.

Mr. Nunneley said that the paper asserted too broadly that it had been
held that sensation and volition were suspended in sleep. The person who
talked in sleep and the sleep-walker both disproved the assumption of entire
suspension. He had himself removed the spinal marrow of cats and rab-
bits, and they had lived and moved for eight hours afterwards. If they de-
parted from the position that volition was resident in the higher masses of
the spinal marrow, they must go further, and maintain that it existed in dif-
ferent parts of the body; and that would lead them back to the opinion of
the earlier anatomists, that the nervous system was not essential to vitality.

Prof. Owen, in reply, directed attention to the comparative largeness of
the human brain and: the smallness of the spinal column of man, as com-
pared with those of the animals experimented upon, and said it might be
that there were some sensations felt by the lower animals which are not ex-
perienced by human beings; and if the inquiry were pursued, with this idea
kept in view, they might be able to reconcile what now appeared to be con-
flicting.

ON THE CLASSIFICATION AND GROWTH OF CORALS.

At arecent meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, Professor
Agassiz gave an account of a recent visit to the reefs of Florida and his
explorations of coralline growths. He estimated the rate of coral growth to
be only a few inches in a century, a tenth or twelfth part less than was for-
merly supposed; and, supposing the reef rises from a depth of twelve fath-
oms, he would calculate its age, upon arrival at the-surface of the water, to
be about twenty-five thousand years, and the total age of the four distinct
concentric reefs of the southern extremity of the peninsula to be one hun-
dred thousand years. Professor Agassiz in his remarks presented evidence
that Millepora is not a Polyp but a Hydroid.

Prof. Wm. B. Rogers said that the physical conditions could not have

ZOOLOGY. 373

differed much in that region a hundred thousand years ago from what they
now are, and consequently that such a calculation could reasonably be made
upon the data accumulated by Prof. Agassiz.

Dr. Weinland called attention to a fact recently observed by him in Hayti,
which seems to involve a more rapid growtlvof some kinds of corals than is
generally assumed for this class of animals. In a small coral basin, between
the town of Corail and the island of Caymites, which is never disturbed by
vessels, the water being there much too shallow, he saw several branches of
the large Madrepora alcicornis projecting above the surface of the water from
three to five inches. These branches were dead, for corals always die soon
after exposure to the air, while the rest of the stock, as far as it was under
water, was in full life. This observation was made in the month of June.
The question naturally suggested itself, when did those pieces, which were
now above water, grow?

A fact, to which he alluded on another occasion, at a meeting of the Soci-
ety, viz., that during the whole winter season (December, January, and
February), the level of the water all along the northern shore of Hayti is
from four to six feet higher than during the summer season, being raised by
a constant northerly wind during those months, suggested to him the idea
that those coral branches, as far as they were above water during sum-
mer, might have grown during a single winter of three months only. This
would show a very rapid growth of this kind of corals. The fact that the
Madrepores, when growing so near the surface, and, as stated above, par-
tially uncovered during the summer, very often, in the course of a few years,
give rise to small Mangrove islands, between the outside coral reef and the
shore, was well known to a native Mulatto sailor, whom Dr. Weinland em-
ployed there. As he had observed at a former meeting, there is hardly any
change of high and low tide along that shore of Hayti; so that this can have
no bearing on the present question. |

Prof. Agassiz also stated that he had, as the result of his investigations,
been led to institute the following classification of corals:

Ist. Vegetable Corals. These are Alge, or at least vegetable productions,
which in time accumulate in their cellular tissue so much lime as to resem-
ble coral, and which form entire islands, as the Tortugas and Marquesas
groups, the sands on the shores of which are composed of disintegrated par-
ticles of these vegetable growths. 2d. Corals of Bryozoa. The affinities of
these are well known. They grow in clusters, and are genuine corals
belonging to animals of the lower class of molluscs, and not polyps, though
once thus considered. 3d and 4th. The remaining corals belong to two
types, genuine corals formed by Polyps and those belonging to Hydroid Acalephs,
the Tabulata. The Tabulata are known to be Hydroids by direct observation
of the animal in Millepora recently made by Prof. A. in Fiorida. Of Rugosa
no living types are known, and consequently its affinities must be deter-
mined by the structure of the solid parts. In this respect the Tabulata pre-
sent striking differences from the genuine corals formed by the Polyps.
These have vertical radiating partitions, extending from top to bottom,
with transverse partitions extending only between two adjoining vertical
partitions. In Rugosa this horizontal floor extends across the whole cavity
of the animal, as in Tabulata; and the radiating partitions are limited in
their vertical extent to the space between two horizontal floors; so that
their affinities go with the Tabulata, in some of which there are traces of
radiating partitions. Besides, in Rugosa, the quadripartite arrangement

32

374 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

prevails as in Acalephs. The secretions of the Tabulata are foot secretions,
whilst those of other corals are from the outer walls.

REVACCINATION.
%

A paper on this subject was recently presented to the Academy of Medi-
cine of Paris, in the name of Dr. Vlemincks, one of its corresponding mem-
bers. The author gives an account of the experiments instituted at Gand by
Dr. Denobele, with a view to ascertain the advantages arising from a repeti-
tion of vaccination at various periods of life. The results arrived at are,
that between the ages of twenty and forty, revaccination only takes effect
upon four out of one hundred patients, while the proportion of those on
whom it takes effect between the ages of forty and sixty is twenty-three per
cent.; and between the ages of sixty and seventy, fifty-four per cenf. The
consequences deduced from these facts are: 1. That until the age of twenty-
five, revaccination is useless; 2, That from that age to thirty-five it produces
useful effects upon a very small number of persons, and that consequently
it need not be very strenuously recommended at that period of life; 3. That
from the age of thirty-five and upwards it becomes really prophylactic, and
therefore necessary; 4. That when vaccination has not taken effect at a cer-
tain period, this is no reason for concluding that it will not take effect at
some future period. Hence Dr. Vlemincks concludes that the revaccination
of the pupils of schools and seminaries, as also of soldiers in the army, is
useless.

THE PARASITE OF A PARASITE.

An acarus, infesting the parasite of a bee, has been lately discovered, and
a photographic portrait of the insect, magnified one million times, surface
Measurement, has been taken by Mr. A. Bertsch. It is covered with a cara:
pace, or hollow shield, and its feet are armed with sharp claws, by which it
keeps a firm hold upon the microscopic creature from which it derives nour:
ishment, and which in its turn preys upon the honey-gathering bee. As we
can discover no limits to the minuteness of organized beings, so we can fix
no term to this extraordinary series of parasitic animals preying one upon
the other. How much further can we hope to fathom the mysteries of
organic creation?

ON THE MIGRATION OF FISHES.

At a meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, Dr. H. R. Storer
presented specimens of a smelt, from Squam Lake, N. H., remarking on
their peculiar interest, as affording an instance of a species originally migrat-
ing to fresh water from salt water, and now permanently resident in the
former. He had learned of its existence several years since, but had until
now been unable to obtain it. When full grown, the lake smelt seldom
exceeds six inches in length, and is extremely attenuated; but a careful
examination leaves little doubt of its identity with our marine Osmerus
viridescens. It is found throughout the year, in both Squam Lake and Win-
nipisseogee, though more rarely in the latter. The modifications in shape
referred to would probably be found to exist also in the smelt of Jamaica
Pond, near Boston, the conditions of life being much the same in both, the

ZOOLOGY. 379

latter having been imprisoned artificially, while the former had become a per-
manent resident in fresh water from natural causes alone.

At a subsequent meeting, Professor Agassiz, in reply to a question
whether the fishes of the European coast could be transplanted to the
shores of America, — said that it was extremely doubtful. From a general
point of view he should not suppose that any family of fishes, which have
no representatives here, could flourish on this coast; but that perhaps fish
belonging to the same family with the haddock and hake, might be nat-
uralized.

VARIATION OF COLOR IN THE VENOUS BLOOD OF THE GLANDS.

Since the discovery of the circulation of the blood, it has been admitted
that the blood of the arteries is red, and that of the veins black, with this
exception, that it is the reverse for the arteries and pulmonary veins. This
fact has afforded Bichat the foundation for his grand division of the circula-
tion (since adopted by all anatomists), a vascular system with red blood,
which carries the blood from the lungs to all parts of the body; a vascular
system of black blood, which carries the blood from all parts of the body to
the lungs. But it results from the researches of Prof. Claude Bernard that
this statement cannot be accepted absolutely. This skilful observer has
proved, through a great number of dissections of living subjects, and in a
manner which leaves no room for doubt, that the blood contained in the
renal veins is sometimes black and sometimes red, and that when it has
the latter color, it is black in the inferior vena cava which receives the blood
from the renal vein.

This fact being established, he looked for an explanation, and found that
it was due to the state of repose or activity of the kidneys, the secretory
organ of the urine. He has, in fact, demonstrated, by delicate experiments,
in his course of Physiology at the College of France, that when the urine
runs from the kidneys, where it has just been formed, in the ureter which
takes it to the bladder, the blood contained in the renal cavities is red; and
that it becomes black when the flow ceases.

The same experiment performed on the submaxillary gland of the dog
produced the same result. Flowing of saliva by the proper duct from this
gland, and presence of red blood in the afferent vein are two phenomena
which go together, as also the absence of saliva and black color of the blood
in the same vein. Analogous experiments made on the parotid gland and
on the glands in the abdominal parts of the digestive tube, have given sim-
ilar results. But the author adds, with the habitual severity which he brings
to his conclusions, that the study will be complete only when the examina-
tion shall have been extended to every gland throughout the structure.

It results from the facts, that if, as regards physiological conditions, the
term red blood may be applied to the arterial blood, that of black blood can-
not be used in so general a way for the venous blood. It results also, from
other researches of Prof. Bernard, that physical and chemical modifications
correspond to these different states of coloration, and ought to be taken into
consideration in the analyses of the blood, the composition of which varies
even with the state of activity or repose of an organ. The last principle
applies not merely to the glands, but to all the organs of the body; so that
it will be necessary to study now the venous blood in the state of repose,
and in the state of functional activity. It is worthy of remark, that if the

376 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

blood goes out red from the glands in activity, it goes out, on the contrary,
very black, and with different physical qualities from a muscle which con-
tracts itself.

In experimenting on the submaxillary gland, Prof. Bernard has been able,
by means of electricity, to excite at will the activity of an organ, so as to
produce the secretion-of saliva and the coloring of the blood of the vein
red. This fact suggested to him the following remark: “‘ All those modifi-
cations which the blood undergoes in consequence of the functional activity
of the organs, are always determined by the nervous system; and conse-
quently, at this point of contact between the organic tissues and the blood,
we must search for a knowledge of the special agency of the nervous sys-
tem in the physico-chemical phenomena of life.”

INTERESTING OBSERVATIONS ON THE BODY OF AN EXECUTED
CRIMINAL.

During the past year a man by the name of McGee was executed for mur-
der in the city of Boston, and a medical examination subsequently made of
his body by Dr. Henry Clarke and other physicians of that city. From the
account of this examination, published by Dr. Clarke in the Boston Medical
Journal, we derive the following interesting particulars:

The examination may be said to have commenced before death had com-
pletely taken place, for Dr. Clarke’s account begins while the frame of the
malefactor was still suspended. ‘At the end of seven minutes (he says) all
the sounds of the heart were distinctly audible, and the number of beats one
hundred in the minute. At nine minutes the number was ninety-eight. Atthe
end of twelve minutes the number was sixty, and the pulsations fainter. At
fourteen minutes the sounds had disappeared. The body was lowered at
10.25, at which time a careful examination of the chest revealed no percepti-
ble sound or impulse of the heart. A small space under the left ear seemed
to have escaped active compression, so that some circulation might have
been continued through the carotid and jugular of that side.”” Half an hour
later, or a few minutes past eleven, Dr. Ellis commenced the autopsy. At
11.30 a slight but regular pulsatory movement was observed in the right
subclavian vein. Upon applying the ear to the chest, this was ascertained
to proceed from the heart itself, which gave a distinct and regular single
beat, with a slight impulse, eighty times a minute. The chest was then
opened, and the heart exposed, without in any way arresting the pulsatory
movements. The right auricle was in full and regular motion, contracting
and dilating with beautiful distinctiveness and energy. At twelve o’clock,
the spinal cord having been previously divided, the number of contractions
was forty per minute, having continued, with only a short intermission, up
to this time. The peculiar movements of the anterior wall of the right auri-
cle gradually, but occasionally, recurred, either spontaneously, or excited by
a passing current of air, until 1.45. They could at any moment be excited
by the point of the scalpel. At 1.45 the movements still continued without
stimulus. Five were noticed in a minute, with corresponding intervals. At
2.45 all automatic movements ceased, but the part still responded to the stim-
ulus of the knife. At 3.10 deep irritation of the same kind was followed by
slight movements. The irritability was most marked at the lower part,
where the vena cave enter the auricle. At 3.18 all movements ceased. On
opening the heart, it was found to be perfectly normal. After some other and

ZOOLOGY. 377
more strictly professional details, the account proceeds to narrate the discus-
sion that followed. Dr. Gay thought the absence of cerebral congestion
due to the adjustment of the rope, which allowed circulation in the left
carotid. He thought death might have been owing to the sudden shock.
Dr. Clarke thought the death was by asphyxia. Dr. Ainsworth remarked
that “all the appearances usually observed in cases of hanging were here
wanting.” Dr. Clarke expressed the “‘opinion that, as there was no lesion
of any important organ, resuscitation might probably have been accom-
plished by artificial respiration, etc., if efforts to that end had been made
immediately upon the lowering of the body from the scaffold, that is, within
half an hour after he fell. Strong shocks of electricity or galvanism would,
in cases of accidental apparent death, destroy the little remaining vitality; _
and if these agents are used at all, they should be administered with great
care.”’ Dr. Coale alluded to the unfortunate incident in the life of the cele-
brated Vesalius, in consequence of which he was banished from his country
and died in exile. Not allowing a sufficient time to elapse after the death of
his patient before proceeding to the examination, the muscular irritability
remaining in the body caused a pulsatory movement in the heart, which led
to his arrest and punishment for murder and impiety.

ON FAUNA OF THE ARCTIC REGIONS.

In a recent discussion before the Boston Society of Natural History, Dr.
T. M. Brewster stated that it had been ascertained that there is a greater
diversity of species among the birds of the eastern and western North At-
lantic coasts than was formerly supposed. Several species, bearing close
resemblance, upon the two continents, have been established to be different,
—for example, the Velvet Duck, the Peregrine Falcon, and the Fish Hawk.
It was interesting to observe, that, for no apparent cause in their organiza-
tion different from that common to both shores, many birds are found only
on one or the other shore; for instance, the Manx Shearwater, the lesser
Saddleback Gull, the European Scoter (differing only in size from the Amer-
ican) which are found only in Europe. Between the birds of the Atlantic
and Pacific coasts there is more diversity, and also there are observable dif-
ferences of distribution. Thus Brunnich’s Guillemot, found by Dr. Kane in
latitude 70° north, and rarely found so far south as Massachusetts Bay, in
midwinter breeds in the harbor of San Francisco, in latitude nearly corre-
sponding with that of Richmond, Virginia. The Uria Grylle, whose extreme
southern breeding point on the Atlantic is the Bay of Fundy, breeds also
near San Francisco. It may be, however, that the eastern and the western
birds will yet be found to be of different species. Dr. Brewer believed that
they would be.

Dr. Bryant stated that the majority of the arctic birds are identical with
those of Europe; and that the arctic ornithology of the western coast of
North America differed more from the eastern coast than the latter did from
that of Europe.

Dr. A. A. Gould remarked that the arctic circle has ever been considered
one uniform zoological region; he had recently examined shells collected
by Mr. Stimpson in Beering’s Straits and upon the northwest coast of
North America, and had found them to be identical with those found
between this place and Labrador. One shell in particular, Nucula thracice-
formis, he alluded to; one valve of this shell, brought from Japan, exactly

32*

378 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

mated an opposite valve taken at Provincetown, Mass. At Hakodadi,
Japan, the arctic fauna exists, and the shells of this coast are found; whilst
at Simoda the shells are those of the China seas. Birds can traverse the
ocean in the northern regions where the continents approach each other, but
it is a question if mollsuca can travel such distances.

ON PARTHENOGENESIS.

This word, as its derivation implies, signifies the production of young by
the female sex alone, as in the Aphides, or common plant lice, in which gen-
eration follows generation, for a dozen or more, without renewed intercourse
with the other sex.

There are two modes of generation well known in plants and animals, —
one by true eggs, the other by buds without eggs. The plant kingdom is
known to be full of both processes. The bud from a branch, developing
regularly its leaves, and capable as it often is of propagation, where separa-
ted, as well as when united to the original stem, is one variety of propaga-
tion by buds. The bud originating as a bulb at the axils of the leaves and
branches, which drops off, and on finding soil, produces a new plant, is an-
other variety of growth by buds. As each plant from such a bulb or bulbel
will produce its crop of bulbels, propagation may be continued on apparently
indefinitely, without necessary intervention of true flowers.

The Animal Kingdom, in its inferior departments of the Radiates and
Molluscs, exemplifies the same method of propagation. The young polyp
may grow from the side of the old, and be persistent, like ordinary buds of
plants, but becoming an independent individual if cut off; or, in other cases,
it may drop off on reaching towards maturity, and thus acquire indepen-
dence, and so become the parent of a new zoophyte. Thus far the two king-
doms have long been known to be alike in reproduction. The bulbels of the
plant are not like true seed in structure, neither are the bulbels of the Cam-
panularidz. There is not the germinal vesicle with its germinative spot.
The development is simply germination. The analogies between plants and
animals, it may be stated, go still further; for as plants produce leaf buds,
and then flower buds, and then flower buds in which sexual organs and seed
are developed, so some Medusz (Tabularidx) bud out polyps to make the
branching stems, and afterwards bud out Medusz to develop sexual or-
gans and ova; these Medusz (as occasionally happens with the flowers of
plants) separating and becoming free from the stalk that produces them.
Moreover, it is now understood that the so-called alternation of generation is
nothing more than the successive states exemplified in plants, of the embryo,
incipient leaf bud, opened leaf bud, flower bud, and flower, all of which are
often widely diverse in forms.

It was in view of such facts as these that the late Dr. Burnett undertook to
determine the nature of the process of continual nonsexual propagation in
the Aphides; and his conclusion was, that the egg-like bodies, developed in
clusters within the producing Aphis, were of the nature of buds, and not
true ova, agreeing in this with Dr. Carpenter; and that the whole was anal-
ogous to the budding process. ‘‘ The germs,” he says, ‘‘ have none of the
structural characteristics of eggs, such as a vitellus, a germinative vesicle
and dot; on the other hand, they are at first, simple collections, in oval
masses, of nucleated cells.” He also refers to the same kind of origin, the
so-called hibernating eggs of Daphnia among Crustacea, Lacinularia among

ZOOLOGY. 3579

the Rotatoria, and Hydatina and Notommata among the Infusoria, in which,
he observes, no germinative vesicle or dot has been seen, and no connection
with the ovary discovered.

Parthenogenesis in the Aphides, according to this view, is reproduction by
buds, or gemmiparous reproduction, as distinct from sexual reproduction. It
is like leaf-budding, the flower-budding (or sexual developments) taking place
at longer intervals.

The later investigations of some zodlogists have been tending to the con-
clusion that even true eggs, or bodies haying the structure of eggs in every
essential point, may be produced in some cases by females, and develop into
perfect individuals without the intervention of the male, and without any
proper hermaphroditism in the parent. The most important work that has
appeared on this subject is one on “‘ Parthenogenesis in Moths and Bees,” by
C. T. E. von Siebold, of Munich, which has been translated in England by
W. S. Dallas. The author describes the raising of brood after brood of
young from some moths, without the recurrence of a single male; and in a
Psyche, the pupacase is filled with eggs before it is left; and in a Selonobia,
the animal, immediately after leaving the case, stuffs it full of eggs. The
main point in his work, and one of more questionable character, relates to
bees. He adopts the theory of a Silesian clergyman named Dzierzon, and
after farther elaborating it, sustains the view that “‘the queen-bee, which,
like all other female insects, receives the seminal fluid of the male in a pecu-
liar receptacle, there to be retained until it comes in contact with the egg
during its passage through the oviduct, possesses the power of permitting or
preventing this contact, so that the eggs may be deposited in the cells, either
fecundated or unfecundated, at the pleasure of the mother; and farther, that
from the fecundated eggs, female larves are produced, which become devel-
oped either into queens or workers, whilst the unfecundated eggs furnish the
larves of the drones or males.”’ The following are some of the points of
evidence adduced in support of«this remarkable theory, as given in a notice
of the work in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History:

“Ttis now generally admitted, even by bee-keepers, that the queen only
copulates once, and that the supply of seminal fluid received at this time,
and stored up in the seminal receptacle, serves for the fecundation of the
immense number of eggs which she deposits during the period of her fer-
tility, extending over several years. Sometimes, however, the stock of sper-
matozoids appears to be exhausted before the life of the queen comes to a
close, and when this is the case she lays nothing but drone eggs, introducing
confusion into the wonderfully harmonious arrangements of the hive. This
was found to be the case also with a queen which had been exposed to se-
vere cold with a view of destroying the vitality of the spermatozoids; of
three queens thus treated, only one survived, and this afterwards laid noth-
ing but drone eggs. Another queen, whose abdomen had been injured so as
probably to displace the seminal receptacle, also produded drone-eggs exclu-
sively. Added to this, certain workers, which, as is well known, are merely
abortive females, destitute of copulative organs and of the seminal recepta-
cle, and therefore incapable of fecundation, are found to possess imperfectly
developed ovaries, which produce a very small number of eggs, and these,
when deposited in the cells, are said always to produce drones. For most of
these facts, von Siebold appears to be indebted to the apiarians Dzierzon and
von Berlepsch; but perhaps the most remarkable observations are those
made by himself, in the microscopic examination of a considerable number

380 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

of newly deposited eggs. In the majority of the eggs deposited in worker-
cells examined by him, he found spermatozoids; sometimes as many as four.
In some instances, these singular filaments still retained the power of motion.
On examining twenty-seven drone-eggs, laid by the same queen which had
furnished a portion of the female eggs, von Siebold did not discover a single
spermatozoid.

“Such is the outline of the results at which the distinguished author has
arrived; and although many will perhaps be disinclined to give an unhesi-
tating adhesion to his views, there can be no doubt that his work is one of
the most important that has appeared for a long time; one well worthy of
being carefully studied by all physiologists, and one that must, in the end,
greatly advance the cause of science, if only by calling the attention of ob-
servers to this singular and much-neglected subject.”

It would appear, from observed facts, that, among some of the lower ani-
mals, it is of no more account for one of them to bud out a complete animal
of its kind, than for a crab to reproduce its mutilated claw. Moreover, it
seems to be also true that the budding process may take place in the ovary,
and that it may evolve an egg or something very like an egg, thus com-
mencing with the first step in the reproductive process; or it may evolve a
bulb-like mass from other parts of the body, like that in ordinary gemma-
tion; and each may develop into an individual animal, or what will produce
such individuals. Whether formed in one place or another, a germinating
cellule, or a spot or collection of cellules, begins the development, and the
whole process, from its initiatory step to the end, is a regular growth from
the single budding individual.

Moreover, the observations in the plant kingdom appear to show definitely
(confirmatory of Mr. Lubbock’s observations in the Daphnia), that in the
case of ovary reproduction, the ovule which develops without impregnation
is identical in its initial growth with that prepared for impregnation accord-
ing to the ordinary seed-producing process. Yet, not to lose sight of the
diverse relations of the two modes of reproduction, we should remember
that, normally, in every species which buds or produces budding eggs, there
are also the opposite sexes for true egg-development; that even the lowest
sea-weed has its conjugation of oppositely related cells for spore-reproduc-
tion; that reproduction of this one-sex kind is confined to the lower grades
of species among animals, and some of these, like the Aphis, find the pro-
cess so easy that they can turn off their germ-buds by the myriads, and still
there is here a periodical recourse to the true sexual process; that in some
animals, like the Daphnia, while the ovaries produce eggs of both kinds, the
normal eggs pass to another cavity, and early show their distinctive charac-
ter; that, in fine, a distinction of sex (a kind of sexual polarity) is the grand
universal law for reproduction in life, and is never altogether set aside even
for the inferior species, while absolutely essential in the higher. Moreover,
this supplemental and inferior means of propagation, or budding, is but an
expansion of the ordinary law of growth; the same law that reproduces the
nails and hair in man, the tail of a mutilated snake, or the legs of a maimed
crustacean, evolves the polyp from the bud of a polyp, the Aphis from the
Aphis germ-bud, or the plant from an unimpregnated ovule. The Aphis
germ-bud or the unimpregnated ovule may be considered as only a minuter
or more concentrated form of the bulb or bulbel.

The process by which the female produces the ovule which is afterwards
to be impregnated is essentially a budding process, and not until after im-

ZOOLOGY 381

pregnation does it become in any case a true developing ege; and it would
seem that, in a few cases at least, it may develop either gemmatively, or in
true egg style, that is, it may continue a germ-bud, or become an egg, ac-
cording as it is or is not impregnated.

But, while this extension of the budding method of propagation subserves
an end of vast importance among the inferior animals and in the plant king-
dom, it cannot be properly an equivalent to the normal sexual process.
There is some great difference between what the female can bud out of her-
self, and what the sexes combined produce. It is probable, from facts which
have been observed, both in plants and animals — though not yet demon-
strated — that bud propagation will in all cases, if followed exclusively, end
in the decline of the race, and its ultimate extinction; and that the sexes
are required to keep up the sexual system and thus to sustain the type at its
normal level, and secure its perpetuity. This, if established as a real effect,
is yet but a partial, or inadequate expression of the difference between the
two results. The subject opens a wide field for exploration. — Silliman’s
Journal (abridged), Nov., 1857.

SILK CULTURE IN INDIA.

Mr. F. Bashford, who has been engaged in the silk culture in India for
many years, states, in a paper recently presented to the London Society of
Arts, that it requires in Bengal 10,000 of the best cocoons to produce one
pound of good silk; in France 2,500 cocoons produce the same quantity.
With a view to improve this produce, Mr. Bashford imported a large quan-
tity of the best French, Italian, and China eggs, to engraft upon the different
species of the Bengal race. Various details of the experiments were then
given; but Mr. Bashford sums up by saying that, as he had spent three
years in trying ineffectually to engraft a superior nature, and invigorate the
common stock, he felt discouraged, and would gladly have the opinion of
naturalists as to the probability of his object ever being attainable, and the
proper steps to be taken for realizing it.

BUTTERFLY VIVARIUM.

The success of vivaria for fish and crustacea, has suggested to Mr. Noel
Humphreys, of England, the idea of a vivarium for insects; and for the con-
struction of this he has recently published directions in a work entitled the
“Butterfly Vivarium,” or “Insect Home.’”? Entomologists have at all times
found it necessary to make use of some kind of vivarium, for the purpose of

_observing the changes which insects undergo before arriving at their perfect
state. The tin box, with a perforated lid for ventilation, the card-board
trays for silkworms, or the wooden box sunk in the ground, with a wire
lid, and filled with the various kinds of caterpillars, are, in fact, all vivaria.
But the speciality of Mr. Humphreys’ plan is to make the vivarium an orna-
mental object for a drawing-room. With this view, he proposes that it shall
consist of a glass case, with proper ventilation at the top; that part of the
bottom shall be filled with earth, in which plants, such as are fed upon by
insects, shall be planted; that another part shall be devoted to a tank, for
the benefit of such as delight in water; and that in the earth shall be in-
serted bottles for holding sprigs of such plants as are too large to grow in the
vivarium. We cannot gather from the directions whether or not Mr. Hum-

382 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

phreys has himself tried the experiment, or seen it tried by others. An orna-
mental glass case, filled with plants, on the leaves of which should appear
beautiful caterpillars of various colors, and metallic beetles glittering in the
sun, while around the flowers should flit moths and butterflies, and dragon-
flies, with their gorgeously-painted or delicately-reticulated wings, would cer-
tainly form a very attractive object. Whether such a vivarium could be
maintained in good working order or not, is, however, in our opinion, a
somewhat doubtful matter,

ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY.

NEW PLANETS FOR 1838.

The forty-sixth asteroidal planet was discovered by Mr. Pogson, of Oxford,
Eng., Aug. 16, 1857, and has received the name of Hestia.

The forty-seventh, Aglaia, was discovered on the 15th of September, 1857,
by Dr. Luther, of Bilk.

The forty-eighth, Doris, and the forty-ninth, Pales, were both discovered
by M. Goldschmidt, of Paris, on the same evening, namely, the 19th of Sep-
tember, 1857.

The fiftieth, Virginia, was discovered on the 4th of October, 1857, by Mr.
Ferguson of the observatory at Washington, D. C.*

The asteroids discovered during the year 1858 are as follows:

Nemausa, the fifty-first, discovered by M. Laurent, of Marseilles, Jan. 22.

Europa, the fifty-second, discovered by M. Goldschmidt, February 6.

Calypso, the fifty-third, discovered by Dr. Luther, of Bilk, April 4.

Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth Asteroids.— Two asteroids were discovered on
the night of the 10th of September: the one by M. Goldschmidt, at Paris,
and the other by Mr. George Searle, of the Dudley Observatory, at Albany.

DONATY’S COMET.

The following account of the great comet of 1858 is derived in part from
an article contributed to Runkle’s Mathematical Journal, by Prof. G. P.
Bond, of the Cambridge Observatory.

On the 2d June, 1858, a faint nebulosity, slowly advancing toward the
north, was descried by Donati at Florence, near the star A Leonis. This was
the earliest observation of the great comet of 1858, its distance from the sun
being then about two hundred millions of miles, while from the earth it was
yet more remote. Being, at first, inclined to question whether it might not
be identical with another comet just before seen in the same quarter of the
heavens (the third comet of 1858), he communicated the intelligence of the
discovery, with a suitable reserve, as “perhaps new;” and in a second de-
spatch he said, ‘It is possible that this comet is the same as that discovered
in America on the 2d of May.”’ This conjecture, fortunately for Donati, did
not prove true; although the apprehension of the Italian astronomer, from
the rival zeal of his transatlantic brethren, was not without reasonable foun-
dation, for no sooner had the moon withdrawn from the evening sky, so as
to allow the comet to be seen, than it was detected almost simultaneously at
three different points in America, each observer being at the time unaware

*The table of asteroids discovered in 1857, as given in the Annual of Scientific
Discovery for 1858, was in some respects incorrect. Hence the repetition.

084 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

of its previous discovery in Italy. It was seen by Mr. H. P. Tuttle, on the
evening of the 28th of June, and an accurate determination of its place was
made on the same night at the observatory of Harvard College. On the
29th, it was detected by H. M. Parkhurst, Esq., of Perth Amboy, N. J.; and
on the Ist of July, by Miss Mitchell, of Nantucket.

Three geocentric positions, obtained on the 7th, 11th, and 13th of June,
furnished Donati with the means of computing approximate elements of the
comet’s motion, from which its interesting character was quickly recognized.
Considerable difficulty was experienced in fixing the precise time of perihe-
lion passage, a most necessary condition in predicting its path as seen from
the earth. While in other respects the results deduced by various com-
puters were sufficiently accordant, they showed wide discrepancies in desig-
nating the place of the comet in the orbit. By the middle of August, how-
ever, its future course, and great increase of brightness in September and the
early part of October, had been ascertained with entire certainty.

Up to this time it had remained a faint object, not even discernible by the
unassisted eye. It was distinguished from ordinary telescopic comets only
by the extreme slowness of its motion, in singular contrast with its subse-
quent career, and by the vivid light of the nucleus; the latter peculiarity
was of itself prophetic of a splendid destiny.

Traces of a tail were noticed on the 20th of August, and on the 29th it was
seen with the naked eye as a hazy star. For a few weeks it occupied a posi-
tion in the heavens where it rose before the sun and set after it, becoming
thus a conspicuous object both in the morning and evening sky. This cir-
cumstance gave rise to the erroneous notion that two different comets had
appeared. The statement, which was widely circulated, that this was the
return of the comet of 1264 and of 1556, supposed by some to be identical,
is equally incorrect. If it has ever before been seen by man, it must have
been far back in history, since the most recent computations assign a time
of revolution of about twenty-four hundred years.

On the 6th of September was first noticed the curvature of the tail, which
subsequently, at the time of its greatest expansion, became one of its most
impressive features. It is remarkable that this peculiarity should have been
strongly enough exhibited to be distinguished at the above date, when the
earth was close to the plane of the comet’s orbit. The observation cannot,
in fact, be reconciled with the commonly received opinion that the curvature
of the tail lies in the plane of motion about the sun.

On the 20th, the first of a series of extraordinary phenomena manifested
itself in the region contiguous to the nucleus. A crescent-shaped outline,
obscure and very narrow, was interspersed, like a screen, between the nucleus
and the sun; within this, instead of a softly blended nebulous light, indic-
ative of an undisturbed condition of equilibrium, the fiery mass was in a state
of apparent commotion, as though upheaved by the action of violent inter-
nal forces. On the 23d, two dark outlines were traced more than half way
round the nucleus, and on the next evening still another. Each of these
was evidently the outer boundary of a luminous envelope, the brightest be-
ing that nearest the nucleus.

On the 25th four envelops were seen, and others were subsequently
formed, almost under the eye of the observer, their motion of projection
from the nucleus being evident from night to night. The rapidity of their
formation, and the enormous extent to which they are ultimately expanded,
are phenomena extremely difficult to explain. The scene of chaotic con-

ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 385

fusion presented within the inmost envelop can only be accounted for as
the result of sudden and violent disruptions from the central body, projecting
immense volumes of its luminous substance towards the sun, which by some
unknown law, is in turn repelled by that body, and driven off to the distant
regions of space, forming the vast train of light so characteristic of these
mysterious bodies.

Prof. Mitchell, of the Cincinnati Observatory, thus describes the appear-
ance of the comet in the great refractor of that institution:

“On the evening of the 25th of September the central portion, or nucleus,
was examined with powers varying from one hundred to five hundred,
without presenting any evidence of a well-defined planetary disk. It was a
brilliant glow of light, darting and flashing forward in the direction of the
motion toward the sun, and leaving the region behind in comparative ob-
scurity. But the most wonderful physical feature presented was a portion
of a nearly circular nebulous ring, with its vertex directed toward the sun, the
bright nucleus being in the centre, while the imperfect ring swept more than
half round the luminous centre. This nebulous ring resembled those which
sometimes escape from a steam-pipe, but did not exhibit the appearance
which ought to be presented by a hollow hemispherical envelop of nebulous
matter.

“There was an evident concentration of light in the central portions of the
ring, while, in the case of a hollow envelop, the brightest portion should be
at the outer edge. By micrometrical measurement, the distance from the
central point to the circumference of the ring was found to be about nine
thousand miles. This would give a diameter of eighteen thousand miles, in
case the ring was entire. Similar measurements, made on the evening of the
26th of September, indicated a decided increase in the radius of the ring,
which was now not less than twelve thousand miles inlength. On the same
evening I noticed the fact that the luminous envelop did not blend itself
into the head portion of the tail, but appeared somewhat to penetrate into
this nebulous mass, especially on the upper part, presenting the appearance
of about 200° of a spiral. The tail on the 25th was decidedly brighter and
better defined on the upper than on the lower portion, while on the evening
of the 26th there was a much nearer approach to equality in brightness, es-
pecially near the head of the comet. Through the telescope, and near the
head, the tail presented the appearance of a hollow nebulous envelop, under
the form of a paraboloid of revolution, the edges being brightest and well
defined, while there was a manifest fading away of light towards the central
region. Through the vast depth of nebulous matter composing this won-
derful appendage, the faintest telescopic stars shone with undiminished
brightness.”

Donati’s comet attained its least distance from the sun — 55,000,000 of miles
— on the morning of the 30th of September. Its least distance from the earth
— 52,000,000 of miles — occurred on the 12th of October. On the 10th of
October, its tail stretched over 60° of the heavens, and was 51,000,000 of
miles in length, and 10,000,000 in breadth, at its extremity. The lon-
ger diameter of its orbit was estimated as 184 times that of the earth, or
35,000,000,000 miles, a space, however, considerably less than one-thousandth
of the distance of the nearest fixed star. For the nucleus, Mr. Bond gives the
following measurements: July 19th, 5/7 = 5000 miles; August 19th, equal to
a star of the 7th magnitude; August 29th, head of the comet visible to the
unassisted eye as a star of the sixth magnitude; August 350th, diameter of

eo
vV

386 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

the nucleus 6/7 = 4660 miles; September 8th and 9th, diameter 3/” = 1980
miles. On the 23d of September, the head of the comet, to the naked eye,
appeared brighter than a star of the first magnitude, and during the remain-
ing period of its visibility it went through a series of periodic changes, ac-
quiring more light just before an eruption, and suddenly diminishing after-
wards.

This comet, says Mr. Bond, although surpassed by many others in size,
has not often been equalled in the intensity of the light of the nucleus. The
diameter of the surrounding nebulosity, on the other hand, was unusually
small, never much exceeding 100,000 miles; while that of the great comet of
1811 was ten times larger, — its envelop attaining an elevation of more than
300,000 miles above the central body.

The various observations on Donati’s comet leave no room to doubt that
it is periodical, and has a time of revolution of about 2000 years, the max-
imum period calculated being 2415 years, andthe minimum 1854. Its hourly
velocity at perihelion was calculated at 127,000, and its aphelion velocity at
480 miles.

In illustration of these times and distances, the London Z’mes uses the fol-
lowing comparisons:

Let any one take a half-sheet of note paper, and, marking a circle with a
sixpence, in one corner of it, describe therein our solar system, drawing the
orbits of the earth and inferior planets as small as he can by the aid of.a
magnifying glass. If the circumference of the sixpence stands for the orbit
of Neptune, then an oval filling the page will fairly represent the orbit of
our comet; and if the paper be laid on the pavement under the west door of
St. Paul’s, the length of that edifice will inadequately represent the distance
of the nearest fixed star. That the comet should take more than 2,000 years
to travel round the page of note paper we have supposed, is explained by
its great diminution of speed as it recedes from the sun. At its perihelion,
it travelled 127,000 miles an hour, or more than twice as fast as the earth,
whose motion is about one thousand miles aminute. At its aphelion, how-
ever, or its greatest distance from the sun, the comet is a very slow body,
sailing along, as if doubtful whether to return, at the rate of 480 miles an
hour. This is only eight times the speed of a railway express. At this pace,
even if the comet could wholly shake off the attraction of the sun — which
it certainly could not — and were it to travel onward in a straight line, the
lapse of a million years would find it still travelling half way between our
sun and the nearest fixed star. Comets, then, can hardly be imagined visit-
ors from our system to any other, or from any other to our own.

Donati’s comet passed within nine millions of miles of Venus, and if it
had any density at all comparable to our own, would have effected the orbit
of that planet in an appreciable degree. Were that found to be the case, it
woud be the first fact of the kind in the history of these singular bodies.

Mr. Bond, in connection with his article in the Mathematical Journal, be-
fore referred to, also presents the following sketch of the more distinctive
phenomena presented in the motions and physical aspect of comets gener-
ally :

The first characteristic of these singular bodies is that of their being
mainly, perhaps in most instances, entirely composed of an ill-defined gas-
eous or nebulous substance, endowed with properties so extraordinary that
it can scarcely be classed with matter in the ordinary acceptation of the
term. Of its extreme attenuation and lightness there can be no question.

ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 387

The planets, and among them our earth, must again and again have tray-
ersed unharmed the tails of comets. In October last, the debris of the mag-
nificent train of the comet which has just disappeared from our western
skies, swept over the region occupied by the earth a few weeks earlier. In-
stances of more immediate proximity are of too common occurrence to
allow us to suppose that we are always to escape an actual collision; but it
is inconceivable that any disastrous consequences could ensue to our earth
or its inhabitants, any more than from contact with sunlight, or with the
ether of the planetary spaces.

A second characteristic is that of internal condensation. All comets pre-
sent this in a greater or less degree. Most of them have a minute stellar
point, called the nucleus, which occupies the position of maximum density.
There are others in which this latter feature is wholly wanting. But the
number, in which it cannot be detected with a powerful telescope, is much
smaller than has commonly been supposed. This centre of condensation, or
brightest point, is, with rare exceptions, placed on the side which is nearest
to the sun. It is always, however, very close to the centre of gravity, as is
proved by the fact of its motion about the sun, in accordance with the law
of gravitation.

The nucleus itself is a minute point compared with the immense volume
of light-giving substance, of which it is the controlling centre. Whether it
is solid or not, is still undecided. As far as the eye alone is to be trusted,
there are comets as truly solid as the planets or stars themselves. In size
and weight, however, the true nuclei, apart from their surrounding nebulos-
ity, are probably quite small, measured by the standard of the larger plan-
ets. Still, it is possible that there may have been instances in which the
mass of these bodies has been comparable with that of the earth, and yet,
they may have completed their circuit around the sun, leaving no appreci-
able trace of their disturbing influence —the only sure test by which their
mass could be detected. The evidence, from the fact that the smaller stars
shine freely, even through the most condensed portions of the comets, ad-
duced by astronomical writers in proof of their transparency, and, by infer-
ence, of their extreme tenuity and lightness, has a certain value when ap-
plied to the class of feeble telescopic comets, but is scarcely applicable to one
like that of the present year, which overpowered all but the brightest stars
in the neighborhood of the nucleus by its superior brilliancy.

The feature next in importance to the nucleus is the train, or tail, as it is
usually called (although often preceding the nucleus in its motion), pro-
jected at an immense distance from it, and usually, although by no means
invariably, in a direction opposite to that of the sun. The agency of the
nucleus in the formation of the train, but still more in the subsequent con-
trol which it retains over it, is one of the most curious phenomena presented
in nature. Often several of these appendages are seen radiating at once
from the same nucleus. The greatest variety in curvature of outline, length,
brilliancy and other peculiarities, is presented by different comets, or by the
same one in different parts of its course. The portions near the axis are
usually darker than the edges, giving at times the appearance of a division
with a stream of light on either side.

The larger bodies of this class exhibit a wonderful complication of phe-
nomena in the region contiguous to the nucleus. Of these the most prom-
inent are the interposition between the nucleus and the sun of one or more
well-defined and rounded screens, or caps of dense nebulosity, called envel-

888 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

ops, partially but not entirely surrounding the nucleus, and the emission of
streams or jets of luminosity, bright sectors, ete., in a direction inclined or
opposite to that of the tail. With great variety of detail in other respects,
these have all a well-marked tendency to appear in the first instance on the
side of the nucleus next the sun. The great comet of the present year
undoubtedly takes a foremost rank in respect of the multiplied and most
curious changes which it has exhibited, and especially in the complete illus-
tration which it afforded of the origin, construction, and final dissipation of
a succession of envelops. In these phenomena, the process of the forma-
tion of the tail, from the substance in immediate contact with the nucleus,
is intimately concerned. The astronomer, night by night, sees the work of
evolution going on with an amazing rapidity, and seemingly in defiance of
the best established properties of matter, the laws of gravitation and of
inertia. The results are evident to all, but the secret cause is a profound
mystery admirably calculated to stimulate speculation and intelligent in-
vestigation.

As regards the motion of comets in space, it is a well-established fact, so
far as our present means of observation extend, that their nuclei alone move
in obedience to the attractive force of the sun and planets. This property,
which has been recognized with consistency and uniformity, is not the least
singular peculiarity of theix constitution. Immense volumes of matter,
apparently of the identical substance of the nucleus, go to compose the en.
veloping nebulosity and the tail; but from the moment of leaving the cen-
tral body, their motion is perfectly inexplicable, without assuming them to be
under the influence of laws of force which greatly modify that of gravita-
tion.

The shape of the cometary orbits, described about the sun, is nearly that
of a parabola, or of an elongated ellipse, with periods of revolution varying
from a few years to many centuries. The point in the orbit which is nearest
the sun is called the perihelion; the distance of this point from the sun, the
perihelion distance, and the time of the comet’s passing it, the perihelion

passage.

LUMINOUS THEORY OF COMETS’ TAILS.

The following is a resumé of a paper on “Comets, and the Curvature of
their Tails,” recently read before the Boston Society of Natural History, by
Dr. C. F. Winslow.

A comet, strictly defined, is that portion of it called by astronomers its
nucleus.

Comets consist of gaseous and very elastic matter, whose physical consti-
tution and luminous functions appear to be similar to, or identical with, the
gaseous envelops that surround the sun.

The tail of a comet is not a material element, nor a physical constant, like
the nucleus, but only results from a transient evolution of luminous waves,
and is a sort of magnetic sequence, like a terrestrial aurora, depending on
the progressive gravitation and repulsion (i. e., condensation and reaction)
that take place between the particles of the nucleus, as it approaches and
passes its perihelion.

The luminous effect of solar action on comets, is similar to that exerted by
the solid mass of the sun itself on its photosphere.

ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 3889

The luminous phenomena resulting from this action, increase and decrease
in inverse ratios with the distance of the nucleus from the sun.

The primary effect of this action is, to intensify the force of gravitation or
centralization among the particles of the comet; the secondary effect being
the evolution of light as a result of repulsion consequent upon the conflict
of this latter force with increasing condensation; both forces being excited
to more positive energy in the comet, by its approach to its perihelion.

The luminous waves evolved by a comet are arrested by the Inminous
waves projected from the sun, which latter seize upon, mingle with, decom-
pose, and sweep back the former into space, producing the tail.

By this union, and reaction or decomposition of solar and cometary light,
a resplendency is communicated to the solar ray, which increases in visi-
bility and persistent power of extension into space, in direct ratios with the
commotion and repulsion excited within the comet, and inversely as the
square of its distance from the sun.

The curvature apparent in a comet’s tail is the resultant of compound mo-
tion; the first element being the comet’s velocity through the perihelic are
of its orbit; the second being the projection of luminous waves from the
comet, which are swept into space by solar action exerted at right angles to
the comet’s path.

These luminous waves are as independent of each other, and of the light
fountain from which they spring, as if they were particles of matter; and
being impelled into space by the undulations of solar light, the parts of the
resplendent train more distant from the sun become diffuse, since the veloc-
ity of the comet is leaving waves of light behind, which are constantly dis-
solving and vanishing in the great ethereal void. (This was explained by a
diagram.)

Comets’ tails, not being composed of particles of matter, but only of lu-
minous waves, rendered visible by decomposing causes, and possessed of no
angular velocity, have no such function as an orbit; this becoming more cer-
tain, since the velocity of cometary light constantly varies, depending on the
fluctuating impulse of the solar wave, and modified every instant by the
repulsive energy within the nucleus, which generates the cometary waves.

DENSITY AND CONSTITUTION OF COMETS. BY D. VAUGHAN.

Although modern science has revealed the amount of matter contained in
the sun and the large planets, it has hitherto failed to furnish similar infor-
mation in regard to those celestial bodies which are too light to affect the
astronomical balance. Babinet has recently endeavored to ascertain the
density of comets, from their effects on the brilliancy of the stars over which
they pass; and, as they have been generally incapable of causing any sensi-
ble diminution of stellar lustre, he concludes that cometary bodies, exceeding
the largest planets in size, can contain only a few tons of matter. This con-
clusion has been based on the fact, that our atmosphere is capable of render-
ing the faint stars invisible when it is illuminated by the light of the full
moon; while a far more extensive volume of cometary gases, though ex-
posed to the direct rays of the sun, fail to produce a similar effect.. But we
may question the propriety of supposing that the power of gases to obscure
stellar light is in direct proportion to their density; and we have no grounds
for assuming that the nucleus is wholly destitute of all dense solid or liquid
matter. A globe of granite ten miles in diameter would weigh about

33*

390 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DICOVERY.

6,000,000,000,000 tons; yet in the nucleus of most observed comets, such a
mass would not be readily distinguished, even by the most powerful
telescopes.

If we endeavor to estimate the attractive power of comets from its effi-
ciency in holding their parts together in certain regions of the solar system,
it would seem that they must contain far more matter than Babinet assigns
to them. The tidal force of the sun, or the disturbing action which he exerts
on the surface of one of his attendants, is inversely proportional to the den-
sity of the latter multiplied by the cube of its distance. On our own globe
this solar disturbance amounts to gy,55,000 Of terrestrial gravity. If the
earth’s attraction were 20,000,000 times as feeble as it is at present, bodies
could have no weight at those places in conjunction and in opposition with
the sun, and the planetary form could no longer be preserved. Had a comet
8,000 miles in diameter, moved in a circular orbit, at a distance of 95,000,000
from the sun, it could not resist his dismembering effects, unless it were at
least equal to s5,505,000 Of the terrestrial mass, and contained over
300,000,000,000,000 tons of matter. Had such a comet revolved in the orbit
of Neptune, the attraction of 10,000,000,000 tons of matter would be sufficient
to maintain its integrity.

These results, however, are obtained on the supposition that gravity is the
only power concerned in keeping the cometary matter together; but it would
seem that some other agent is employed to secure the same end. The head
of the comet of 1811 was over a million of miles in diameter, and the attrac-
tion of a nucleus equal in mass to the planet Mercury, would be scarcely
adequate to preserve the stability of so extensive a body during its perihe-
lion passage. Yet, according to them easurements of Herschel, the diameter
of the nucleus was little over 400 miles, and it would seem that the sur-
rounding nebulous matter was too rare to compensate for the defective
attractive power of so smalla globe. Even a few comets of considerable
size present scarcely any indications of the presence of dense solid or liquid
matter in their central regions; and it may be interesting to inquire whether
the constitution of comets, and the peculiar phenomena which they exhibit,
may not, as Dr. Winslow supposes, be ascribed to the agency of electricity
or magnetism. By tracing the legitimate consequences of electrical action,
as manifested on our globe, we may easily account for the preservation of
these celestial wanderers in the vicinity of the sun, without altering or modi-
fying, in any degree, the doctrines now held by astronomers respecting uni-
versal gravity.

Several observations show that the uppermost regions of our atmosphere
are most highly charged with electricity ; and this is sufficient to create an
attraction between the earth’s surface and the higher strata of air, so as to
render atmospheric pressure a little greater than could arise from terrestrial
gravity alone. Were the earth deprived of this gravitative power, the air
would be confined around its surface by electrical action, and would be pre-
vented by this feeble tie from retiring into space, though it might swell to a
height of many thousand miles. ‘There can be little doubt, that the elec-
trical conditions of the envelop or atmosphere of a comet would hold it to
the central nucleus, independent of any gravitative power which the latter
* may exert. On our planet, the solar heat is the main source of atmospheric
electricity, as it gives rise to evaporation, and by putting the winds into mo-
tion, causes the friction of the air against the land and water. By these
operations electric forces are continually called into existence. If heat is

ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 391

attended with similar results on comets, the influence of electricity must be
most decided on these bodies when they are nearest to the solar orb; the
attractive power between the nucleus and envelop will be then greatest, and
the compression on the latter must confine it to the most limited space. In
this manner we may account for the fact that the heads of comets gradually
become small as they approach the sun, and regain their size when retiring
from him. The consequences of electrical action is also indicated by the
commotions to which these bodies appear to be subject, and by the dismem-
berment which Biela’s comet experienced during the present century. In
another place I have shown that this wonderful catastrophe was such as
might be expected to result from a great electrical disturbance, and the con-
sequent occurrence of an extensive storm in the atmosphere of the cometary
mass. (See Annual of Scientific Discovery for 1858, page 405.)

VARIABLE STARS.

The fine double star y Virginis, is one of the most remarkable specimens
of a binary system in the sidereal regions, and has been watched with great
assiduity for several years past by Admiral Smyth, of England, and several
Other astronomers. At the last meeting of the British Association (Leeds),
Admiral Smyth stated that its observed and computed places have generally
been found to agree within the limits assigned to probable errors of obser-
vation, and that it now presents a system which affords, by actual changes
both in angular velocity and distance — the former varying inversely as the
square of the latter, with the elliptical orbital elements deducible therefrom —
incontrovertible evidence of the physical connection of its constituent mem-
bers. These results are converting probability into demonstration respecting
its being subject to the same dynamical forces which govern our own system.
Every advance tends to prove the universality of the Newtonian influence of
attraction, obeying the Keplerian law of areas. In a word, by warranting
the conclusion of the inconceivable extent of the controlling agency of grav-
itation, it forms a wonderfully sublime truth in astronomical science.

Some interesting observations have also been made recently upon Antares,
the nearest of the double stars of the first magnitude. From these, the color
of the smaller companion was ascertained to be of a blue-green, the star An-
tares itself being of a brilliant deep red; and there are traces of change in
the angle and distance since 1849. With regard to another double star, a
Centauri, the distance has little altered for a long time, but the angular mo-
tion is increasing.

Attention has also been recently directed to the star B, A, C, 3345, whose
variability seems very great. In 1856 several attempts were made at Green-
wich to observe it, amongst other moon-culminating stars set down in the
Nautical Almanac for 1859, but in every instance without success. In its
stead, 19- Leonis which precedes it by a few seconds of time, was observed
four times; and a star which precedes 19 Leonis by ten seconds was observed
twice, while nothing whatever was visible at the exact position of the star
sought for. The observers reported the circumstance, and were directed to
keep a vigorous watch for the missing star. In 1857-8 no difficulty in ob-
serving it has been reported, its appearance being that of the 7th magnitude,
The star is identical with Lalande 19,197, who marks it as of the 9th magni-
tude. In Mayer’s Catalogue, as revised by Mr. Baily (Mem. R.A.S. vol. iv.),
it is No. 420. It is also identical with Piazzi [X. 176, andis marked of the

392 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

8th magnitude. In Taylor’s Madras Catalogue it is marked of the 7th magni-
tude. Finally, in Argelander’s Uranometria Nova it is called variable.

Prof. Payson, in a recent communication to the Royal Astronomical So-
ciety, describes a star in Libra (Right Ascension, 15h. 45m. and South Decli-
nation, 15° 49’) which suddenly appeared on the 3d of May, 1857, as of the
9°5 magnitude, on the 19th of the same month, as of the 11th magnitude,
and on the Ist of June was no longer discernible. Its whole duration of
visibility was therefore only about a month.

Mr. Baxendal, of England, has also called attention to the variability of the
star 30 Herculis. In October and November, 1855, this star was nearly invis-
ible to the naked eye, even in the finest night; and the mean of several
comparisons with other stars, made at different times, gave its magnitude 5°9.
It is now, however, a conspicuous star, and not less than 4°9 magnitude —
the mean of several nights’ estimations since June 18 being 4°85. Professor
Argelander rated this star 5°6 magnitude, or less than v. 52 and 42 Herculis;
but it is now brighter than any of these stars. On the other hand, it appears
from the Radcliffe Observations of 1851 that it was of the 4°8—5:0 magnitude
at the end of June and beginning of July of that year. It is very probable,
therefore, that its light is subject to periodical changes; but the observations
hitherto made are not sufficient to afford even a rough approximation to the
length of the period. Thered color which is so common amongst the variable
stars (especially those of Jong period) is also very decided in this star.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE PLANET MARS.

Prof. Secchi, of Rome, under the date of July 19, forwards to Dr. Peters,
of Altona, for publication in the Astronomische Nachrichten, a minute de-
scription of the surface of the planet Mars, together with two pictures of the
planet taken with an interval of about one-third of a revolution on its axes.
The spots seen and drawn by Captain Jacob, at Madras, in 1854, are seen
in these representations also, and are therefore to be considered permanent,
although there seems to be some confusion among those about the pole.
On the other hand, a small round spot, portrayed by Madler in 1830, has cer-
tainly disappeared. Any one, however, who will take the trouble to com-
pare Secchi’s drawings of the curious group of solar spots seen on successive
days in March (14, 15 and 16) 1858, with a larger and better drawing of the
same group accidentally made on one of the same days, March 15, by Schwabe,
and both of them published by Dr. Peters, pages 236 and 342 of the Astrono-
mische Nachrichten, will see how much depends on the quality of the tele-
scope, the condition of the atmosphere, and the truth of eye and skill of hand
of the observer, in determining these delicate tests of cosmical stability or
instability in bodies so far beyond our reach. For Secchi’s drawings would
lead any one to put unhesitating faith in the popular theory that the spots of
the sun are consequences of vortical or whirlwind movements in the equato-
rial belts of its atmosphere, so spirally has he drawn them, and so evidently
have the little ones on each successive day advanced spirally a certain dis-
tance round the larger ones. Whereas, Schawbe’s better drawing shows no
such movement whatever, not a trace of it; but, on the contrary, a curiously
cracked or shivered condition of each spot in the group, especially the larger
ones, through the cracks in the even black surface of which the white light
shines with much sharper edges than around the limit of the spot itself;

ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 393

while the penumbras are cracked and gaped outward like old and wind-tossed
palm leaves.

There is no certainty, therefore, that any but the principal spots on Mars
are stationary. To reconcile the different drawings, it is quite necessary to
suppose that the numerous white patches about the poles succeed cach other
rapidly, and therefore are more likely to be masses of storm clouds than in-
creasing and decreasing areas of snow. The least agitation of the atmosphere
makes the beautiful colors of the planet’s disk grow pale and confused. The
general surface is a monotonous continent crossed by an equatorial zone of
red and temperate zones of blue, except in one place, where a large red island
is surrounded by a blue channel. Toward the edges of the disk the red spots
become yellowish, as if there were a martial atmosphere.

NEW DETERMINATION OF THE SOLAR PARALLAX.

The following communication by Lieut. J. M. Gillis, has been officially
made to the Secretary of the Navy, under the date of Feb. 18, 1858:

I have the honor to communicate to you the results of the observations
specially made by the United States Naval Astronomical Expedition to de-
termine the solar parallax — the sun’s distance from the earth.

It will be remembered by the Department that Dr. Gerling — an eminent
geometer of Germany — suggested the practicability of determining this fun-
damental astronomical datum from observations of Venus near the inferior
conjunction, instead of awaiting the rare phenomenon of transits of the
planet across the sun’s disk; that an expedition to the southern hemisphere
was proposed to the Department by myself, for the purpose of making these
observations, which, in connection with similar observations to be made at
the Naval Observatory, would test the method; and that the earnest com-
mendation of the measure by physicists, both in Europe and this country,
induced Congress to authorize the expedition by special grants in the appro-
priation bills approved in 1848 and 1849.

We were absent from the United States nearly three and a half years, and
the observations, constituting the more immediate object of the expedition,
extended through parts of each of the years from November, 1849, to Sep-
tember, 1852, inclusive. So many classes of observations were embraced in
the plan of operations adopted by the Department, that our small party was
almost constantly occupied in observatory duty proper, and it was not pos-
sible to prepare any of the data for the final computations until after the
return of the expedition to the United States. Then our first efforts were to
put in proper form for the computer all the observations of the planets Venus
and Mars, and the stars with which they had been compared. Whilst our
men of science had been unanimous in advocating the organization of an
expedition, because of the additional mass of important information certain
to be collected by it, there were some who entertained an opinion that the
method of determining the parallax proposed by Dr. Gerling would not afford
a result as reliable as had been derived from the transits of Venus in 1761 and
1769. For obvious reasons, therefore, it was proper that the discussion of the
results from our observations should be intrusted to an astronomer wholly
uncommitted as to the comparative merits of the two methods.

Under the sanction of the Department, Dr. B. A. Gould, junior, of Cam-
bridge, Mass., was selected for the purpose; and the result obtained by him
for the Sun’s Equatorial Horizontal Parallax is 8//-4950, or 0//-0762 less

894 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

than the value commonly adopted; and he concludes that we may assume
with advantage 8/’°5000, corresponding to a distance from that luminary of
86,160,000 statute miles.

CHARTS OF THE ECLIPTIC.

Some time ago, on the proposition of Lalande, the Academy of Berlin
undertook the first chart of the ecliptic. Their earliest reward was the dis-
covery of the fifth small planet by Mr. Hencke, of Driessen. Toward 1847,
Mr. Valz, of Marseilles, developed a plan, the execution of which would
lead to the detection of all the planets in the zodiac. Mr. Chacornac, then
studying astronomy with Mr. Valz, immediately applied himself to these
new charts of the ecliptic. Two months afterwards, Sept. 1852, he discov-
ered a new planet. England and Ireland engaged in the same direction;
Hind and Cooper were soon to distance the French astronomers. However,
Chacornac, who meanwhile had been attached to the observatory of Paris,
continued his charts. They have just been published at the expense of that
observatory. They will be more complete than the former, and quadruple
the dimensions of those of Berlin, the scale being fifty millimetres for each
celestial degree.

These charts contain all the stars of the twelfth magnitude and many of the
thirteenth magnitude; they extend above and below the ecliptic to 5° of
declination. Their form is square. The number of stars inscribed on them
already exceeds 125,000.

OBSERVATIONS ON SOLAR SPOTS.

In a recent number of the “ Transactions of the Royal Astronomical So-
ciety,” Mr. R. C. Carrington gives a notice of his solar spot observations :

“During the past three years the surface of the sun has exhibited a com-
parative state of quiescence, the outbreak of spots being few and often far
between, the spots themselves being for the most part small.”

But the epoch of least action is now passed. From the observations made
during 1855 and ’56, which fix the date of minimum with some degree of
certainty, it appears that the date of the minimum of energy, as exhibited
by the spots, may be assigned with tolerable certainty to the beginning of
the month of February, 1856; the ratios increasing slowly and perceptibly
from that time. The year 1856 was characterized by the rather frequent
occurrence of low south spots — the latitudes 27° and 35° south having been
more than once visited. Asa general remark, when an outbreak occurs on
a parallel not previously affected for several months, it is mostly found that
two or three other outbreaks succeed at moderate intervals of time — not,
however, at the corresponding longitudes, when the rotation of the earth is
allowed for; this being a subject for further investigation.

OCCULTATION OF A STAR BY A COMET.

By a communication from Dr. G. B. Donati, of Florence, published in the
Astronomische Nachrichten, of June 30, it appears that this very rare phenom-
enon was observed by him on the 21st of April. Comets have several times
been seen to pass over stars, but the light of the stars has usually been but
little, if at all, diminished, even by the nucleus — on this occasion, however,
it was otherwise. The star, however, was of the twelfth magnitude, or so

ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. O99

smali that it cannot ever be seen, except by the aid of a first-class telescope.
The one employed by Dr. Donati was the great refractor of Amici, and had
a clear aperture of eleven inches, with a focal length of seventeen feet. Dr.
D. says:

“On the 2ist of April, about 10h. 30m.,I perceived that the centre of
Brorsen’s comet was about to pass exactly over a star of the twelfth mag-
nitude, and therefore carefully observed the passage. Gradually, as the
comet approached the star, the latter became fainter and badly defined, that
is, its disk was no longer round, but hazy, as if the star was shining through
mist. The diminution and diffusion of the stellar light increased as the
comet approached still nearer, so that when the centre of the latter covered
the star, it entirely disappeared for about thirty seconds. At the emersion, the
star presented the same appearance as at the immersion, and it shone, when
the nebulosity had entirely passed from over it, again perfectly round and
well defined.”

THEORY OF THE ASTEROIDS.

In a paper published in the Comptes Rendus, by M. Le Verrier, on the aste-
roids, that eminent astronomer shows by calculation that the sum of the
mass of fragmentary planets, called asteroids, cannot exceed one-fourth of
the earth’s mass; and also shows it probable that their mean mass or sys-
tem is at its perihelion, and consequently nearest the earth, at the time when
the earth itself is on the side of the summer solstice. This, it is urged, is
confirmatory of the theory that aérolites are the minute outriders of the
asteroids.

CHANGES IN THE INTENSITY OF THE HEAT OF THE SUN.

In a memoir recently published in the contributions of the Smithsonian
Institute, by L. W. Meech, “ On the relative intensity of the Heat and Light
of the Sun upon the different Latitudes of the Earth,” the author deduces,
among other results, that taking into view the fact that the obliquity of the
ecliptic, 2000 years ago, in the time of Hipparchus, 128 B. C., was 23° 437,
and is 23° 273’, and that therefore the sun then rose higher in summer than
now, the summer heat of that period was two-tenths of a degree Fahrenheit
hotter than that of the present, while the winter was the same amount
colder.

ON THE ORIGIN OF HAIL.

In a discussion on the above subject at the last meeting of the British As-
sociation, Admiral Fitzroy said, that he had no doubt whatever that colder
currents of air coming from the polar regions, and breaking by or mingling
with the currents coming up from the equatorial regions, loaded with vapor,
played a very important part in the phenomena. As it had been a question,
whether hail was ever experienced in the inter-tropical parts of the earth,
he could decidedly answer in the affirmative, as he had experienced several
heavy hail-storms even within a few degrees on either side of the equator.

INFLUENCE OF THE MOON ON THE WEATHER.

At the Leeds meeting of the British Association, 1858, Mr. Harrison pre-
sented a paper ‘‘ On the Influence the Moon exerts on Temperature,” and he

396 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

claimed that the following points must be regarded as established meteorolog-
ical facts: 1. That the temperature before the first quarter is lower than that
of the second day after it. 2. That this fall and rise prevails most in the win-
ter months, and in the month of May. 3. That a reciprocity of action takes
place between corresponding days of the moon’s age. Thus, whilst it was
found, both at Dublin and Greenwich, that for twenty-one consecutive years
the mean temperature rose at the first quarter in more instances than it fell,
it fell at the last quarter in more instances than it rose; and in the only two
years in which a fall occurred instead of a rise at the first quarter, there was
a rise instead of a fall at the last quarter. Between new and full moon this
reciprocity of action was still more apparent. Here, for the same series of
years, there was a fall in thirteen years after new moon, and arise in thir-
teen years after full moon; and in five out of the eight instances in which a
rise occurred instead of a fall at new moon, a fall instead of a rise took place
at full moon. Also a like principle appeared to hold good in individual
months. For example, in twenty-one consecutive Januarys a fall occurred
in seventeen at new moon, while a rise took place in sixteen at full moon.
The action thus apparent at different periods of the lunation was shown
clearly in curves of temperature of each day of the moon’s age. A curve
of ten years’ mean temperature at Greenwich, for 1837—18416, was exhibited
in juxtaposition with one sent to the Dublin meeting, which was also formed
of ten years’ mean temperature, at the latter station, for 1847—1856. At first
and last quarters the curves corresponded in a most remarkable manner at
both stations. At new and full moon they alternated; the fall in the Dublin
curve being at the new moon, and the rise at full moon; in the Greenwich
curve the rise at new moon, and the fall at full moon. Leaving the consid-
eration of daily mean temperatures, on extracting the maxima and minima
mean temperatures for the month, it was found that more maxima occurred
after first quarters than before; the proportion of maxima to minima, on the
second day after that phase, being more than 2°1 both at Dublin and Green-
wich, for the respective periods of twenty-two and forty-three years. The
twenty-four highest and lowest maxima and minima in the month at Green-
wich were then taken for the same forty-three years, forty-eight per cent.
found to occur at first quarter, and minima only before the day of the change.
Similar results were obtained from the highest and lowest mean tempera-
tures at Dublin, and at Toronto from 1843 to 1818. Another point elicited
during the progress of the inquiry, was the recurrence of high and low tem-
peratures on the same days of the lunation. Taking first the maxima and
minima mean temperatures for the month during twenty years at Green-
wich —from 1837 to 1856—the whole number found recurring on corre-
sponding days (many of them three and four times in each period of twelve
lunations), amounted to 236, averaging about twelve for each year, or half
the maxima and minima for the month. To illustrate this recurrence of
high and low temperatures, several years were selected, which presented the
strongest evidence of system. Thus, in the two consecutive years com-
mencing November 1817 and ending October 1848, maxima and minima
occurred : — In 18417, twice on the third day before new moon; twice on the
second day before new moon; three times on the day after new moon; twice
on the third day after new moon; three times on the second day before full
moon; twice on the third day after full moon. In 1848, three times on the
day of new moon; twice on the day after new moon; three times on the sec-
ond day before full moon; twice on the day before full moon; twice on the

ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 397

fourth octant, or fourth day, after full moon. In the same years there were
also, amongst many others, the following remarkable instances of reciprocity
between opposite phases of the moon: In December the minimum for the
month occurred on the third day before new moon; in January the maxi-
mum on the third day before full moon; in February the minimum on the
third day before new moon. And again, the maximum in September fell
on the day after full moon. The minimum in October on the day after new
moon. “In addition to this, the maxima and minima for the month were
found to occur at intervals of rather more than seven, fourteen, or twenty-
pne days, and that for several successive months, viz., April, May, June,
August, and September, and so in other years.” In 1838, exactly ten years
earlier, maxima or minima occurred three times on the third day after new
moon; three times on the day after full moon; three times on the day of
first quarter; and three times on the day of last quarter: that is to say, in
twelve instances out of twenty-four on four days of the lunation. At the Cape
of Good Hope, reciprocity of action and the recurrence of high and low tem-
peratures were even more frequent and systematic. Thus, in 1855, eight out
of the twelve maxima for the month occurred at first quarter, and nine of the
twelve minima at new or full moon. In 1842, nineteen maxima and minima
out of twenty-four, occurred on eight days. In 1843, fifteen on seven days;
in 1844, seventeen on six days; in 1845, eleven on four days. The recur-
rence of maxima and minima at Toronto and Madras was equally marked.
Mr. Harrison considered that the dispersion of clouds under full moon may
now be taken as a fact, on the testimony of Humboldt, Sir J. Herschel, Mr.
Johnson (the Radcliffe observer at Oxford), and others. Mr. Johnson hay-
ing also noticed that this cloud-dispelling power commences about the fourth
or fifth day of the moon’s age, and lasts till she approaches the sun, the
same distance on the other side; that is to say, the influence takes place at
that time as well as at full moon, though not necessarily continuously. Mr.
Nasmyth also, who was considered a valuable witness, from his long-con-
tinued observation of the moon for the purpose of mapping its surface, was
quoted as having satisfied himself that clouds disappear when the moon is
about four days.old; and also, that when this is the case for any length of
time at new moon, the sky is clouded to a corresponding extent at full moon,
another instance of the principle of reciprocity. Several well-known ob-
servers were also mentioned, as having noticed the remarkable clearness of
the morning of the 13th of September, or the fifth day after new moon. And
lastly, even M. Arago’s explanation of the popular notion among gardeners
round Paris, that the moon which, commencing in April, becomes full in
May, destroys their tender plants, it was thought might be quoted as evi-
dence of lunar influence on the atmosphere, though given by him as a simple
statement of the effects of terrestrial radiation on early vegetation. Mr.
Harrison, in conclusion, expressed his belief that the remarkable regularity
of the recurrence of a fall before first quarter, is due to the clearing of the
atmosphere at that period, and the rise after first quarter to a more cloudy
state of the sky. That the same effect is not so evident on the curves at the
period of full moon, he considered might be due to the greater reciprocity
of action which takes place at the syzygies, or new and full moon.

The President, Mr. Hopkins, observed, that the facts Mr. Harrison had ad-
duced, must be considered strongly confirmatory of the view he so ably
advocated. That the moon exercised an influence upon the weather, and
particularly on the formation or dispersion of clouds, was, as all knew, a

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398 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

very generally prevailing opinion. The sailors even had a common saying,
that the full moon cut up or devoured the clouds; and Sir John Herschel
had somewhere admitted, that the nights about full moon, particularly at
certain seasons of the year, were remarkably cloudless. This indirect influ-
ence, then, being admitted, it became more important to trace it, as Mr. H.
was doing, to an influence upon the temperature.

Some years ago, Dr. Foster, an eminent meteorologist, of Bruges, an-
nounced to the English Astronomical Society that in weather journals kept
by his grandfather, his father, and himself, from 1767 downwards, whenever
the new moon fell on a Saturday, the following twenty days were wet and
windy. The Society published this, the general idea being, that the state-
ment had never been made known before. Since then, it has been found
that the Saturday moon has this character even in popular rhymes, and that
it is widely believed in among seamen, English, French, Spanish, and even
Chinese.

A writer in the London Atheneum, after adverting to this circumstance,
and stating that in the one instance, in which he had made observations,
the theory appeared to be confirmed, makes the following suggestive re-
marks: i

““Now here is a curious circumstance: the whole world has the notion
widely scattered that a Saturday moon brings wet weather, and science has
hardly the means of being positive in the negative. And this is only one
such case; curious effects of the moon are in the popular belief by scores,
and their is no refutation, except @ priort— that is, no refutation at all.

“‘Every twenty-nine and a half days is divided into two periods, one of
which has many times as much moonlight as the other. That the moon-
light must have a great deal of heat when it leaves the moon, is highly prob-
able; that it has none when it reaches the surface of the earth is certain.
What then becomes of all the heat which it seems almost certain the moon-
light brings with it? Sir John Herschel thinks that it is absorbed in the
upper regions of our atmosphere; and that some probability is given to this
supposition by the tendency to disappearance of clouds under the full
moon: a fact observed by himself without knowledge of its having been
noticed by any one else, and which Humboldt, he afterwards found, speaks
of as well known to the pilots and seamen of Spanish America. If this
theory be correct, there is a cause of weather cycles which must produce
some effect; an enormous quantity of heat poured into the atmosphere dur-
ing one half of the lunar month, and a very small quantity during the other
half. In truth, it has been ascertained that the quantities of rain which
fall in the four quarters of the moon are not quite the same in the long run.

But the popular mind gets hold of the question in a different way. It
seizes upon the geometrical phenomena of the moon, nothingness, halfness,
fulness, and makes the moments of these appearances the times at or very
near which change of weather is to take place. According to the recognized
old notions, it is enough if a change of weather takes place within three
days one way or the other of a change, which gives twenty days every
month in which a change is set down to the moon. No wonder this theory
is often confirmed. The whole question of moonlight, — not position of the
moon, — both as to its effects on the weather and its asserted effects on vege-
table and animal life, is in the earliest infancy, so far as systematic observa-
tion is concerned. All that is said about it is mere infallibility.”

ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 899

ATMOSPHERIC MOVEMENTS. BY DANIEL VAUGHAN.

The remarkable uniformity in the. course of the winds, throughout the
greater part of the torrid zone, was ascribed by Dr. Halley to the effect of
solar heat combined with the earth’s diurnal motion. The air investing the
equatorial regions, being rarefied by the excessive temperature which the sun
imparts, is compelled to yield its place to the more cool and dense bodies of
air which press from opposite sides along the surface of the land and water.
Aérial currents are thus caused to flow from northern and southern localities
to.the equator, while others return along the upper atmospheric domain. In
approaching the equator, they must pass over a part of the earth’s surface
having amore rapid motion than they could have acquired in the regions
from which they came; and as they fail to partake of the increased velocity,
an apparent westward deflection is the consequence; so that they become
the north-east and south-east trade winds which prevail over a large portion
of the tropical regions. But though correct in its main features, this theory
fails to show why the trade winds do not extend beyond the thirtieth par-
allels of latitude, and that they are confined within a narrower limit on the
Pacific Ocean, where the disturbances and obstructions which might arise
from the presence of land, are almost entirely removed. The efficiency of
the motive power which acts on the air, is proportional to the increase of
mean temperature for a given diminution of latitude; and it is much greater
in the temperate than in the torrid zone. It would, therefore, seem that the
trade winds of the tropical oceans should prevail through a more extensive
range, or that each of the temperate zones should have an independent cir-
culation of regular winds, blowing from the north-east in our climates, and
from the south-east in the southern hemisphere.

The want of a general and uniform atmospheric circulation in extra-
tropical regions, must be ascribed to the motion of the earth around its axis.
The centrifugal force arising from the rotation, not only keeps our planet
expanded at the equator, and maintains a suitable covering of air and water
between the tropics, but also lays some restrictions on the removal of matter
to different localities. The principle on which this result depends, will be
understood from a few considerations. Were the earth’s diurnal motion sud-
denly reduced four per cent., there would be a diminution of eight per cent.
in the centrifugal force of its parts; their equilibrium would require a dif-
ference of only twenty-four miles between equatorial and polar diameters,
and much of the waters would remove from their tropical abodes to the
vicinity of the poles. The air would also experience a similar movement,
and it would rush northward with greater impetuosity, if the water were
absent from our planet, or could be prevented from filling up the circum-
polar basins. Now the strict uniformity which the earth exhibits in its rota-
tion, cannot be preserved by every portion of its atmosphere. If a large body
of air, situated between the 44th and 46th parallels of north latitude, were
moving due westward at the rate of twenty-eight miles an hour, its actual
velocity of rotation about the terrestrial axis must be about four per cent.
less than that of the land and water over which it passed; and so great
would be the reduction in its centrifugal force, that it must press towards
the polar regions in the same manner that it would descend down an inclined
plane with a fall of nine inches in every mile. Were the movement of the
mass of air in an eastward direction, it would have an increased velocity of

400 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

rotation about the earth’s axis; and from its excess of centrifugal force, it
would be steadily impelled to a more southern locality.

It is well known, that as any portion of our atmosphere is advancing to-
wards the equator, it must be continually deflected to the west; but it now
appears that this westward deflection must diminish centrifugal force, and —
create a tendency to return to a higher latitude. From this cause atmos-
pheric movements in a northern or southern direction, meet with a resistance,
which is proportional to the square of the sine of latitude multiplied by the
distance to which the air has been removed from the parallel of repose, or
from the part of the earth’s surface having its velocity. Along the parallel
of twenty degrees, the resistance would be only issue part of the force of
terrestrial gravity, for a change of two hundred miles in the polar distance;
but it would be double that amount ten degrees further north, and be four
times as great in latitude 45°; while it would be increased in an eight-fold
proportion in the vicinity of the poles. To remove a cubic mile of air one
degree from the north pole, would require about the same mechanical ex-
pense as the transportation of thirty-six cubic miles from the tenth to the
ninth degree of north latitude.

Along the parallel of 60°, the influence of the earth’s rotation would be
sufficient to prevent an atmospheric circulation from extending beyond two
degrees of latitude, by the heating power of the sun, if the effects of friction
and other sources of irregularity were removed. A difference of two degrees
in the latitude of two places on the same meridian, can rarely cause a greater
difference than 3° F. in their mean temperature; and the air, by this change
of temperature, must receive an additional expansion, amounting to ;}5
part of its original volume. In a circulation confined to a range of two de-
grees, the air at the southern station must ascend with a force equal to tev
of its own weight; but as this buoyancy must cease at an elevation of about
three miles, and as it is expended in moving two columns of air each one
hundred and thirty-eight miles in extent, the actual motive power operating
on the entire aérial mass, must be less than the zi+t00 part of the force of
gravity. As the resistance arising from centrifugal force to such a circula-
tion, in latitude 60° is zg part of the force of gravity, itis evident that
the movement cannot be maintained, except in places where the presence of
the land gives the air considerable friction, and brings it to the velocity of
the latitude at which it arrives. In the vicinity of the equator the resistance
from the earth’s rotation is very feeble, and hence the regular action of solar
heat, which is so inefficient in high latitudes, is capable of giving the atmos-
phere an uninterrupted course of two thousand miles in the torrid zone.

If our day were double its present length, or if our atmosphere were four
times as extensive as it now is, regular trade winds would pursue an uninter-
rupted course from the greater part of the temperate zones to the equator.
Had the earth’s axis been perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic, our
atmosphere, if secured from the effects of local disturbances, would exhibit a
series of independent circulations, each being confined to a smaller range in
proportion as it was near the pole. This seems to be the case with the planet
Jupiter, whose belts are very wide about his equator, but become extremely
narrow in high latitudes. From the position of Jupiter in our system, and
his rapid rotation around his axis, we may reasonably infer that his atmos-
phere must be very extensive; for otherwise it could not be so sensitive to
the motive power of solar heat.

ASTRONOMY AND METEOROLOGY. 401

On our own globe the disturbing causes are so numerous that the winds
cannot manifest any degree of regularity, except in the extensive and vig-
orous circulation which prevails between the tropics. The unequal suscepti-
bility of land and water to the solar heat, causes the alternating breezes
which are felt on many sea coasts, and the high temperature which the sun
imparts to deserts, serves also to bring our aérial ocean into a state of activ-
ity. But excessive showers of rain are attended with a still more effective
cause of atmospheric commotions, according to a principle first pointed out
by Professor Espy. The heat arising from the extensive condensation of
vapor on these occasions, must rarefy the air so much as to give it an upward
movement, and cause aérial currents to flow into the place where the greatest
fall of rain occurs. Although this seems to be the chief source of the motive
power which produces storms, yet there is reason to believe that the con-
stant discharge of electricity along the moist air contributes, through the
medium of electrical repulsion, to increase the rapidity of the aérial move-
ment. The constant repulsion of the air from the discharge of its electricity,
Dr. Hare regards as the chief cause of hurricanes.

In an article by Mr. Tracy, of Utica, published fifteen years ago, in Silli-
man’s Journal, it has been shown that atmospheric movements of this kind,
whether due to the action of heat or electricity, would acquire a rotation
from the right hand to the left in this hemisphere; in consequence of the
eastward deflection of the air rushing from the south, while that from the
north is deflected to the west. But it appears, from the foregoing investiga-
tions, that the eastern and western aérial currents tend to maintain the same
rotation, the former being deflected south on account of their excessive cen-
trifugal force, while the latter from an opposite cause incline to the north.
It may also be shown that, in the southern hemisphere, the rotation must
be in an opposite direction. Dove’s celebrated law of the rotation of
storms is thus shown to be thé necessary result of physical causes.

The orbital movement of storms appears to be an inevitable consequence
of their rotary motion. As the air on the east side of the aérial vortex is
advancing towards the pole, it must cool by the change of latitude; while
on the west side the air is moving south, and has its capacity for holding
vapor continually augmented by an increasing temperature. Accordingly,
the focus of the rain and the storm would be constantly shifted to the north-
east if the atmosphere had been previously in a state of repose; but be-
tween the tropics, the action of the trade winds must supersede the west-
ward motion, and the whirling mass of air will be therefore transported in a
north-east course in these regions. This accounts for the fact that all great
storms commencing within the tropics, steadily advance towards the north
and west, until their entrance into the temperate zone, when they soon
change to the north-east, and continue in this course until they reacb the
very high latitudes.

While the regularity of the wind is much disturbed or wholly obliterated
by these commotions, it is differently affected by the unevenness of the
land. The friction arising from this cause tends to give the air the velocity
of rotation of the places which it visits, and this prevents a retrograde
movement from an excess or a deficiency of centrifugal force. The great
atmospheric circulation depending on the regular action of the solar heat,
must accordingly occupy a wider zone than our calculations would assign to
it, and it is in consequence of the want of great friction from bodies of land,

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402 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY.

that the trade winds do not extend beyond the parallels of 25° in the Pacific
Ocean, while they occupy a wider range in the Atlantic.

It might be naturally expected that the unequal temperature and density
of the water in the tropical and polar seas should cause a great oceanic cir-
culation; the cold currents pursuing their way towards the equator, at the
lowest depths of the watery domain, while warm currents flow back along
its surface. But from the limited expansibility of water by heat, the ocean
is much less sensitive than air to solar influence; and were its bed perfectly
smooth and its depth uniform, the action of temperature in producing
northern or southern oceanic movements, would be much inferior to that of
the earth’s rotation in preventing them. The restraints of centrifugal force
are, however, neutralized by the asperities of the ocean’s bed; for the water
rolling over them partakes of their diurnal velocity ; and accordingly
oceanic rivers take their journey towards the poles, in places where the
roughness of the sea-bottom, or the presence of coasts or submarine ridges,
prevent an eastward deflection. To such circumstances the Gulf Stream is
indebted for its existence. A vast body of water impelled due north at the
rate of three miles an hour in latitude 30° and unimpeded by friction,
should be deflected 45° from the meridian in the course of twenty-four
miles; and the small deflection of the Gulf Stream shows the influence of
submerged mountains, in modifying its motion and enabling it to continue
its advance to colder climates.

Notre. —Many facts justify an extension of the theory of Espy. The force and
extent of the trade winds must be augmented by the heat arising from the conden-
sation of vapor in the “‘ equatorial cloud ring,” and the high temperature attending
the great rains of Southern Asia, may be regarded as a partial cause at least of the
southwest monsoon. Discharges of electricity during such rains, must also con-
tribute to produce the same result. The inadequacy of the cause to which mon-
soons are usually ascribed, has been noticed by the most eminent writers who have

treated on the subject.

OBLTLU AR Y
OF PERSONS EMINENT IN SCIENCE. 1858,

Barnston, James, Professor of Botany, McGill College, Toronto.

Biosoletto, Signor, an Austrian chemist and botanist.

Blyth, Dr. George L., an English chemist, well known for his labors in sanatory
reform.

Bonpland, Aime, the well-known associate of Humboldt.

Brown, Robert, an eminent English botanist.

Brown, Samuel, an eminent Scotch chemist, and scientific essayist.

Cleveland, Parker, the distinguished American mineralogist.

Comstock, Dr. J. L , widely known as the author of many elementary scientific
treatises.

Combe, Dr. George, of Scotland.

Cragin, Dr, F. W., a naturalist of Surinam, Parimaribo.

Deane, Dr. James, a well-known geologist, and discoverer of the foot-prints in
the sandstone of the Connecticut Valley.

Duncan, J., Professor of Mathematics, St. Andrew’s College, Scotland.

Eisenbeck, Kas Von, an eminent German naturalist.

Frazer, Lt. Col. Alexander, R. E.

Gregory, Dr. William, Professor of Chemistry, University of Scotland, and well
known as a scientific author.

Griffiths, Mrs., of Torquay, England, a distinguished algologist.

Hale, Foster, inventor of raised letters for the blind.

Hare, Robert, the eminent American chemist.

Laradel, Count de, proprietor of the boracic acid works, of Tuscany, Italy.

Linaria, Father Sante, a distinguished Italian physicist.

Louden, Mrs. Jane, well known from her botanical writings.

Mareska, M., Professor of Chemistry, University of Ghent.

Muller, J ohannes, the eminent German physiologist and naturalist.

North, Dr. Erasmus D., an American microscopist.

Orbigny, Alcide de, the eminent French geologist and paleontologist.

Pattinson, Hugh Lee, inventor of the silver-lead process.

Peacock, George, Dean of Ely, eminent as a mathematician.

Pease, Edward, of England, a friend and associate of George Stephenson in
originating the railway system of, Great Britain.

Pfeiffer, Madam Ida.

Platner, Prof., author of treatise on the blowpipe.

Ponton, M. de, of Stockholm, an associate of Berzetius, and a naturalist.

Reid, Sir William, well known for his investigations on the laws of storms.

Royle, Dr. J. Forbes, best known from his publications on the botanical produc-
tions of India.

Schlagintweit, Adolphe, 4 German naturalist and explorer, supposed to be mur-
dered in Cashmere, Central Asia.

Shattuck, Dr. Lemuel, of Boston, Mass., a well-known statistician.

Snow, Dr. John, of London, distinguished for his researches on anesthesia.

Temmick, Herr, a well-known ornithologist of Holland.

Travers, Dr. Benjamin, F. R. S., President Royal College of Surgeons,

Turner, Dawson, an English botanist

Tilesius, W. G., the naturalist of Krusenstein’s (Russian) expedition.

Young, Ira, Professor of Mathematics, Dartmouth College, N. H.

/ rs he
i =
~~

* 5
>

LIST OF BOOKS, PAMPHLETS, ETC.,

ON MATTERS PERTAINING TO SCIENCE, PUBLISHED IN THE
UNITED STATES DURING THE YEAR 1858.

Bailey, G. W. R., Engineer, A. A. S., New Orleans. Remarks upon the question
of closing the Bayou Plaquemine, Lower Mississippi. Baton Rouge, 1858.
Baird, S. F. General Report upon the Zodlogy of the several Pacific Railroad

Routes. Part1, Mammals. lvol.,4to. Washington, 1857.

Blake, W, P. Report on the Gold Placers of a part of Lumpkin County, Georgia,
and the Practicability of Working them by the Hydraulic Method. pp. 39.
Bond, Prof. G. P. Donati’s Comet, or the Great Comet of 1858. pp. 26, with nu-

merous wood cuts, and two engraved telescopic views.

Briggs & Maverick. The Story of the Telegraph, and a History of the Atlantic
Cable. A General History of Land and Ocean Telegraphs, etc. 12mo , pp. 225,
Rudd & Carleton. 1.

Buckland’s Curiosities of Natural History. English reprint. Rudd & Carlton, N.
Y. 12mo. pp. 423.

Cabel, I. L., Prof. The Testimony of Modern Science to the Unity of Mankind.
Carter & Co., N. Y. 12mo. pp. 345.

Cassin, John. Mammalia and Ornithology of the U. 8S. Exploring Expedition un-
der Com. Wilkes. 1 vol., 4 to., with folio atlas of 50 colored plates. $50.

Chadbourne, P. A. Flora and Fauna of Williamstown, Mass. 8vo. pamph., pp. 15.

Christy, David. The Southern Highlands, as adapted to Pasturage and Grape
Culture.

— Report of the Geologist of the Nantahala and Tuckasege Land
and Mineral Company of North Carolina and Tennessee.

Colburn, Zerah. The Permanent Way, and Coal-burning Locomotive Boilers of
European Railways, Economy of, etc. 51 engravings. Holley & Colburn. $10.

Dana, Jas. D. First Supplement to Dana’s Mineralogy. 8vo. pamph.

Daniels, Edward. Annual Report of the Geological Survey of Wisconsin, for the
year ending December 31, 1858.

Farm, The. Pocket Manual of Practical Agriculture; or, How to Cultivate all the
Field Crops. 12mo., pp. 156. Fowler & Wells. 50c.

Feuchtwanger, Dr. L. A Treatise on Brewing, Distilling, Rectifying, and Manu-
facturing of Liquors, Wines, Spirits, and all known Liquors, including Cider
and Vinegar, also hundreds of valuable Directions in Medicine, Metallurgy,
Pyrotechny, and the Arts in General. $2. New York. Pub. by the Author.

Flint, Chas. L. Milch Cows and Dairy Farming, comprising the Breeds, Breeding
and Management, in health and disease, of Dairy and other Stock, with a full
Explanation of Guenon’s Method; the Culture of Forage Plants, and the Pro-
duction of Butter, Cheese, and Milk. New York, A. O. Moore.

Girard, Dr. Charles. Herpetology of the U. 8. E. Expedition, with folio atlas of
30 colored plates. lvol., 4to. $380.

Goadby, Henry, M.D. A Text Book of Vegetable and Animal Physiology, de-
signed for the use of Schools and Colleges in the United States. 450 illustra-
tions. 8vo., pp. 318. D. Appleton & Co. $2.

LIST OF BOOKS, PAMPHLETS, ETC. 405

Gray, Asa, Prof. How Plants Grow: A simple Introduction to Structural Botany;
with a Popular Flora, or an Arrangement and description of Common Plants,
both Wild and Cultivated. 234 pp., 16mo, illustrated by 500 wood engravings.
New York, 1858. Ivison & Phinney.

Harbors of Lake Michigan. Letter from the Secretary of War, communicating the
last Annual Report of Lieut. Col. J. D. Graham, on the Harbors of Lake
Michigan, January 11, 1858. Pub. Doc.

Harper, L. Preliminary Report on the Geology and Agriculture of the State of
Mississippi. 350 pp., with plates of sections.

Hayden, F. VY. Explanations of a Second Edition of a Geological.Map. of Ne-
braska and Kansas, based upon information obtained in an Expedition to the
Black Hills. ks

Hayes, Dr. A. A. On some Modified Results attending the Decomposition of Bi-
tuminous Coals by Heat. 8vo. pamph.

Holmes, F. S. Post-pleiocene Fossils of South Carolina. 4to. Nos. 1 to 5. $2
per No.

Holmes, Prof. F.S. Remains of Domestic Animals discovered among Post-pleio-
cene Fossils in South Carolina. Charleston, S. C.

Jay, John. A Statistical View of American Agriculture, its Home Resources and
Foreign Markets. 12mo., pp. 81. D. Appleton & Co.

Lea, Isaac. On the Embryonic Forms of Thirty-eight Species of Unionidx, with
plates. Philadelphia.

Leidy, J. Notice of Extinct Vertebrata from the Valley of the Niobrara River.
10 pp., 8vo. Philadelphia.

Leiber, D. M. Second Annual Report of the Survey of South Carolina, with plates
and maps. 142 pp., 8vo.

Meek & Hayden. Descriptions of New Organic Remains collected in Nebraska.
20 pp., 8vo. Philadelphia.

Miller, Hugh. The Cruise of the Betsey; or,a Ramble among the Fossiliferous
Rocks of the Hebrides and Scotland. Gould & Lincoln, Boston.

Newton, G. M. Practical Miner’s Guide; a Treatise on Mine Engineering. New-
ton, N. Y. 8vo, pp. 191. $2.

Norton & Porter. First Book of Science; designed for Schools. 12mo., pp. 302.
A. S. Barnes & Co. $1.

Norwood, J.8., Dr. Illinois Geological Survey. Abstract of a Report on Illinois
Coals, with Descriptions and Analyses, and a General Notice of the Coal-fields.
94 pp., 8vo. Chicago, 1858.

Pickering, Charles. The Geographical Distribution of Plants and Animals. 4to.
(Vol. xv. of the U.S. Exploring Expedition under Capt. Wilkes). Boston,
Little, Brown & Co. In cloth, $3.

Redfield, A. M. General View of the Animal Kingdom. Chart. E. B. & E.C.
Kellogg, Hartford.

Richardson, W. H. Boot and Shoe Makers’ Guide. Boston.

Shumard, Dr. B. F. Descriptions of New Tertiary Fossils from Oregon and Wash-
ington Territories, and New Cretaceous Species from Vancouver’s Island.
pp- 120.

Description of New Species of Blastoidea from the Palzxozoic
Rocks of the Western States, with some Observations on the Structure of the
Summit of the Genus Pentremites. 12 pp.

Silliman, B. Jr. First Principles of Physics, or Natural Philosophy. pp. 720.
$1.50. Peck & Bliss, Philadelphia.

Silloway, Thomas W. Text Book of Modern Carpentry, comprising a Treatise on
Building, Timber, etc., etc., and a Glossary of the Technical Terms in use
among Carpenters. 16mo. Crosby, Nichols & Co. $1.25.

Smithsonian Institution. Report for 1857. Pub. Doc.

Track Survey of the River Parana, surveyed by Commander Thomas J. Page, U.
S. S. Water Witch, in 1855. Pub. Doc.

34*

406 LIST OF BOOKS, PAMPHLETS, ETC.

Tully, William, Dr. Materia Medica, or Pharmacology and Therapeutics. Spring-

; field, Mass.

Vaughan, Prof. Daniel. Popular Physical Astronomy, or an Exposition of Re-
markable Celestial Phenomena. 1 vol., 8vo., pp. 144. Truman & Spofford,
Cincinnati, O.

Weinland, Dr. D.F. Human Cestoides; an Essay on the Tape-worms of Man.
8vo., pp. 938. Metcalf & Co., Cambridge, Mass.

Wells, David A. Annual of Scientific Discovery for 1858. Gould & Lincoln,
Boston.

—_—_—_—_———- Principles and Applications of Chemistry, for the use of Acad-
emies, High Schools, and Colleges. pp. 515. Ivison & Phinney, N. Y. $1.

Wood & Bache. Dispensatory of the United States. Eleventh Edition. 1858.

Woodbury, Capt. D. P., U.S.A. Treatise on the Arch, with tables and plates.
pp. 486. D. Van Nostrand, N. Y.

Wurtz, Henry. The Elements of Matter; a Chart for Teachers and Students.

EN DE xX.

PAGE

/Ethesiometer, 192
Africa, explorations in,
‘© geological structure of South-
ern
Agricultural implements, recent im-
provements in,

PAGE

Atlantic slope, classification of the
metamorphic strata of,

6
Atmosphere, heating by contact with

the earth’s surface, 166
Atmospheric movements,

3|Aurora Borealis, connection of with

Air-balance, 190| the sun, 122
Air, detection of organic impurities Aurora, fluorescence produced by, 126
in, 2| Australia and New Guinea, former
Air, inspiration of, under different connection of, 315
circumstances, 253 | Australia, explorations in, 16
Alcohol, amylic, 243) Azores and the Canary Islands,
Alcoholic beverages and their falsifi- probable origin of organized be-
cations, 237|/ ings on, 815
Alcoholic liquors, test of their ori-
i 9| Barometer, new form of, 190

gin, 24:
Alkaloid poisons, detection of, 258
Alloy for the formation of medals,

etc. i
Alloy, new, for sheathing ships, 75
Alloys of nickel and iron, strength of, 75
Alps, tunnel under, 60
Aluminum, new facts respecting, 212
Ammonia, animal, its formation and -
Anesthesia, action of, 251

office,
produced by electricity, 108
252

oe

variation of at the equa-

tor
7 | Basalt, experiment on the melting

312

and or of,
ormation of the cells of, —

Bees, on the

Bee-hives, self-indicator, 2
Beryl, gigantic crystals of, 341
BESSEMER process, new light on, 224
“s < on some points of
chemical interest connected with, 226

BINKs, on the manufacture of steel, 213

Anesthesis by carbonic acid, Binocular vision, 151
Animal creation, law of types in, 362 | Birds, on the change of color in, 360
Animals, domestic, remains of, dis- Blood, coagulation of, 284
covered in the Tertiary of South ‘¢ ~ variations in the color of, 376
Carolina, 3817 | Boat, life, Camp’s, improved, 46
Animals, on the changes in the color Boiler-feeder, Fitts’s automatic, 50
of, 60 | Boiler incrustations, 52
Animals, psychological views of the “steam, improved, 50
motions of, Boilers, steam, experiments, 54
Apartments, influence of wall-paper Bone, molecular formation of, 367
on the temperature of, 8 | Bone cavern, interesting exploration
Appalachian Chain, structure of in of, 4
western Massachusetts, 3| BONELLI’S autographie telegraph, 114
Arctic Geology, 812| BoUSSINGAULT’S researches on nitro-
‘“« Regions, fauna of, 377; gen and the nitrates, 287
Arsenic and antimony, detection of, 255; Bread-making, new process of, 275

Artesian Well at Nionderf, Ger-
many,

Artillery, novel,

Asia, mountains of eastern,

Association, British, address before,

by Prof. Owen, 19
Association, British, meeting of for
1858, 4
Assyrian Civilization, 96
Asteroids, discovered in 1858, 383
: theory of, 395
Atlantic Cable, 115

Bricks, on the shape of, 7
Bronze powders, composition and

preparation of, 228
Butterfly vivarium, 381
Calcium, on the preparation of, 212
Caffeine in coffee beans, 261
Camera-obscura, on the phenomenon

of relief of the image formed in, 153
Canada, geological causes which have

influenced the scenery of, 302
Carbonic acid, anesthesis by, 252

408 INDEX.
PAGE PAGE
Caspian Sea, extent of, 841 | Electrotyping, improvements in, 109
Caustics, chemistry of, 244 | Electro-motive force of various bat-
Cells of bees, on the formation of, 862| teries, 106
Cement, new, 89| Elements, equivalents of, 202
Cements, simple, preparation of, 278| Elephas, fossil remains of the genus, 328
Chemical action and magnetism, 123 | Elliotype process, the, 147
Chemical science, thoughts on the Enamels, photographic, 143
progress of, ' 199} Engines, propeller, improvementin,- 51
Chemistry of gunpowder, .246| Engraved plates, method of increas-
Chess, transmutation of wheat into, 353] ing the durability of, 195
Chlorine as a disinfectant, prepara- Engraving, photoglyphie, 149
tion of, Equation, personal, 169
Cholera corpuscles, on the origin of Ethereal medium, existence of, 169
the so-called, 855
Church of St. Isaac, 82
Clay retorts, use of in gas-making, 87
Cleavage, slaty, origin of, 3805
Coal-oils, improvements in the man-
ufacture of, 235

Coal-series of Pennsylvania, plants
of, 331

Evaporation, rate of in different
steam-boilers,

Evaporative power of boiler-tubes of
different metals, 58

Egypt, geological discoveries in,

Ferrum-reductum, preparation of, 224
Filtration through sand, 2

?
Coal-tar, colors obtained from, 233| Fire, proteetion of wood from, 62
Coast of Sicily, elevation of, 307 | Fish-scales, analysis of, 262
Coffee, as an article of diet, 270| Fishes, migration and naturalization
Color, laws of, 160|__ of, 387
‘¢ in birds and animals, cause of FiTTs’s automatic boiler-feeder, 50
change, 0| Flame, nature of, 128
Collodion, best method of preparing, 273/ Flour, detection of adulterations in, 262
Comet, Donati’s, 383| Fluorescence, produced by the au-

‘¢ occultation of a star by, 395} rora, 126
Comets, density of, Vaughan on, 389| Force and matter, relations of, 126
es luminous, theory of tails of, Frost, on the protection of plants

Winslow on, 386] from, 345

Comets, periodical], list of, 12| Fungi of New England, 345

Copper, presence of in the tissues of ‘* on the so-called cholera, 355
plants and animals,

Corals, growth and classification of, 372|Gas and sand, heating by, 88

CrossE, Andrew, experiment of, 107; ‘‘ on railway cars, 59

Crystals, geology of, 840| ‘* sonorous action of burning, 184

Dams, vibrations of water in falling
over, 181
Deodorizer, permanganate of potash

Gastric juice, 356
Gems, artificial production of,
Geology, recent progress of,

< surface, illustrations of, 296

as a, 232 | Glands, variations of the color of the
Devonian trees, 331| blood in, 75
Diapason, natural, 184} Glands, salivary, 856
Digestion, new experiments on, 356 | Glass, soluble, 281
Door-lock, Marston’s improved, 94 ‘* tubes, resistance to pressure, 58
DRAPER on the nature of flame, 128 | Glonoine, preparation and properties be
9
Earth, distribution of heat in the in- Glucose, chemical changes of, 250
terior of, 167 | Glue, liquid, 89
Earth, gradual desication of, 395| Glycerine, economical applications
‘* internal heat of, 311|__ of, 71
Earthquake manifestations in Chili, Glycerine, De characteristics of, 273
pA 6 | Governor, Silver’s marine, 51
Earthquake phenomena in southern Grain-cleaner, Boothe’s improved, 91
Italy, 335 | GRIFFITH’S theory of chemical radi-
Earthquake, submarine, cals, 210
Earthwork, Warner’s new method of
estimating, 196 | Hammers, steam, 82
Ecliptic, charts of, 394 | Hayti, geology of, 299
Education, scientific, Faraday on, 97 | Heat, distribution of in the interior
Electric discharges in rarefied air, 109) of the earth, 167
Electrical light, 105 | Heat, radiant, experiments in, 165
s ‘* cost of, 106 | Heliostat, hand, construction of, 157
Electricity and light, 127 | Hermapbhroditism, 366
6 lighting gas by, 104| Horizon, new artificial, 173
oy of nerves and muscles, 102} Horse, fossil remains of, 324
¢ rotation produced by, 102} HucHEs’s Telegraph, lil
sad use of for producing local Human race, evidence of the anti-

anesthesia, 108

quity of,

INDEX.

PAGE
Ice, on somé physical properties of, 168
‘* properties of, near the melting
point,

Illusions, optical, apparatus for ex-
hibiting, 1
India, silk culture in 381
Indigo, wild, of the Southern States, 352
Insect depredations, curious, 355
Insects, destruction of in orchards,

etc., 267
Iodine in atmospheric waters, 230
‘* new method of detecting in

mineral waters,
Iron, Russia sheet, 76
Ivory, artificial, 89
** “and bone, method of coloring
red, 278
Knitting machine, improved, 91
Lakes, cataracts, and rivers, geogra-
phical distribution of,
Lamination and cleayage, in rocks,
Lava, formation of tabular masses on
steep slopes,
Lawes & GILBERT, annual report, 285
Leather, substitute for, 88
Light and electricity, 127
“action of upon oxalate of iron, 141
‘© and electricity, molecular im-
pressions by, ‘
“electrical,
sc Costo£,
‘¢ influence of on respiration,
‘¢ Niepce St. Victor’s discoveries

305

in relation to, “ 7
Lights, comparative unwholesome-
ness of, 267
“red and green, danger of using
at sea, 159
Lightning, accidents by, 102
= photographic effects of, 104

Lightning-rods and points,G atchell’s, 105
Lime, composition of various phos-

phates of, 289
Liquids, mode of preparing, of given

specific gravity, 9
Liquors and their adulterations, 239

Magnetic discrepancies, ee
rs force, terrestrial, intensity =

0
and vegetation,

409

PAGE

Mirrors telescopic, 159
Molecular impressions, 135
Molybdenum, on the fusion of, 211
Moon, habitability of, 313
‘¢ photographs of, 140
Mortars, hydraulic, 280

Motion, rotary, composition of, r

Motions of animals, psychological
views of,

Moulds, new material for,

Mountains, altitude of, not invariable, 310

Musical instrument, new, 95

Mycology, New England, 345

dad

Naval architecture, improvementsin, 15
Nebraska, fossils of, 32

Nebula hypothesis, 13
Neryous irritability and action, 376
Newton’s statue, Brougham’s address

at the inauguration of,
Niagara, age of the falls of, 309
Nickel and iron, alloys of, 75

Nitrogen, annual yield of, in different
crops,

Ocean, specific gravity of the waters of, 10
Oils, ethereal, detection of adultera-

tions in,
‘¢ fatty process for decolorizing, 276
Organ, blown by water-power, 95

Organic bodies, production of, with-
out the agency of vitality,
OWEN, Prof., address before the Brit-

ish association, 19
Ozone, remarks on the nature of, 263
Paints, new medium for, 276
Pancreatine, 356
Panoramas, photographic, 146
Paper-making machinery, new, 94
Paper, wall, influence of on the tem-

perature of apartments, 88
Parallax, solar, 393
Parasites on parasites, 374
Parthenogenesis, 318
Pendulums, interesting observations

on,

Pennsylvania, geology of, 300
Pepsin, its chemical and physiological

properties, 269

Permian rocks of Kansas, 328

Phosphorescence, influence of temper-
1

Magnetism 124| ature upon, 64
i influence of on chemical Phosphorus, optical properties of, 131
fs action, Photoglyphic engraving, 149
“ terrestrial, Drummond’s Photography, improvements in, 142
theory of, ° ¥ McCraw’s process in, 144
ce terrestrial, present state novel application of, 142
of our knowledge re- Photographic printing, 143
specting, Photographs, lunar and stellar, 1408
Manganese, new test for, 260 | > ee on paper, Gaudinet’s
Map of earthquake phenomena, 5 method of preserving, 145
Matter and force, relations of, 126 | Photo-lithography, | 146
Matting protective, 93 | Physiology, construction of theories
Mechanical science, recent improve- in, 355
ments in, = = 4| Planets, new, for 1858, 383
Metals two new, suspected, 229 ee nomenclature of the aster-
Military implements, improvements oidal, 12
in, . 4 | Plants, duration of the life of, 349
Minerals, artificial production of, 210 ‘*« herbaceous, north and south
in igneous rocks, arrange- range in the United States, 352
ment of, ‘on the growth of, B44

85

410 INDEX.
PAGE PAGE
Plants, origin and distribution of spe- | Stars, variable, 891
cies in, 353 | Steam-engines, duty of, ; 77
Poisons, coloration of, 259 | Steam-gauges, improvements in, 49
Potsdam sandstone, existence of in | Steam navigation, reminiscences of, 68
the Rocky Mountains, 7 Steamship, novel (Winan’s), 47
Precipitates, determination of the , Steel, on the manufacture of, 213
value of, 210 Stereoscope, Almeida’s, 157
Printing, new method of, 86 Stones, building, strength of various, 80
Printing-presses, Bullock’s mechani- Strychnine, antidote for, 258
cal feeder for, 86 Strychnine, sensibility of the princi-
PROSSER’S condenser, 58 __— pal reagents to, 256
Propeller, hydrostatic screw, 52 Suez, canal across the Isthmus of, 17
Pump, Tower’s elastic ball-valve, 61 Sugar, grape, reagent for, 260
Sun, nature of the surface of, 128
Railing, composite iron, 76) “* parallax of 893
Railroad cars, gas on, 59 |
Razor paper, 96 Telegraph, atlantic, 115
Refraction, researches on the indices te Bonelli’s, 114
Ce Hughes’s, 111

ot,
Refrastion, solar,
Respiration of the lower animals, in-

fluence of light on, 134
Retina, duration of luminous impres-

sions on, 160
Revaccination, 374
Rifles, improvements in, 85

Robin, American, feeding and growth se

310

oO
Rocks, conducting power of,
235

Rosolic acid

Rotary stability and its application
to astronomical observations, 171

RUHMKORFF’S induction coil, im-

provements in, 109
Ruskin, on mechanical and artistic

work, 95
Russia sheet iron, 76
Saliva and the salivary glands, 356
Sarcophagus, the Wellington, 81
Science as a means of education, 97
Scintillations of stars, 182
Sea, danger of using red and green

lights at, 15
Seeds, on the vitality of, 345
Sewers, use of charcoal in, 232

Shells and mortars, Mallet’simproved, 85
“of animals, mode of formation, 367
Ships, steel, 48

Shot, wind of, 193
Sicily, coast of, elevation, 307
Silicates, soluble, use of, 62
Silk culture in India 381
Silver, restoration of tarnished, 96
Soil analysis, 285
Soils, absorbent power of, 299
Soils, relations of nitrogen and ni-
trates to, 287
Solar parallax, 393
“spots, 18, 394
Sorghum. alcohol from, 249
ee

Sprague, on the botany of, 346
Sound, experiments on the quality of, 189
Sounds, on the mathematical theory et

193 Telegraphs, submarine, submergence

| and construction of, 119
| Telescope, new and gigantic, 164
| 'Telestereoscope, the, 152
Terraces, formation of river, 296
Tertiary of South Carolina, remains
of domestic animals in, 317
‘¢ period, climate of, 828
Texas, fossils from, 831
Thermo-multiplier, study of the, 111
Timber, detection of decay in, 82
Tin ore from Australia, 342

Tubes, boiler, brass, copper and iron,
evaporative power of,

| resistance to collapse, 56
Tunnel under the Alps, 60
Types, law of in the animal creation, 362
Urea, formation of, 284
VAUGHAN, Prof. Daniel, 298, 389

Vegetation, relation of, tomagnetism, 124
ce statistics of, 343

Vision, binocular, 151

Vitality, production of organic bodies
without the aid of,

Volcanoes, lunar and terrestrial, com-
parison between,

mud, of the Colorado des-
ert,

337
8382

ce

Watch movements, American manu-
facture of,
Water, contraction of, experiment il-
lustrating,
improved method of purifying,

168

oe

i

ing, 231
“vibrations of, 181
Waters, iodine in, 230
Maes specific gravity of sea, 231
Weights, estimation of very small, 83
Wheat, new variety of, 352
Wheat, transmutation into chess, 353
WinsLow, Dr. C. F., on comets, 389
Wool, machine for burring, 90
Work, refinement of mechanical and
artistic, 195
Yeast, German, method of preparing, 274
Zine, white, durability of, 96
Zoology, 355
‘law of typical formation in, 362

of, 2

€¢ produced by burning gas, 184

Sounding apparatus, Hunt's new, 59

Species in piants, origin of, 353

Star, occultation of by a comet, 394
Stars, scintillation of, 132 |

i

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subject popular. It is written in a remarkably pleasing style, and contains a wonderful amount of
information, — Westminster Review.

It is, withal, one of the most beautiful specimens of English composition to be found, conveying
information on a most difficult and profound science, in a style at once novel, pleasing, and elegant.
It contains the results of twenty years’ close observation and experiment, resulting in an accumulation
of facts which not only dissipate some dark and knotty old theories with regard to ancient formations,
but establish the great truths of geology in more perfect and harmonious consistency with the great
truths of revelation. — Albany Speetater, A

VALUABLE SCIENTIFIC WORKS.

A TREATISE ON THE COMPARATIVE ANATOMY OF THE

Animal Kingdom. By Profs. C. TH. VoN SIEBOLD and H. STANNIUS. Translated
from the German, with Notes, Additions, &c., By WALDO J. BURNETT, M. D., Boston.
One volume octavo,cloth. 3,00.

This is unquestionably the best and most complete work of its class yet published; and its appear-
ance in an English dress, with the corrections, improvements, additions, etc., of the American Editor,
will no doubt be welcomed by the men of science in this country and in Europe, from whence or-
gers for supplies of the work have been received.

THE POETRY OF SCIENCE; or, the Physical Phenomena of Nature.
By ROBERT Hunt, Author of *‘ Panthea,” “‘ Researches of Light,’’ &c. 12mo, cloth, 1,25.

We are heartily glad to see this interesting work republished in America. It isa book that isa
book. — Scientific American.

It is one of the most readable, interesting, and instructive works of the kind that we have ever
seen. — Phil. Christian Observer.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE SPECIES: its Typical Forms
and Primeval Distribution. By CHARLES HAMILTON SMITH. With an Introduction,
containing an Abstract of the Views of Blumenbach, Prichard, Bachman, Agassiz, and
other writers of repute. By SAMUEL KNEELAND, JR., M.D. With elegant Illustra.
tions. 12mo, cloth, 1,25.

The history of the species is thoroughly considered by Colonel Smith, with regard to its origin,
typical forms, distribution, filiations, &c. The marks of practical good sense, careful observation,
and deep research are displayed in every page. An introductory essay of some seventy or eighty
pages forms a valuable addition to the work. It comprises an abstract of the opinions advocated by
the most eminent writers on the subject. The statements are made with strict impartiality, and,
without a comment, left to the judgment of the reader. — Sartain’s Magazine.

This work exhibits great research, as well as an evident taste and talent, on the part of the author,
for the study of the history of man, upon zoological principles. It is a book of learning, and full of
interest, and may be regarded as among the comparatively few real contributions to science, that
serve to redeem, in some measure, the mass of useless stuff under which the press groans.— Chris.
Witness.

This book is characterized by more curious and interesting research than any one that has recently
come under our examination. — Albany Journal and Register.

It contains a learned and thorough treatment of an important subject, always interesting, and of
late attracting more than usual attention. — Ch. Register.

The volume before us is one of the best of the publishers’ series of publications, replete with rare
and valuable information, presented in a style at once clear and entertaining, illustrated in the mcst
copious manner with plates of all the various forms of the human race, tracing with the most minute
precision analogies and resemblances, and hence origin, The more it is read, the more widely opens
this field of research before the mind, again and again to be returned to, with fresh zest and satisfac-
tion. Itis the result of the researches, collections, and labors of a long and valuable lifetime, present~
ed in the most popular form imaginable. — Albany Spectator.

~~,

LAKE SUPERIOR: its Physical Character, Vegetation, and Animals,
compared with those of other and similar regions. By L. AGASSIZ, and Contributions
from other eminent Scientific Gentlemen. With a Narrative of the Expedition, and
Illustrations. By J.E.CABOT. One volume, octavo, elegantly illustrated. Cloth, 3,50.

The illustrations, seventeen in number, are in the finest style of the art, by Sonrel; embracing
lake and landscape scenery, fishes, and other objects of natural history, with an outline map of Lake
Superior.

This work is one of the most valuable scientifie works that has appeared in this country. Embody-
ing the researches of our best scientific men relating to a hitherto comparatively unknown region,
it will be found to contain a great amount of scientific information. B

GUYOT’S WORKS.

THE EARTH AND MAN: Lectures on Comparative Puysicat

GEOGRAPHY, in its relation to the History of Mankind. By Prof. ARNOLD GUYOT.
Translated from the French, by Prof. C. C. FELTON, with numerous [IlIlustrations,
Eighth thousand. 12mo, cloth, 1,25,

From Prof. Louis Agassiz, of Harvard University.

It will not only render the study of Geography more attractive, but actually show it in its true light,
namely, as the science of the relations which exist between nature and man throughout history ; of
the contrasts observed between the different parts of the globe; of the laws of horizontal and vertical
forms of the dry land, in its contact with the sea; of climate, &c. It would be highly serviceable, it
seems to me, for the benefit of schools and teachers, that you should induce Mr. Guyot to write a se-
Ties of graduated text books of geography, from the first elements up to a scientific treatise. It would
give new life to these studies in this country, and be the best preparation for sound statistical investi-
gations. ad

From George S. Ritlard. Esq., of Boston.

Professor Guyot’s Lectures are marked by learning, ability, and taste. His bold and comprehen-
sive generalizations rest upon a careful foundation of facts. The essential value of his statements is
enhanced by his luminous arrangement, and by a vein of philosophical reflection which gives life and
dignity to dry details. To teachers of youth it will be especially important. They may learn from it
how to make Geography, which I recall as the least interesting of studies, one of the most attractive;
and I earnestly commend it to their careful consideration.

Those who have been accustomed to regard Geography as a merely descriptive branch of learn-
ing, drier than the remainder biscuit after a voyage, will be delighted to find this hitherto unattractive
pursuit converted into a science, the principles of which are definite and the results conclusive.—
North American Review.

The grand idea of the work is happily expressed by the aut .or, where he calls it the geographical
march of history. Faith, science, learning, poetry, taste, in a word, genius, have liberally contributed
to the production of the work under review. Sometimes we feel as if we were studying a treatise on
the exact sciences; at others, it strikes the ear like an epic poem. Now it reads like history, and now
it sounds like prophecy. It will find readers in whatever language it may be published. — Christian
Examiner.

The work is one of high merit, exhibiting a wide range of knowledge, great research, and a philo-

sophical spirit of investigation. Its perusal will well repay the most learned in Such subjects, and
give new views to all of man’s relation to the globe he inhabits. — Silliman’s Journal.

COMPARATIVE PHYSICAL AND HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY;

or. the Study cf the Earth and its Inhabitants. A series of graduated courses for the use
of Schools. By ARNOLD GUYOT, author of ‘* Earth and Man,” etc.

The series hereby announced will consist of three courses, adapted to the capacity of three different
ages and periods of study. The first is intended for primary schools and for children of from seven
to ten years. The second is adapted for higher schools, and for young persons of from ten to fifteen
years. The third is to be used as a scientific manual in Academies and Colleges.

Each course will be divided into two parts, one on purely Physical Geography, the other for Eth-
nography, Statistics, Political and Historical Geography. Each part will be illustrated by a colored
Physical and Political Atlas, prepared expressly for this purpose, delineating, with the greatest cara,
the configuration of the surface, and the other physical phenomena alluded to in the corresponding
work, the distribution of the races of men, and the political divisions into states, &c., &c.

The two parts of the first or preparatory course are now in a forward state of preparation, and wil)
be issued at an early day.

GUYOT’S MURAL MAPS; a Series of elegant Colored Maps, projected
on a large scale, for the Recitation Room, consisting of a Map of the World, North and
South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, &c., exhibiting the Physical Phenomena of the
Globe, etc. By Prof. ARNOLD GUYOT. Price, mounted, 10,00 each.

MAP OF THE WORLD, — Now ready.
MAP OF NORTH AMERICA, — Now ready.
MAP OF SOUTH AMERICA, — Nearly ready.

MAP OF GEOGRAPHICAL ELEMENTS, — Now ready.
i Other Maps of the Series are in preparation. C

VALUABLE SCIENTIFIC WORKS.

PRINCIPLES OF ZOOLOGY: touching the Structure, Development,

Distribution, and Natural Arrangement of the Races of Animals, living and extinct.
With numerous Illustrations. For the Use of Schools and Colleges. Part 1., COMPARA-
TIVE PHYSIOLOGY. By Louis AGASSIZ and AUGUSTUS A. GOULD. Revised
Edition. 12mo, cloth, 1,00.

This work places us in possession of information half a century in advance of all our elementary
works on this subject. . . No work of the same dimensions has ever appeared in the English lan-
guage containing so much new and valuable information on the subject of which it treats. — PRor.
Jam&ES HALL.

A work emanating from so high a source hardly requires commendation to give it currency. The
yolume is prepared for the student in zoological science; it is simple and elementary in its style, full
in its illustrations, comprehensive in its range, yet well condensed, and brought into the narrow com-~
pass requisite for the purpose intended. — Silliman’s Journal.

The work may safely be recommended as the best book of the kind in our language. — Christias
Examiner.

It is not a mere book, but a work — a real work, in the form of a book. Zoology is an interesting
science, and is here treated with a masterly hand. The history, anatomical structure, the nature and
habits of numberless animals, are described in clear and plain language, and illustrated with innumer
able engravings. It is a work adapted to colleges and schools, and no young man should be without
it. — Scientific American.

PRINCIPLES OF ZOOLOGY, PART II. Systematic Zoology, in

which the Principles of Classification are applied, and the principal Groups of Animals
are briefly characterized. With numerous Illustrations. 12mo, in preparation.

THE ELEMENTS OF GEOLOGY ; adapted to Schools and Colleges,

with numerous Illustrations. By J. R. LOOMIs, late Professor of Chemistry and Geology
in Waterville College. 12mo, cloth, 75.

After a thorough examination of the work, we feel convinced that in all the requirements of a text
book of natural science, it is surpassed by no work before the American public. In this opinion we
believe the great body of experienced teachers will concur. The work will be found equally well
adapted to the wants of those who have given little or no attention to the science in early life, and are
desirous to become acquainted with its terms and principles, with the least consumption of time and
labor. We hope that every teacher among our readers will examine the work and put the justness

of our remarks to the test of his judgment and experience. — M. B. ANDERSON, Pres. af Rochester
Unwersity.

This is just such a work as is needed for our schools. It contains a systematic statement of the
principles of Geology, without entering into the minuteness of detail, which, though interesting to the
mature student, confuses the learner. It very wisely, also, avoids those controverted points which
mingle geology with questions of biblical criticism. Wesee no reason why it should not take its
Place as a text book in all the schools in the land. — WN. Y. Observer.

This volume merits the attention of teachers, who, if we mistake not, will find it better adapted to
their purpose than any other similar work of which we have knowledge. It embodies a statement
o{the principles of Geology sufficiently full for the ordinary purposes of instruction, with the leading
facts from which they are deduced. It embraces the latest results of the science, and indicates the
debatable points of theoretical geology. The plan of the work is simple and clear, and the style in
which it is written is both compact and lucid. We have special pleasure in welcoming its appearance.
— Watchman and Reflector.

This volume seems to be just the book now required on geology. It will acquire rapidly a circula-
tion, and will do much to popularize and universally diffuse a knowledge of geological truths. — dl-
bany Journal.

It gives a clear and scientific, yet simple, analysis of the main features of the science. It seems, in
language and illustration, admirably adapted for use as a text book in common schools and academies
while it is vastly better than any thing which was used in college in our time. In all these capacities
we particularly and cordially recommend it. — Congregationalist, Boston. D

CHAMBERS’S WORKS.

CHAMBERS’S CYCLOPEDIA OF ENGLISH LITERATURE, A

Selection of the choicest productions of English Authors, from the earliest to the present
time. Connected by a Critical and Biographical History. Forming two large imperial
octavo volumes of 1400 pages, double column letter-press ; with upwards of 300 elegant
Illustrations. Edited by ROBERT CHAMBERS, embossed cloth, 5,00.

This work embraces about one thousand authors, chronologically arranged and classed as Poets,
Historians, Dramatists, Philosophers, Metaphysicians, Divines, etc., with choice selections from their
writings, connected by a Biographical, Historical, and Critical Narrative; thus presenting a complete
view of English literature from the earliest to the present time. Let the reader open where he will,
he cannot fail to find matter for profit and delight. The selections are gems —infinite riches in a
little room; in the language of another, “A WHOLE ENGLISH LIBRARY FUSED DOWN INTO ONE
CHEAP BOOK:”

From W. H. Prescott, AUTHOR OF “ FERDINAND AND ISABELLA.’’ The plan of the work is
very judicious. . . It will put the reader in a proper point of view for surveying the whole ground
over which he is travelling. . . . Such readers cannot fail to profit largely by the labors of the critic
who has the talent and taste to separate what is really beautiful and worthy of their study from what
is superfluous.

I concur in the foregoing opinion of Mr, Prescott. —-EDWARD EVERETT.

A popular work, indispensable to the library of a student of English literature. —Dr. WAYLAND.

We hail with peculiar pleasure the appearance of this work. — North American Review.

It has been fitly described as “ a whole English library fused down into one cheap book.” 'The Bos-
ton edition combines neatness with cheapness, engraved portraits being given, over and above the il-
lustrations of the English copy. — NV. Y. Commercial Advertiser.

Welcome: more than welcome’ It was our good fortune some months ago to obtain a glance at this
work, and we have ever since looked with earnestness for its appearance in an American edition. —
NV. Y. Recorder.

ua~ The American edition of this valuable work is enriched by the addition of fine steel and mezzo-
tint engravings of the heads of SHAKSPEARE, ADDISON, BYRON; a full length portrait of Dr. JoHN-
SON, and a beautiful scenic representation of OLIVER GOLDSMITH and Dr. JOHNSON. These im-
portant and elegant additions, together with superior paper and binding, render the American far su-
perior to the English edition. The circulation of this most valuable and popular work has been truly
enormous, and its sale in this country still continues unabated.

CHAMBERS’S MISCELLANY OF USEFUL AND ENTERTAIN-
ING KNOWLEDGE. Edited by WILLIAM CHAMBERS. With Elegant Illustrative
Engravings. Ten volumes, 16mo, cloth, 7,50; cloth, gilt back, 10.00.

This work has been highly recommended by distinguished individuals, as admirably adapted te
Family, Sabbath, and District School Libraries.

It would be difficult to find any miscellany superior or even equal to it; it richly deserves the epi-
thets “ useful and entertaining,’’ and I would recommend it very strongly as extremely well adapted
to form parts of a library for the young, or of a social or circulating library in town or country. —
Gxorce B. Emerson, Esq., CHAIRMAN Boston ScHOOL Book COMMITTEE.

I am gratified to have an opportunity to be instrumental in circulating “ Chambers's Miscellany ”
among the schools for which I am superintendent. —J. J. CLuTE, Town. Sup. of Castleton, N. Y.

Iam fully satisfied that it is one of the best series in our common school libraries now in circula-
tion. — S. T. Hance, Town Sup. of Macedon, Wayne Co., N. Y.

The trustees have examined the “ Miscellany,” and are well pleased with it. I have engaged the
books to every district that has library money.— MrLEes CHAFFEE, Town Sup. of Concord. N. Y.

Iam not acquainted with any similar collection in the English language that can compare with it
for purposes of instruction or amusement. I should rejoice to see that set of books in every house in
eur country. — Rev. Joun O. CHoULES D.D.

The information contained in this work is surprisingly great; and for the fireside, and the young,
particularly, it cannot fail to prove a most valuable and entertaining companion. — V. Y. Evangelist.

It isan admirable compilation. distinguished by the good taste which has been shown in all the pubs
lications of the Messrs. Chambers. It unites the useful snd entertaining.— V. Y. Com. Adv.
E

CHAMBERS’S WORKS.

CHAMBERS’S HOME BOOK AND POCKET MISCELLANY. Con-

taining a Choice Selection of Interesting and Instructive Reading for the Old and the
Young. Six vols. 16mo, cloth, 3,00.

This work is considered fully equal, if not superior, to either of the Chambers’s other works in in-
terest, and. like them, contains a vast fund of valuable information, Following somewhat the plan
of the “ Miscellany,’ it is admirably adapted to the school or the family library, furnishing ample va-
riety for every class of readers, both old and young.

We do not know how it is possible to publish so much good reading matter at such a low price.
We speak a good word for the literary excellence of the stories in this work ; we hope our people wil
introduce it into all their families in order to drive away the miserable flashy-trashy stuff so often
found in the hands of our young people of both sexes. — Scientific American.

Both an entertaining and instructive work, as it is certainly a very cheap one. -- Puritan Recorder.
It cannot but liave an extensive circulation. — Albany Express.

Excellent stories from one of the best sources in the world. Of all the series of cheap books, this
promises to be the best. — Bangor Mercury.

If any person wishes to read for amusement or profit, to kill time or improve it, get ““ Chambers’s
Home Book.” — Chicago Times,

The Chambers are confessedly the best caterers for popular and useful reading in the world. —
Willis’s Home Journal.

A very entertaining, instructive, and popular work.— WV. ¥. Commercial.

The articles are of that attractive sort which suits us in moods of indolence, when we would linger
half way between wakefulness and sleep. They require just thought and activity enough to keep our
feet from the land of Nod, without forcing us to run, walk, or even stand. — Eclectic, Portland.

The reading contained in these books is of a miscellaneous character, calculated to have the very
best effect upon the minds of young readers. While the contents are very far from being pucrile, they
are not too heavy, but most admirably calculated for the object intended. — Evening Gazette.

Coming from the source they do, we need not say that the articles are of the highest literary excels
lence. We predict for the work a large sale and a host of admirers. — East Boston Ledger.

It is just the thing to amuse a leisure hour, and at the same time combines zstruction with amuse-
ment. — Dover Inquirer.

Messrs. Chambers, of Edinburgh, have become famous wherever the English language 1s spoken
and read, for their interesting and instructive publications. We have never yet met with any thing
which bore the sanction of their names, whose moral tendency was in the least degree questionable.
They combine instruction with amusement, and throughout they breathe a spirit of the purest moral-
ity. — Chicago Tribune.

CHAMBERS’S REPOSITORY OF INSTRUCTIVE AND AMUSING
PAPERS. With Illustrations. An entirely New Series, and containing Original Arti-
cles. 16mo, cloth, per vol. 50 cents.

The Messrs. Chambers have recently commenced the publication of this work, under the title of
“ CHAMBERS’S REPOSITORY OF INSTRUCTIVE AND AMUSING TRACTS,” in the form of penny
weekly sheets, similar in style, literary character, &c., to the “ Miscellany,” which has maintained an
enormous circulation of more than eighty thousand copies in England, and has already reached nearly
the same sale in this country.

Arrangements have been made by the American publishers, by which they will issue the work
simultaneously with the English edition, in two monthly, handsomely bound, 16mo. volumes, of 260
pages each, to continue until the whole series is completed. Each volume complete in itself, and will
be sold in sets or single volumes.

e@- Commendatory Letters, Reviews, Notices, &c., of each of Chambers’s works, sufficient to make
a good sized duodecimo volume, have been received by the publishers, but room here will only allow
giving a specimen of the vast multitude at hand. They are all popular, and contain valuable instruc-
tive and entertaining reading — such as should be found in every family, school, and college library.
F

VALUABLE WORK.

CYCLOPZEDIA OF ANECDOTES OF LITERATURE AND THE
FINE ARTS. Containing a copious and choice selection of Anecdotes of the various
forms of Literature, of the Arts, of Architecture, Engravings, Music, Poetry, Painting,
and Sculpture, and of the-most celebrated Literary Characters and Artists of different
Countries and Ages, &c. By KAZLITT ARVINE, A. M., Author of “* Cyclopedia of Moral
and Religious Anecdotes.”? With numerous illustrations. 725 pages octavo, cloth, 3,00.

This is unquestionably the choicest collection of anecdotes ever published. It contains three thou-
sand and forty Anecdotes, many of them articles of interest, containing reading matter equal to half'a
dozen pages of a common 12mo. volume; and such is the wonderful variety, that it will be found an
almost inexhaustible fund of interest for every class of readers. The elaborate classification and in-
dexes must commend it, especially to public speakers, to the various classes of literary and scientifie
men, to artists, mechanics, and others, as a DICTIONARY, for reference, in relation to facts on the nume
berless subjects and characters introduced. There are also more than one hundred and /jifty fine
Illustrations.

We know of no work which in the same space comprises so much valuable information in a form
so entertaining, and so well adapted to make an indelible impression upon the mind. It must become
g standard work, and be ranked among the few books which are indispensable to every complete
library. — NV. ¥. Chronicle.

Here is a perfect repository of the most choice and approved specimens of this species of informa-
tion, selected with the greatest care from all sources, ancient and modern. The work is replete with
such entertainment as is adapted to all grades of readers, the most or least intellectual. — Methodist
Quarterly Magazine.

One of the most complete things of the kind ever given to the public. There is scarcely a paragraph
in the whole book which will not interest some one deeply ; for, while men of letters, argument, and
art cannot afford to do without its immense fund of sound maxims, pungent wit, apt illustrations, and
brilliant examples, the merchant, mechanic and laborer will find it one of the choicest companions of
the hours of relaxation. ‘“* Whatever be the mood of one’s mind, and however limited the time for
reading, in the almost endless variety and great brevity of the articles he can find something to suit
his teeliags, which he can begin and end at once. It may also be made the very life of the social circle,
containing pleasant reading for all ages, at all times and seasons. — Buffalo Commercial Advertiser.

A well spring of entertainment, to be drawn from at any moment, comprising the choicest anecdotes
of distinguished men, from the remotest period to the present time. — Bangor Whig.

A mnagnificent collection of anecdotes touching literature and the fine arts. — Albany Spectator.

This work, which is the most extensive and comprehensive collection of anecdotes ever published,
eannot fail to become highly popular. — Salem Gazette.

A publication of which there is little danger of speaking in too flattering terms ; a perfect Thesaurus
of rare and curious information, carefully selected and methodically arranged. A jewel of a book to
lie on one’s table, to snatch up in those brief moments of leisure that could not be very profitably
turned to account by recourse to any connected work in any department of literature. — Zroy Budyet.

No family ought to be without it, for it is at once cheap, valuable, and very interesting ; containing
matter compiled from all kinds of books, from all quarters of the globe, from all ages of the world, and
in relation to every corporeal matter at all worthy of being remarked or remembered. No work has
been issued from the press for a number of years for which there was such a manifest want, and we
are certain it only needs to be known to meet with an immense sale. — New Jersey Union.

A well-pointed anecdote is often useful to illustrate an argument,and a memory well stored with per-
sonal incidents enables the possessor to entertain lively and agreeable conversation. — V. ¥. Com.

A rich treasury of thought, and wit, and learning, illustrating the characteristics and peculiarities oz
many of the most distinguished names in the history of literature and the arts. — Phil. Chris. Obs.

The range of topics is very wide, relating to nature, religion, science, and art; furnishrng apposite
illustrations for the preacher, the orator, the Sabbath school teacher, and the instructors of our com-
mor. schools, academies, and colleges. It must prove a valuable work for the fireside, as well as for
the library, as it is calculated to please and edify all classes. — Zanesville Ch. Register.

Ths is one of the most entertaining works for desultory reading we have seen, and will no doubt
have a very extensive circulation. Asa most entertaining table book, we hardly know of any thing
at once so instructive and amusing. — NW. Y. Ch. Intelligencer. G

LACP OT TANT éWOR

KITTO’S POPULAR CYCLOPAEDIA OF BIBLICAL LITERA.

TURE. Condensed from the larger work. By the Author, JOHN KITTO, D. D., Author
of “ Pictorial Bible,” ‘* History of Palestine,” ‘‘ Scripture Daily Readings,” &c. Assisted
by JAMES TAYLOR, D. D., of Glasgow. With over jive hundred Illustrations. One vol.
ume octavo, 812 pp., cloth, 3,00.

Tue PoPpuLaR BIBLICAL CYCLOPZDIA OF LITERATURE is designed to furnish a DICTIONARY
OF THE BIBLE, embodying the products of the best and most recent researches in biblical literature,
in which the scholars of Europe and America have been engaged. The work, the result of immense
labor and research, and enriched by the contributions of writers of distinguished eminence in the va-
Fious departments of sacred literature, has been, by universal consent, pronounced the best work of

iclass extant, and the one best suited to the advanced knowledge of the present dagin all the studies
gonnected with theological science. It is not only intended for ministers and théobogical students,
but is also particularly adapted to parents, Sabbath school teachers, and the great body of the religious
public. The wlustrations, amounting to more than three hundred, are of the very highest order.

A condensed view of the various branches of Biblical Science comprehended in the work.

1. BrpiicaL CrITICIsM,— Embracing the History of the Bible Languages ; Canon of Scripture;
Literary History and Peculiarities of the Sacred Books ; Formation and History cf Scripture Texts.

2. History, — Proper Names of Persons; Biographical Sketches of prominent Characters ; Detailed
Accounts of important Events recorded in Scripture ; Chronology and Genealogy of Scripture.

8. GEOGRAPHY, — Names of Places; Description of Scenery; Boundaries and Mutual Relations of
the Countries mentioned in Scripture, so far as necessary to illustrate the Sacred Text.

4. ARCH ZOLOGY, — Manners and Customs of the Jews and other nations mentioned in Scripture;
their Sacred Institutions, Military Affairs, Political Arrangements, Literary and Scientific Pursuits.

5. PHYSICAL SCIENCE,-- Scripture Cosmogony and Astronomy, Zoology, Mineralogy, Botany,
Meteorology.

In addition to numerous flattering notices and reviews, personal letters from more than fifty of the
most distinguished Ministers and Laymen of different religious denominations in the country have been
received, highly commending this work as admirably adapted to ministers, Sabbath school teachers,
neads of families, and all Bible students.

The following extract of a letter is a fair specimen of individual letters received from each of the
gentlemen whose names are given below :—

“JT have examined it with special and unalloyed satisfaction. It has the rare merit of being all that
it professes to be, and very few, I am sure, who may eonsult it will deny that, in richness and fulness
of detail, it surpasses their expectation. Many ministers will find it a valuable auxiliary; but its
ehief excellence is, that it furnishes just the facilities which are needed by the thousands in families
and Sabbath schools, who are engaged in the important business of biblical education. It is in itselfa
library of reliable information.”

W. B. Sprague, D. D., Pastor of Second Presbyterian Church, Albany, N. Y.

J. J. Carruthers, D. D., Pastor of Second Parish Congregational Church, Portland, Me.

Joel Hawes, D. D., Pastor of First Congregational Church, Hartford, Ct.

Daniel Sharp, D. D., late Pastor of Third Baptist Church, Boston.

N. L. Frothingham, D. D.,late Pastor of First Congregational Church, (Unitarian,) Boston.
Ephraim Peabody, D. D., Pastor of Stone Chapel Congregational Church, (Unitarian,) Boston.
A. L. Stone, Pastor of Park Street Congregational Church, Boston.

John S. Stone, D. D., Rector of Christ Church, (Episcopal,) Brooklyn, N. Y.

J.B. Waterbury, D. D., Pastor of Bowdoin Street Church, (Congregational,) Boston.

Baron Stow, D. D., Pastor of Rowe Street Baptist Church, Boston.

Thomas H. Skinner, D. D., Pastor of Carmine Presbyterian Church, New York.

Samuel W. Worcester, D. D., Pastor of the Tabernacle Church, (Congregational,) Salem,
Horace Bushnell, D. D., Pastor of Third Congregational Church, Hartford, Ct.

Right Reverend J. M. Wainwright, D. D., Trinity Church, (Episcopal,) New York.

Gardner Spring, D. D., Pastor of the Brick Church Chapel Presbyterian Church, New York.
W. T. Dwight, D. D., Pastor of Third Congregational Church, Portland, Me.

E. N. Kirk, Pastor of Mount Vernon Congregational Church, Boston.

Prof. George Bush, author of “ Notes on the Scriptures,” New York.

Howard Malcom, D. D., author of “ Bible Dictionary,” and Pres. of Lewisburg University.
Henry J. Ripley, D. D., author of “ Notes on the Scriptures,” and Prof: in Newton Theol. Ina.
N. Porter, Prof. in Yale College, New Haven, Ct.

Jared Sparks, Edward Everett, Theodore Frelinghuysen, Robert C. Winthrop, John McLean,
Simon Greenleaf, Thomas S. Williams, — and a large number of others of like character and
standing of the above, whose names cannot here appear. H

IMPORTANT WORKS.

ANALYTICAL: CONCORDANCE OF THE HOLY SCRJ” TURES;
or, The Bible presented under Distinct and Classified Heads or Tepics By Joun
Eapiz, D.D., LL. D., Author of “ Biblical Cyclopedia,” ‘ Dictic_,ary of the
Bible,” &c., &c. One volume, royal octavo, 8386 pp. Cloth, $3.00; sheep, $3.50.
Just published.

The publishers would call the special attention of clergymen and others to some of the peculiar
features of this great work.

1. It is a concordance Of swhjects, not of words. In this it differs from the common concordance,
which, of course, it does not supersede. Both are necessary to the Biblical student.

2. It embraces all the topics, both secular and religious, which are naturally suggested by the entire
contents of the Bible. In this it differs from Scripture Manuals and Topical Text-books, which are
tonfined to religious or doctrinal topics.

3. It contains the whole of the Bible without abridgment, differing in no respect from the Bible in
common use, exceptin the classification of its contents.

4. It contains a synopsis, separate from the concordance, presenting within the compass of a few
pages a bird’s-eye view of the whole contents.

5. It contains a table of contents, embracing nearly two thousand heads, arranged in alphabetical
order.

6. It is much superior to the only other work in the language prepared on the same general plan,
and is offered to the public at much less cost. 5

The purchaser gets not only a Concordance, but also a Bible, in this volume. The superior con-
venience arising out of this fact, — saving, as it does, the necessity of having two books at hand and
of making two references, instead of one, — will be readily apparent.

The general subjects (under each of which there are a vast number of sub-divisions) are arranged
as follows, viz.:

Agriculture, Genealogy, Ministers of Religion, Sacrifice,

Animals, God, Miracles, Scriptures,
Architecture, Heaven, Occupations, Speech,

Army, Arms, Idolatry, Idols, Ordinances, Spirits,

Body, Jesus Christ, Parables and Emblems, Tabernacle and Temple,
Canaan, Jews, Persecution, Vineyard and Orchard,
Covenant, Laws, Praise and Prayer, Visions and Dreams,
Diet and Dress, Magistrates, Prophecy, War,

Disease and Death, Man, Providence, Water.

Earth, Marriage, Redemption,.

Family, Metals and Minerals, Sabbaths and Holy Days,

That such a work as this is of exceeding great convenience is matter of obvious remark. But it
is much more than that ; it is also an instructive work. It is adapted not only to assist the student
in prosecuting the investigation of preconceived ideas, but also to impart ideas which the most care-
ful reading of the Bible in its ordinary arrangement might not suggest. Let him take up any one of
the subjects — ‘‘ Agriculture,” for example — and see if such be not thecase. This feature places
the work in a higher grade than that of the common Concordance. It shows it to be, so to speak, a
work of more mind.

No Biblical student would willingly dispense with this Concordance when once possessed. It is
adapted to the necessities of all classes, —clergymen and theological students; Sabbath-school
euperintendents and teachers; authors engaged in the composition of religious and even secular
works; and, in fine, common readers of the Bible, intent only on their own improvement.

A COMMENTARY ON THE ORIGINAL TEXT OF THE ACTS
OF THE APOSTLES. By Horatio B. Hackett. D. D., Professor of Biblical Liter.
ature and Interpretation, in the Newton Theological Institution. [7~A new,
revised, and enlarged edition. Octavo, cloth. In Press,
£g- This most important and very popular work, has been throughly revised (some parts being

entirely rewritten), and considerably enlarged by the introduction of important new matter, the

result of the Author’s continued, laborious investigations since the publication of the first edition,
sided by the more recent published criticisms on this portion of the Divine Word, by other distin~
guished Biblical Scholars, in this country and in Europe. (¥

VALUABLE SCHOOL BOOKS.

THE ELEMENTS OF MORAL SCIENCE. By Francis Wartanp,

D. D., President of Brown University, and Professor of Moral Philosophy. Fiftieth
Thousand. 12mo, cloth. Price 1,25.

*,* This work has been highly commended by Reviewers, Teachers, and aiken, and has
ean adopted asa Class Book in most of the collegiate, theological, and academical institu.
tions of the country.

Ihave examined it with great satisfaction and interest. The work was greatly needed, and is well
executed. Dr. Wayland deserves the grateful acknowledgments and liberal patronage of the public.
Ineed say nothing further to express my high estimate of the work, than that we shall immediately
adopt it for a text book in our university. - Rev. WILBUR Fisk, late Pres. of Wesleyan University. i

The work has been read by me attentively and thoroughly, and I think very highly of it. The au-
thor himself is one of the most estimable of men, and I do not know of any ethical treatise in which
our duties to God and to our fellow-men are laid down with more precision, simplicity, clearness, en-
ergy, and truth. — Hon. James KENT, late Chancellor of New York.

It is a radical mistake, in the education of youth, to permit any book to be used by students asa
text book, which contains erroneous doctrines, especially when these are fundamental, and tend to
vitiate the whole system of morals. We have been greatly pleased with the method which President
Wayland has adopted; he goes back to the simplest and most fundamental principles; and, in the
statement of his views, he unites perspicuity with conciseness and precision. In all the author’s lead-
ing fundamental principles we entirely concur. — Biblical Repository.

This is a new work on morals, for academic use, and we welcome it with much satisfaction. It is
the result of several years’ reflection and experience in teaching, on the part of its justly distinguished
author; and if it is not perféctly what we could wish, yet, in the most important respects, it supplies
a want which has been extensively felt. It is, we think, substantially sound in its fundamental prin-
ciples; and, being comprehensive andelementary in its plan, and adapted to the purposes of instruc-
tion, it will be gladly adopted by those who have for a long time been dissatisfied with the existing
works of Paley. — Literary and Theological Review.

MORAL SCIENCE, ABRIDGED, by the Author, and adapted to the
Use of Schools and Academies. Thirty-fifth Thousand. 18mo, half cloth. Price 50 cts.

j¢<p The more effectually to meet the desire expressed for a cheap edition for schools, one
is now issued at the reduced price of 25 cents per copy ! and it is hoped thereby to extend the
benefit of moral instruction to all the youth of our land. Teachers, and all others engaged
in the training of youth, are invited to examine this work.

Dr. Wayland has published an abridgment of his work, for the use of schools. Of this step we can
hardly speak too highly. It is more than time that the study of moral philosophy should be intro-
duced into all our institutions of education. We are happy to see the way so auspiciously opened
for such an introduction. It has been not merely abridged, but also rewritten. We cannot butregard
the labor as well bestowed. — North American Review.

We speak that we do know when we express our high estimate of Dr. Wayland’s ability in teach-
ing moral philosophy, whether orally or by the book. Having listened to his instructions in this de-
partment, we can attest how lofty are the principles, how exact and severe the argumentation, how
appropriate and strong the illustrations, which characterize his system. — Watchman and Reflector.

The work of which this volume is an abridgment, is well known as one of the best and most com-
plete works on moral philosophy extant. The author is well known as one of the most profound
scholars of the age. "That the study of moral science, a science which teaches goodness, should be a
branch of education, not only in our colleges, but in our schools and academies, we believe will not
be denied. The abridgment of this work seems tous admirably calculated for the purpose, and we
hope it will be extensively applied to the purposes for which it is intended. — Mercantile Journal.

We hail the abridgment as admirably adapted to supply the deficiency which has long been felt in
common school education —the study of moral obligation. Let the child early be taught the rela-
tions it sustains to man and to its Maker, and who can foretell how many asad aud disastrous oycr-
throw of character will be prevented, and how elevated and pure will be the sense of integrity and
virtue ?— Evening Gazette. L

VALUABLE SCHOOL BOOKS. =

ELEMENTS OF POTITICAL ECONOMY. By Franois Wayranp,

D. D., President of Brown University. ‘Twenty-sixth thousand. 12mo, cloth, 1,25.

ea- This important work of Dr. Wayland’s is fast taking the place of every other text book on the
subject of Political Economy’ im our colleges and higher schools in all parts of the country.

The author says, ‘* his object has been to write a book which every one who chooses may under-
stand. He has, therefor®, ‘abored to express the general principles in the plainest manner possible,
and to illustrate them by cases with which every person is familiar. It has been to the author a
source of regret, that the cOurse of discussion in the following pages has, unavoidably, led him over
ground which has frequently been the arena of political controversy. In all such cases, he has endeav-
ored to state what seemed to him to be truth, without fear, favor or affection. He is conscious to him-
self of no bias towards any party whatever, and he thinks that he who will read the whole work will
be convinced that Fe has been influenced by none.” -- Extract from the Preface.

It embraces the soundest system of republican political economy of any treatise extant. — Advocate,

We can say, with safety, that the topics are well selected and arranged; that the author’s name is a
guarantee for more than usual excellence. We wish it an extensive circulation.— 1. Y. Observer.

POLITICAL ECONOMY, ABRIDGED, by the Author, and adapted

to the use of Schools and Academies. Thirteenth thousand. 18mo, half morocca
Price 50 cents.

*,* The success which has attended the abridgment of ‘*'The Elements of Moral Sci-
erce ” has induced the author to prepare an abridgment of this work. “In this case, as in
the other, the work has been entirely rewritten, and an attempt has been made to adapt it to
the attainments of youth.

The original work of the author, on Political Economy, has already been noticed on our pages; and
the present abridgment stands in no need of a recommendation from us. We may be permitted how-
ever, to say, that both the rising and the risen generations are deeply indebted to Dr. Wayland for the
skill and power he has put forth to bring a highly important subject distinctly before them, within
such narrow limits. Though “abridged for the use of academies,” it deserves to be introduced into
every private family, and to be studied by every man who has an interest in the wealth and prosper-
ity of his country. It is a subject little understood, even practically, by thousands, and still less un-
derstood theoretically. Itis to be hoped this will form a class book, and be faithfully studied in our
academies, and that it will find its way into every family library ; not there to be shut up unread, but
to afford rich material for thought and discussion in the family circle. It is fitted to enlarge the mind,
to purify the judgment, to correct erroneous popular impressions, and assist every man in forming
opinions of public measures, which will abide the test of time and experience. — Puritan Recorder.

An abridgment of this clear, common-sense work, designed for the use of academies, is just pub-
lished. We rejoice to see such treatises spreading among the people; and we urge all, who would be
intelligent freemen, to read them. — V. Y. Transcript.

PALEY’S NATURAL THEOLOGY. Illustrated by forty Plates, and

Selections from the notes of Dr. Paxton, with additional Notes, original and selected, for
this edition ; with a vocabulary of Scientific Terms. Edited by JOHN WARE, M. D,

New edition, with new and elegant Illustrations. 12mo, sheep, 1,25. 4

sg- This deservedly popular work has become almost universally introduced into all schools, acad-"
emies, and colleges, where the subject is studied, throughout the country.

The work before us is one which deserves rather to be studied than merely read. Indeed, without
diligent attention and study, neither the excellences of it can be fully discovered, nor its advantages
realized. It is, therefore, gratifying to find it introduced, as a text book, into the colleges and literary
institutions of ourcountry. The edition before us is superior to any we have seen, and, we believe,
superior to any that has yet been published. — Spirit of the Pilgrims.

Perhaps no one of our author's works gives greater satisfaction to all classes of readers, the young
and the old, the ignorant and the enlightened. Indeed, we recollect no book in which the arguments
for the existence and attributes of the Supreme Being, to be drawn from his works, are exhibited in a
manner more attractive and more convincing. — Christian Examiner. NM

NEW AND VALUABLE WORKS.
MENTAL PHILOSOPHY;

INCLUDING THE INTELLECT, THE SENSIBILITIES, AND THE WILL. By JOSEPH
HAVEN, PROFESSOR OF INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL PHILOSOPHY, AMHERST
CoLLEGE. Royal 12mo, cloth, $1.50.

The need of a new text-book on Mental Philosophy has long been felt and acknowledged by etni-
Bent teachers in this department. While many of the books in use are admitted to possess gr2at
merits in some respects, none has been found altogether satisfactory AS A TEXT-BOOK. The author
of this work, having learned by his own experience as a teacher of the science in one of our most
flourishing colleges what was most to be desired, has here undertaken to supply the want. How far
he has succeeded, those occupying similar educational positions are best fitted to judge. In now sub-
mitting the work to their candid judgment, and to that of the public at large, particular attention is
invited to the following characteristics, by which it is believed to be pre-eminently distinguished.

1. The COMPLETENESS with which it presents the whole subject. Some text-books treat of only
one class of faculties, the Intellect, for example, omitting the Sensibilities and the Will. This work
includes the whole. The author knows of no reason why Moral Philsophy should not treat of the
WHOLE mind in all its faculties.

2. It is strictly and thoroughly scEINTIFIC. The author has aimed to make a science of the mind,
not merely a series ef essays on certain faculties, like those of Stewart and Reid.

8. It presents a careful ANALYSIS of the mind as a whole, with a view to ascertain its several facul-
ties. This point, which has been greatly overlooked by writers on mental science, Prof. Haven has
made a speciality. It has cost him immense study to satisfy himself in obtaining a true result.

4. The nIsTORY AND LITERATURE of each topic are made the subject of special attention. While
some treatises are wholly deficient in this respect, others, as that of Stewart, so intermingle literary
and critical disquisition, as seriously to interfere with the sciencific statement of the topic in hand.
Prof. Haven, on the contrary, has traced the history of each important branch of the science, and
thrown the result into a separate section at the close. This feature is regarded as wholly original.

5. It presents the LATEST RRSULTS of the science, especially the discoveries of Sir William Ham-
ilton in relation to the doctrines of Perception and of Logic. On both of these subjects the work is
Hamiltonian. The value of this feature will best be estimated by those who know how difficult of
access the Hamiltonian philosophy has hitherto been. No American writer before Prof. Haven has
presented any adequate or just account of Sir William’s theory of perception and of reasoning.

6. The author has aimed to present the subject in an ATTRACTIVE STYLE, consistently with a
thorough scientific treatment. He has proceeded on the ground that a due combination of the PoETIC
element with the scientific would effect a great improvement in philosophic composition. Perspicuity
and precision, at least, will be found to be marked features of his style.

7. The author has studied CONDENSATION. Some of the works in use are exceedingly diffuse.
Prof. Haven has compressed into one volume what by other writers has been spread over three or
four. Both the pecuniary and the intellectual advantages of this condensation are obvious.

Prof. Park, of Andover, having examined a large portion of the work in manuscript, says, “ It is
DISTINGUISHED for its clearness of style, perspicuity of method, candor of spirit, acumen and
comprehensiveness of thought. Ihave been heartily interested in it.”

THE WITNESS OF GOD; or The Natural Evidence of His Being and

Perfections, as the: Creator and Governor of the World, and the presumptions
which it affords in favor of a Supernatural Revelation of His Will. By JAmMEs
BucHanan, D. D., LL.D., Divinity Professor in the New College, Edinburgh;
author of ‘*‘ Modern Atheism,” etc. 12mo, cloth, $1.25. In press.

GOTTHOLD’S EMBLEMS; or, Invisible things understood by things
that are made. By CHRISTIAN SCRIVER, Minister of Magdeburg in 1671. Trans-
lated from the twenty-eighth German edition, by the Rev. RoBERT MENZIES.
12mo0, cloth. In press.

THE EXTENT OF THE ATONEMENT in its Relations to God and

the Universe. By THomas W. JENKyN, D.D. 12mo, cloth, 85 cts. In press.

wg The calls for this most important and popular work, — which for some time past has been out
of print in this country, — have been frequent and urgent. The publishers, therefore, are kappy in
being able to issue the work THOROUGHLY REVISED BY THE AUTHOR, EXPRESSLY FOR THE
AMERICAN EDITION. (KE)

BARTON'S WORKS.

A NEW SYSTEM OF ENGLISH GRAMMAR. By W. S&S. Barron,
A.M. 12mo, half Morocco. 75 cents.

This work is designed as a Text-book for the use of schools and academies. Itis the result of long
experience, and will be found to possess many peculiar merits.

VIEWS OF EXPERIENCED TEACHERS.

From W. T. WALTHALL, A. M., Sure’r oF SCHOOLS FOR CiTY AND County OF MosiLe.—“‘I
tegard it as adecided improvement upon any work of the kind in use as a text-book in our schools,
With which I am acquainted.”

From S. S. SHErMAN, A. M., PRESIDENT OF THE JUDSON FEMALE INSTITUTE, MARION,
ALA. —“‘ It is a valuable contribution to our elementary text-books.”

From H. Taugirp, D. D., PRESIDENT OF Howarp CoLLeGe, MArRion, ALA.—‘“‘In my opin-
jon, it will not only meet with general favor, but supplant every other work of the kind.”

From Tuos. B. Batty, A. M., Prin. I. O. O. F. CotteaiaTe Hieu ScuHoor, CoLtumsvs,
Miss.—‘“ Every one remembers the difficulties he encountered in the study of English Grammar.
Every teacher well knows the tedium of a recitation in that study. To the pupil it was dry, unintel-
ligible and mysterious ; to the teacher laborious in the extreme. Heretofore grammarians have pro-
duced confusion rather than order in the youthful mind. The very first lesson made him shudder
as his eyes ran oyer the jargon of technicalities.

“‘T am happy to state that Mr. Barton’s New System of Grammar supplies the desideratum. Every
scholar and teacher should return him sincere thanks, for he has divested it in a great measure of its
hidden mystery. By his system, the pupil is gradually initiated into its principles—each lesson,
like a proposition in geometry, paves the way to the succeeding one, until, by a gradual and philoso-
phical process, he is made to comprehend the whole science. Every rule and principle is illustrated
by numerous examples ; some of these the pupil will parse, and others correct ; these again are fol-
lowed by appropriate exercisesin COMPOSITION. This last feature is a novel and valuable addition
to the usual mode of instruction. In thus applying what he has learned, the pupil is taught to WRITE
as wellas to speak correctly. Having determined to adopt this Grammar in my own school, I would
recommend it to others.”

“Our estimable and learned townsman, Rev. W. S. Barton, is at work in a masterly manner,
remodelling the school books of the day, and reducing them to the easy comprehension of the young,
thus placing it in the power of parents to witness the rapid and profitable advancement of their chil-
dren, with less mental exertion to the pupil, and infinitely less labor to the teacher. God speed the
work in which he is engaged, and may a discerning public mete out to him more patronage than his
modest ambition relies upon, or anticipates.” - ALABAMA WHIG.

“This work has met with general favor from teachers and professors, and bids fair to supplant
every other book of the kind.” — Am. Pus. CIRCULAR.

“From an attentive examination of Prof. Barton’s New System of English Grammar, we are con-
vinced ‘that.his method combines a greater degree of simplicity, clearness and precision, than any
other treatise within our knowledge. In our opinion, he has rendered a dry, irksome study a pleasant
and agreeable recreation.”

PRACTICAL EXERCISES IN ENGLISH COMPOSITION; or, Tur

Youne ComMPoser’s GUIDE. By W.S. Barron, A.M. 12mo, half Mor. 75 cts.

The work here presented, it is stated in the preface, is designed as a SEQUEL TO THE AUTHOR'S
New SYSTEM OF ENGLISH GRAMMAR, which forms a gradual introduction to the first principles of
composition. The plan pursued in the following exercises, as in the work mentioned, is founded
on the application of the principle of imitation. The pupil is conducted progressively from the
simplest expression of thought to the practice of connected composition.

The treatise will be found useful in assisting such as have only the opportunity of a “‘ common~
school education,” to express their ideas with taste and perspicuity ; while to those having the advan-
tage of a more general course of instruction, it will serve as a practical introduction to a critical study
of English literature.

Having laid down rules for the use of Capital Letters, Spelling and Pronunciation, with copious
examples for illustration, the author proceeds to the Structure of Sentences. These are classified,
and then each kind is analyzed. Under each section are given faulty or defective examples, which
the pupil is required to correct. It is in this practice, involving not only a familiarity with the rules,
but also the power of correctly applying them, that the pupil will find the great benefit of the work to
consist.

For young persons just beginning to practice the art of composition, as well as those more advanced
and somewhat accustomed to write, there is probably no one work that will be found in all respects
60 serviceable as this. : (s)

IMPORTANT NEW WORKS.

THE TESTIMONY OF THE ROCKS: or, Geology in its Bearings on

the two Theologies, Natural and Revealed. By HucH MILLER. “ Thou shalt be
in league with the stones of the field.”” — Job. With numerous elegant illustrations,
12mo, cloth, $1.25.

The completion of this important work employed the last hours of the lamented author, and may
be considered his greatest and in fact his life work.

MACAULAY ON SCOTLAND. A Critique. By Hvucn Mutter,
Author of “‘ Footprints of the Creator,” &c. 16mo, flexible cloth, 25c.

When we read Macaulay’s last volumes, we said that they wamted nothing but the fiction to make
an epic poem; and now it seems that they are not wanting even in that.— PuriTAN RECORDER.

He meets the historian at the fountain head, tracks him through the old pamphlets and newspapers
on which he relied,and demonstrates that his own authorities are against him.—BosTon TRANSCRIPT.

THE GREYSON LETTERS. Selections from the Correspondence of
R. E. H. Greyson, Esq. Edited by Henry Rogers, Author of “The Eclipse of Faith.”
12mo, cloth, $1.25.

“Mr. Greyson and Mr. Rogers are one and the same person. The whole work is from his pen $
and every letter is radiant with the genius of the author of the ‘Eclipse of Faith.’” It discusses a
wide range of subjects in the most attractive manner. It abounds in the keenest wit and humor,
satire and logic. It fairly entitles Mr. Rogers to rank with Sydney Smith and Charles Lamb as a
wit and humorist, and with Bishop Butler as a reasoner.

If Mr. Rogers lives to accomplish our expectations, we feel little doubt that his name will share,
with those of Butler and Pascal, in the gratitude and veneration of posterity. — LONDON QUARTERLY.
* Full of acute observation, of subtle analysis, of accurate logic, fine description, apt quotation, pithy
remark, and amusing anecdote. . . . A book, not for one hour, but for all hours; not for one mood,
but for every mood, to think over, to dream over, to laugh over.— BosTON JOURNAL.

A truly good book, containing wise, true and original reflections, and written in an attractive style.
-— Hon. Gro. S. H1tuarD, LL. D., in Boston Courier.

Mr. Rogers has few equals as a critic, moral philosopher, and defender of truth. . . . This volume
is full of entertainment, and full of food for thought, to feed on. — PHILADELPHIA PRESBYTERIAN.

The Letters are intellectual gems, radiant with beauty and the lights of genius, happily inter-
mingling the grave and the gay.— CHRISTIAN OBSERVER.

ESSAYS IN BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM. By Perer Baynz,
M. A., Author of “ The Christian Life, Social and Individual.” Arranged in Two SERIES,
on Parts. 12mo, cloth, each, $1.25.

This work is prepared by the author exclusively for his American publishers. It includes eighs
teen articles, viz.:

First Series :— Thomas De Quincy. — Tennyson and his Teachers. — Mrs. Barrett Browning.
— Recent Aspects of British Art. — John Ruskin. — Hugh Miller. — The Modern Novel ; Dickens, &c.
~ Ellis, Acton, and Currer Bell. — Charles Kingsley.

Seconp Series:—S. T. Coleridge. — T. B. Macaulay. — Alison. — Wellington. — Napoleon. —
Plato. — Characteristics of Christian Civilization. — Education in the Nineteenth Century.— The
Pulpit and the Press.

LIFE AND CHARACTER OF JAMES MONTGOMERY. Abridged

from the recent London, seven volume edition. By Mrs. H. C. Knieut, Author
of ‘- Lady Huntington and her Friends,” &c. With a fine likeness and an elegant
illustrated title page on steel. 12mo, cloth, $1.25.

This is an original biography prepared from the abundant, but ill-digested materials con-
tained in the seven octavo volumes of the London edition. The great bulk of that work, together
with the heavy style of its literary exe2ution, tnust necessarily prevent its republication in this
country. At the same time, the Christian publ’: in America will expect some memoir of a poet
whose hymns and sacred melodies have deen thé Piight of every household, This work, it is confi-
dently hoped, will fully satisfy the publi2 ‘I‘vitee Mis prepared by one who has already won distin-
guisneu 'gurels in this department of Siteraf rs? Cx}

VALUABLE WORKS.

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER: A View or THE Propvuctive Forces or

Mopern Society, and the Result of Labor, Capital, and Skill. By CHARLES
Kyicut. American edition, with Additions, by DAvip A. WELLS, Editor of
*“ Annual of Scientific Discovery,” &c. With numerous Illustrations. 12mo,
cloth. $1.25.

This work is eminently entitled to be ranked in that class, styled,“ BOOKS FOR THE PEOPLE.” The
author is one of the most popular writers of the day. ‘‘ Knowledge is Power ” treats of those things
which ‘‘come home to the business and bosoms” of every man. It is remarkable forits fullness and
variety of information, and for the felicity and force with which the author applies his facts to his
reasoning. The facts and illustrations are drawn from almost every branch of skilful industry.
It is a work which the mechanic and artizan of every description will be sure to read with a RELISH.

This is a work of rare merit, and touches many strings of importance with which society is linked
together. No work we have ever seen is better calculated to inspire and awaken inventive genius
in man than this. Almost every department of human labor is represented, and it contains a large
fund of useful information, condensed in a volume, every chapter of which is worth the cost of the
book. It would be an act of manifest injustice to the community for any editor to feel an indiffer-
ence about commending this volume toa reading public.~ N. Y. Cu. HERALD.

The style is admirable, and the book itself is as full of information as an egg is of meat. —-JOURNAL.

As teachers we know no better remuneration, than forthem First to buy this book and diligently
read it themselves; Sreconp, to teach to their pupils the principles of industrial organization which
it contains, and of the facts by which it is illustrated. It is one of the merits of this book that its
facts will interest youthful mindsand be retained to blossom hereafter into theories of which they
are now incapable. Tarrp, endeavor to havea copy procured for the district library, that the parents
may read it, and the teachers reap fruit in the present generation.— N. Y. TEACHER.

Contains a great amount of information, accompanied with numerous illustrations, rendering its
compendious history of the subjects upon which it treats. —N. Y. CouRIER AND INQUIRER.

We commend the work as one of real value and profitabie reading. — ROCHESTER AMERICAN.

This work is a rich repository of valuable information on various subjects, having a bearing on the
industrial and social interests of a community. — PURITAN RECORDER.

MY SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS; or, Tue Srory or my

Epucation. By Hues MILLER, author of “ Old Red Sandstone,” ‘“‘ Footprints
of the Creator,” ‘‘ My First Impressions of England,” ete. 12mo, cloth. $1.26.

“This autobiography is quite worthy of the renowned author. His first attempts at literature,
and his career until he stood forth an acknowledged power among the philosophers and ecclesias-
tical leaders of his native land, are given without egotism, with a power and vivacity which are
equally truthful and delightsome.” — PRESBYTERIAN. :

‘Hugh Miller is one of the most remarkable men of the age. Having risen from the humble walks
of life, and from the employment of a stone-cutter, to the highest rank among scientific men, every-
thing relating to his history possesses an interest which belongs to that of few living men. There is
much even in his school-boy days which points to the man as he now is. The book has all the ease
and graphic power which is characteristic of his writings.. NEw YORK OBSERVER.

“ This volume is a book for the ten thousand. Itis embellished with an admirable likeness of
Hugh Miller, the stone mason — his coat off and his sleeves roiled up — with the implements of labor
in hand — his form erect, and his eye bright and piercing. The biography of such a man will interest
every reader. It is a living thing—teaching a lesson of self-culture of immense value.” — PuiLa-
DELPHIA CHRISTIAN OBSERVER.

“Tt is a portion of autobiography exquisitely told. He is a living proof that a single man may
contain within himself something more than all the books in the world, some unuttered word, if he
will look within and read. This is one of the best books we have had of late, and must have a
hearty welcome and a large circulation in America.”— LonpON CorrESP. N. Y. TRIBUNE.

“Jtis a work of rare interest ; at times having the facination of a romance, and again suggesting
the profoundest views of education and of science. The ex-mason holds a graphic pen ; a quict
humor runs through his pages ; he tells a story well, and some of his pictures of home life might
almost be classed with Wilson’s.”— NEw YORK INDEPENDENT.

“ This autobiography is THE book for poor boys, and others who are struggling with poverty and
limited advantages ; and perhaps it is not too much to predict that in a few years it will become one
of the poor man’s classics, filling a space on his scanty shelf next to the Autobiography of Frank-~
lin.’— NEw ENGLAND FARMER.

“ Lovers of the romantic should not neglect the book, as it contains a narrative of tender passion
and happily reciprocated affection, which will be read with subdued emotion and unfailing interest.”

- Boston TRAVELLER. P (4)

AMOS LAWRENCE.

DIARY AND CORRESPONDENCE OF THE LATE AMOS LAW-
RENCE; with a brief account of some Incidents in his Life. Edited by his son,
WILitiAmM R. LAWRENCE, M.D. With fine steel Portraits of AMos and ABBOTT
LAWRENCE, an Engraving of their Birth-place, a Fac-simile page of Mr. Law-
rence’s Hand-writing, and a copious Index. Octavo edition, cloth, $1.60. Royal
duodecimo edition, $1.00.

This work was first published in an elegant octavo volume, and sold at the unusu-
ally low price of $1.50. At the solicitation of numerous benevolent individuals who
were desirous of circulating the work—so remarkably adapted to do good, especially
to young men—gratuitously, and of giving those of moderate means, of every Class, an
opportunity of possessing it, the royal duodecimo, or “‘ cheap edition,” was issued,
varying from the other edition, only in a reduction in the size (allowing less margin)
and the thickness of the paper.

Within six months after the first publication of this work, twenty-two thousand
copies had been sold. This eres ad sale is to be accounted for by the character
of the man and the merits of the book. It is the memoir of a Boston merchant, who
became distinguished for his great wealth, but more distinguished for the manner in
which he used it. It is the memoir of a man, who, commencing business with only
$20, gave away in public and private charities, during his lifetime more, probably,
than any other person in America. It is substantially an autobiography, containin
a full account of Mr. Lawrence’s career as a merchant, of his various multiplied chari-
ties, and of his domestic life.

“We have by us another werk, the ‘ Life of Amos Lawrence.’ We heard it once said in the pulpit,
‘ There is no work of art like a noble life,’ and for that reason he who has achieved one, takes rank
with the great artists and becomes the world’s property. WE ARE PROUD OF THIS BOOK. WE ARE
WILLING TO LET IT GO FORTH TO OTHER LANDS AS A SPECIMEN OF WHAT AMERICA CAN
PRODUCE. Inthe old world, reviewers have called Barnum THE characteristic American man. We
are willing enough to admit that he is a characteristic American man ; he is ONE fruit of our soil,
but Amos Lawrence is another. Let our country have credit for him also. THE GOOD EFFECT
WHICH THIS LIFE MAY HAVE IN DETERMINING THE COURSE OF YOUNG MEN TO HONOR AND
VIRTUE IS INCALCULABLE.”’—Mks. STOWE, IN N. Y. INDEPENDENT.

“We are glad to know that our large business houses are purchasing copies of this work for each
of their numerous clerks. Its influence on young men cannot be otherwise than highly salutary.
As a business man, Mr. Lawrence was a pattern for the young clerk."—BosToON TRAVELLER.

“ We are thankful for the volume before us. It carries us back to the farm-house of Mr. Law,
rence’s birth, and the village store of his first apprenticeship. It exhibits a charity noble and active,
while the young merchant was still poor. And above all, it reveals to us a beautiful cluster of sister
graces, a keen sense of honor, integrity which never knew the shadow of suspicion, candor in the
estimate of character, filial piety, rigid fidelity in every domestic relation, and all these connected
with and flowing from steadfast religious principle, profound sentiments of devotion, and a vivid
realization of spiritual truth.”"—NorRTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

‘¢ We are glad that American Biography has been enriched by such a contribution to its treasures.
In all that composes the career of ‘the good man,’ and the practical Christian, we have read few
memoirs more full of instruction, or richer in lessons of wisdom and virtue. We cordially unite in
the opinion that the publication of this memoir was a duty owed to society.” NATIONAL INTEL-
LIGENCER.

‘“‘ With the intention of placing it within the reach of a large number, the mere cost price is
charged, and a more beautifully printed volume, or one calculated to do more good, has not been
issued from the press of late years.,.—-EVENING GAZETTE.

“This book, besides being of a different class from most biographies, has another peculiar charm.
Ti shows the inside life of the man. You have, as it were, a peep behind the curtain, and see Mr.
Lawrence as he went in and out among business men, as he appeared on ’change, as he received
his friends, as he poured out, ‘with liberal hand and generous heart,’ his wealth for the benefit
of others, as he received the greetings and salutations of children, and as he appeared in the bosom
of his family at his own hearth stone."—BRUNSWICK TELEGRAPH.

“Jt is printed on new type, the best paper, and is illustrated by four beautiful plates. How it can
be sold for the price named is a marvel.”—-NORFOLK Co. JOURNAL.

“Tt was first privately printed, and a limited number of copies were distributed among the
relatives and near friends of the deceased. This volume was read with the deepest interest by those
who were so favored as to obtain a copy, and it passed from friend to friend as rapidly as it could be
read. Dr. Lawrence has yielded to the general wish, and made public the volume. It will now be
widely circulated, will certainly prove a standard work, and be read over and over again.”--Bos-
TON DAILY ADVERTISER. tp}

WORKS JUST ISSUED.

VISITS TC EUROPEAN CELEBRITIES. By Witui1am B. Spracur, D D
12mo. Croth. $1.00. Second Edition.

THE first edition of this work was exhausted within a short time after its publica-
tion. It consists of a series of Personal Sketches, drawn from life, of many of the
most distinguished men and women of Europe, with whom the author became
acquainted in the course of several European tours: Edward Irving, Rowland Hill,
Wilberforce, Jay, Robert Hall, John Foster, Hannah More, Guizot, Louis Philippe,
Sismondi, Tholuck, Gesenius, Neander, Humboldt, Encke, Rogers, Campbell, Joanna
Baillie, John Pye Smith, Amelia Opie, Dr. Pusey, Mrs. Sherwood, Maria Edgeworth,
John Galt, Dr Wardlaw, Dr. Chalmers, Sir David Brewster, Lord Jeffrey, Professor
Wilson, (Kit North,) Southey, and others, are here portrayed as the author saw them
in their own homes, and under the most advantageous circumstances. Accompany-
ing the Sketches are the AUTOGRAPHS of each of the personages described This
unique feature of the work adds in nosmall degree to its attractions. For the social
circle, for the traveller by railroad and steamboat, for all who desire to be refreshed
and not weared by reading, the book will prove to be a most agreeable companion.
The public press of all shades of opinion, North and South, have given it a most flat-
tering reception.

THE STORY OF THE CAMPAIGN. A Complete Narrative of the War in
Southern Russia. Written in a Tent in the Crimea. By Major E. Bruce
Hamuey, Author of “Lady Lee’s Widowhood.” 12mo. Thick. Printed
Paper Covers. 37} Cents. :

Contents. —The Rendezvous — The Movement to the Crimea — First Operations in
the Crimea — Battle of the Alma — The Battle-field — The Katcha and the Balbek —
The Flank March— Occupation of Balaklava—The Position before Sebastopol —
Commencement of the Siege — Attack on Balaklava— First Action of Inkermann—
Battle of Inkermann— Winter on the Plains — Circumspective — The Hospitals on
the Bosphorus — Exculpatory — Progress of the Siege —The Burial Truce — View of
the Works

THIS was first published in Blackwood’s Magazine, in which form it has attracted
general attention. It is the only connected and continuous narrative of the War in
Europe that has yet appeared. The author is an officer of rank in the British army,
and has borne an active part in the campaign; he has also won a brilliant reputation
as the author of the fascinating story of ‘‘ Lady Lee’s Widowhood.” By his profes-
sion of arms, by his actual participation in the conflict, and by his literary abilities,
he is qualified in a rare degree, for the task he has undertaken. The expectations
thus raised will not be disappointed. To those who have been dependent on the
prief, fragmentary, interrupted, and irresponsible newspaper notices of the war, this
book will furnish a full, complete, graphic, and perfectly reliable account from the
beginning. Should the author’s life be spared, his history of future operations will
follow, and will be issued by the publishers uniform with the present volume.

ROGET’S THESAURUS OF ENGLISH WORDS. A New and Improved
Edition. 12mo. Cloth. $1.50.

THis edition is based on the last London edition (just issued.) The first
American edition having been prepared by Dr. Sears, for strictly educational pur
poses, those words and phrases, properly termed ‘‘ vulgar,” incorporated into the
original work, were omitted. Regret having been expressed by critics and scholars,
whose opinions are entitled to respect, at this omission, in the present new
edition the expurgated portions have been restored, but by such an arrangement of
matter as not to interfere with the educational purpose of the American editor
Besides this, there will be important additions of words and phrases nct in the Enz
lish edition, making this, therefore, in all respects, more full and. perfect than the
author’s edition. , (m)

REECE ‘NT PUBLICATIONS.

HISTORY OF CHURCH MUSIC IN AMERICA. Treating of its peculi
arities at different periods ; its legitimate use and its abuse ; with Criticisms
-Cursory Remarks, and Notices relating to Composers, Teachers, Schools,
Cheirs, Societies, Conventions, Books, etc. By NATHANIEL D. GouLp, Author
of ** Social Harmony,”’ “ Church Harmony," “‘Sacred Minstrel,’’ ete. 12mo,
cloth. 75 cents.

BG> To all interested In church music (and who Is not interesteay this work will be found te
contain a vast fund of information, with much that is novel, amusing and instructive. In giving
3% minute history of Church Music for the past eighty years, there is interspersed throughout the
vuluine many interesting inzidents, and numerous anecdotes concerning Ministers, Compo
gers, Teachers, Performers ard Performances, Societies, Choirs, &c.

(COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM COWPER;; with a Lif
and Critical Notices of his Writings. On clear type, with new and elegan
Illustrations on steel. 16mo, cloth, $1.00 ; fine cloth, gilt, $1.25.

POETICAL WORKS OF SIR WALTER SCOTT. With Life and elegan
Illustrations on steel. 16mo, cloth, $1.00; fine cloth, gilt, $1.25.

MILTON’S POETICAL WORKS. With Life and elegant Ilustrations.
16mo, cloth, $1.00 ; fine cloth, gilt, $1.25.

8G The above poetical works, by standard authors, are all of uniform size and style, printed
on fine paper, from clear, distinct type, with new and elegant illustrations, richly bound in full
gilt, and plain; which, with the exceedingly low price at which they are offered, render them
the most desirable of any of the numerous editions of these authors’ works now in the market.

United States Exploring Expedition, under command of Charles Wilkes, U.S. N.
VOLUME XII.

MOLLUSCA AND SHELLS. By Avaustus A. Goutp, M.D. One elegant
quarto volume, cloth. $6.00.

THE TWO RECORDS ; the Mosaic and the Geological. A Lecture delivered
before the Young Men’s Christian Association, in Exeter Hall, London
By Hues Miter. 16mo, cloth. 25 cents.

2G No work by Hugh Miller needs commen ‘ation to insure purchasers.

NOAH AND HIS TIMES ; embracing the consideration of various inquiries
relative to the Ante-diluvian and earlier Post-diluvian Periods, with Discus.
sions of several of the leading questions of the present time. By Rev. J
Monson OtmsteEAD, A. M. 12mo, cloth. $1.25.

&£G> This is not only a popular, but a very valuable, work for all Bible students.

A PARISIAN PASTOR’S GLANCE AT AMERICA. By T. H. Granp
Prerre, D. D., Pastor of the Reformed Church, and Director of the Mission-
ary Institution in Paris. 16mo, cloth. 50 cts.

The author of this volume is one of the most eminent ministers now living of the Reforme
Church of France. He is distinguished as a preacher and a writer ; as a man of large and lib
eral views, of earnest piety, of untiring industry, and of commanding influence. His state
ments are characterised by great correctness as well as great candor. — Puritan Recorder.

THE CAMEL: His Organization, Habits and Uses, considered with refer-
ence to his Introduction into the United States. By GzorcE P. MArsg, late U.
S. Minister at Constantinople. 12mo, cloth. 75 cts.

This book treats of a subject of great interest, especially at the present time. It furnishes a more
complete and reliable account of the Camel than any other in the language ; indeed, it is believed
that there is no other. It is the result of long study, extensive research, and much personal observa-
tion on the part of the author ; and it has been prepared with speciel reference to the experiment of
domesticating the Camel in this country, now going on under the auspices of the United States gov-
ernment. It is written in a style worthy of the distinguished author’s reputation for great learning
and fine scholarship, (a?)

THESAURUS OF ENGLISH WORDS AND PHRASES.

So Classified and Arranged as to Facilitate the Expression of Ideas, and Assist
in Literary Composition. By Perer Mark Rocer, late Secretary of the Royal
Society, and author of the ‘‘ Bridgewater Treatise,” etc. Revised and En-
larged; with a List oF ForEIGN Worps AND ExpREssIONs most frequently
occurring in works of general Literature, Defined in English, by Barnas
Sears, D. D., Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education, assisted by
several Literary Gentlemen. 12mo., cloth. $1.50.

4a- A work of great merit, admirably adapted as a text-book for schools and colleges, and
ef high importance to every American scholar. Among the numerous commendations re
ceived from the press, in all directions, the publishers would call attention to the following :

Weare glad to see the Thesaurus of English Words republished in this country. It is amost
valuable work, giving the results of many years’ labor, in an attempt to classify and arrango
the words of the English tongue, so as to facilitate the practice of composition. The purpose
of an ordinary dictionary is to explain the meaning of words, while the object of this Thesaurus
is to collate all the words by which any given idea may be expressed. — Putnam’s Monthly.

This volume offers the student of English composition the results of great labor in the form
of a rich and copious vocabulary. We would commend the work to those who have charge
of academies and high schools, and to all students. — Christian Observer.

This is a novel publication, and is the first and only one of the kind ever issued in which
words and phrases of our language are classified, not according to the sound of their orthog-
raphy, but strictly according to their signification. It will become an invaluable aid in the
communication of our thoughts, whether spoken or written, and hence, as a means of improve-
ment, we can recommend it as a work of rare and excellent qualities. — Scientific American.

A work of great utility. It will give a writer the word he wants, when that word is on the
tip of his tongue, but altogether beyond his reach. — VV. ¥. Times.

Itis more complete than the English work, which has attained a just celebrity. It is intended
to supply, with respect to the English language, a desideratum hitherto unsupplied in any
language, namely, a collection of the words it contains, and of the idiomatic combinations
peculiar to it, arranged, not in alphabetical order, as they are in a dictionary, but according to
the ideas which they express. The purpose of a dictionary is simply to explain the meaning
of words — the word being given, to find its signification, or the idea it is intended to convey.
The object aimed at here is exactly the converse of this: the idea being given, to find the word
or words by which that idea may be mostly fitly and aptly expressed. For this purpose, the
words and phrases of the language are here classed, not according to their sound or their
orthography, but strictly according to their signification. — New York Evening Mirror.

An invaluable companion to persons engaged in literary labors. To persons who aye not
familiar with foreign tongues, the catalogue of foreign words and phrases most current in
modern literature, which the American editor has appended, will be very useful. —Presbyterian.

It casts the whole English language into groups of words and terms, arranged in such a
manner that the student of English composition, when embarrassed by the poverty of his
vocabulary, may supply himself immediately, on consulting it, with the precise term for
which he has occasion. — ew York Evening Post.

This is a work not merely of extraordinary, but of peculiar value. We would gladly praise
it, if any thing could add to the consideration held out by the title page. No one who speaks
or writes for the public need be urged to study Roget’s Thesaurus. — Star of the West.

Every writer and speaker ought to possess himself at once of this manual. It is far from
being a mere dull, dead string of synonymes, but it is enlivened and vivified by the classifying
and crystallizing power of genuine philosophy. We have put it on our table as a permanent
fixture, as near our left hand as the Bible is to our right. — Congregationalist.

This book is one of the most valuable we ever examined. It supplies a want long acknowl-
edged by the best writers, and supplies it completely. — Portland Advertiser.

One of the most efficient aids to composition that research, industry, and scholarship have
ever produced. Its object is to supply the writer or speaker with the most felicitous terms
for expressing an idea that may be vaguely floating on his mind; and, indeed, through the
peculiar manner of arrangement, ideas themselves way be expanded or modified by referenee
to Mr. Roget’s elucidations. — Albion, N. ¥. (e

THE PLURALITY OF WORLDS.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION by Epwarp Hircncocr, LL.D., President of
Amherst College. 12mo, cloth. $1.00.

&#as~ This is a masterly production on a subject of great interest.

The ‘‘ Plurality of Worlds” is a work of great ability, and one that cannot fail to arrest the
attention of the world of science. Its author takes the bold ground of contesting the generally
adopted belief of the existence of other peopled worlds beside our own earth. A gentleman
upon whose judgment we place much reliance writes, in regard to it:

“«The Plurality of Worlds’ plays the mischief with the grand speculation of Christian and
other astronomers. It is the most remorseless executioner of beautiful theories I have .ever
stumbled pon, and leaves the grand universe of existence barren asa vast Sahara. The author
is astern logician, and some of the processes of argumentation are singularly fine. Many of
the thoughts are original and very striking, and the whole conception of the volume is as novel
as the results are unwelcome. I should think the work must attract attention from scientific
men, from the very bold and well-sustained ravers to set aside sep the scientific assump-
tions of the age.” — Boston Atlas.

This work has created a profound sensation in England. It is, in truth, a remarkable book, —
remarkable both for the boldness of the theory advanced, and for the logical manner in which
the subject-matter is treated. — Mercantile Journal.

The new scientific book, Plurality of Worlds, recently published in this city, is awakening an
unusual degree of interest in the literary and scientific world, not only in this country, but in
England. The London Literary Gazette, for April, contains an able review, occupying over
nine columns, from which we make the following extract: ‘‘ We venture vw Say that no scien-
tific man of any reputation will maintain the theory, without mixing up theological with phys-
ical arguments. And it isin regard to the theological and moral aspect of the question, that
we think the author urges considerations which most believers in the truths of Christianity
will deem unanswerable.” — Evening Transcript.

The ‘‘ Plurality of Worlds”’ has created as great a sensation in the reading world, as did the
Vestiges of Creation. But this time the religious world is not ur in arms with anathemas on
its lips. This is a book for it to “lick its ear”’ over. It is aime&@ at the speculations of Fonte~
nelle, or Dr. Chalmers, respecting the existence of life and spirit in the worlds that roll around
us, and demonstrating the impossibility of such a thing. — London Cor. of N. Y. Tribune.

To the theologian, philosopher, and man of science, this is a most intensely interesting work,
while to the ordinary thinker it will be found possessed of much valuable information. The
work is evidently the production of a scholar, and of one earnest for the dissemination of truth
in regard to what he considers, for theologians and scientific men, the greatest question of the
age. — Albany Transcript.

The work is learned, eloquent, suggestive of profound reflection, solacing to human pride, and
even to Christian humility ; and points out the great lesson it illustrates, upon the diagram of
the heavens, in language and tone elevated to the standard of the great theme. — Boston Atlas.

One of the most extraordinary books of the age. It is an attempt to show that the facts of
science do not warrant the conclusion to which most scientific minds so readily assent, that
the planets are inhabited. The anonymous author is a genius, and will set hundreds of critics
- on the hunt to ferret him out !— Star of the West.

GEOLOGICAL MAP OF THE UNITED STATES AND BRITISH PROV-|
INCES OF NORTH AMERICA. With an Explanatory Text, Geological '
Sections, and Plates of the Fossils which characterize the Ramadtiads By
Jutes Marcov. Two volumes. Octavo, cloth. $3.00.

£a> The Map is elegantly colored, and done up with linen cloth back, and folded in octave
form, with thick cloth covers.

The most complete Geological Map of the United States which has yet appeared. The exe~
cution of this Map is very neat and tasteful, and it is issued in the best style. It is a work
which all who take an mterest in the geology of the United States would wish to possess, and
we recommend it as extremely valuable, not only in a geological point of view, but as repre-
senting very fully the coal and copper regions of the country. The explanatory text presents a
rapid sketch of the geological constilations of North America, and is rich in facts on the sub-
scts. It 1s embellished with a number of beautiful plates of the fossils which characterize the
formations, thus making, with the Map, a very complete, clear, and distinct outline of the geology
of our country. — Mining Magazine, N. Y. a

HUGH MILLER’S WORKS.

| MY FIRST IMPRESSIONS
OF ENGLAND AND ITS PEOPLE.

By Hueu Mitrer, author of “Old Red Sandstone,” “ Footprints of the
Creator,” etc., with a fine likeness of the author. 12mo, cloth, 1,00.

Let not the careless reader imagine, from the title of this book, that it is a common book of travels,
pn the contrary, it is a very remarkable one, both in design, spirit, and execution. The facts recorded,
and the views advanced in this book, are so fresh, vivid, and natural, that we cannot but commend it
asa treasure, both of information and entertainment. It will greatly enhance the author’s reputation
fn this country as it already has m England. — Willzs’s Home Journal.

This is a noble book, worthy of the author of the Footprints of the Creator and the Old Red Sand-
atone, because it is seasoned with the same power of vivid description, the same minuteness of obser-
vation, and soundness of criticism, and the same genial piety. We have read it with deep interest,
and with ardent admiration of the author’s temper and genius. It isalmost impossible to lay the book
down, even ‘to attend to more pressing matters. It is, without compliment or hyperbole, a most de-
lightfui volume. — V. ¥. Commercial.

'

It abounds with graphic sketches of scenery and character, is full of genius, eloquence, and observa-
tion, and is well calcu to arrest the attention of the thoughtful and inquiring. — Phil. Inquirer.

This is a most amusing and instructive book, by a master hand. — Democratic Review.

The author of this work proved himself, in the Footprints of the Creator, one of the most original
thinkers and powerful writers of the age. In the volume before us he adds new laurels to his reputa-
tion. Whoever wishes to understand the character of the present race of Englishmen, as contradistin-
guished from past generations ; to comprehend the workings of political, social, and religious agitation
in the minds, not of the nobility or gentry, but of the people, will discover that, in this volume, he has
found a treasure. — Peterson’s Magazine.

His eyes were open to see, and his ears to hear, every thing; and, as the result of what he saw and
heard in “merrie”’ England, he has made one of the most spirited and attractive volumes of travels
and observations that we have met with these many days. — Traveller.

It is with the feeling with which one grasps the hand of an old friend that we greet to our home and
heart the author of the Old Red Sandstone and Footprints of the Creator. Hugh Miller is one of the
most agreeable. entertaining, and instructive writers of the age; and, having been so delighted with
him before, we open the First Impressions, and enter upon its perusal with a keen intellectual appe-
tite. We know of no work in England so full of adaptedness to the age as this. It opens up clearly to
view the condition of its yarious classes, sheds new light into its social, moral, and religious history,
not forgetting its geological peculiarities, and draws conclusions of great value. — Albany Spectator.

We commend the volume to our readers as one of more than ordinary value and interest, from the
pen of a writer who thinks for himself, and looks at mankind and at nature through his own spec-
tacles.— Transcript.

The author, one of the most remarkable men of the age, arranged for this journey into England,
expecting to “lodge in humble cottages, and wear a humble dress, and see what was to be seen by
humble men only,— society without its mask.” Such an observer might be expected to bring to view
a thousand things unknown, or partially known before; and abundantly does he fulfil this expecta-
tion. It is one of the most absorbing books of the time.— Portland Ch. Mirror.

~—

‘ NEW WORK.
MY SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS ;

OR THE STORY..OF. MY EDUCATION.

By Hucuw Mirzrer author of “ Footprints of the Creator,” “ Old Red
Sandstone,” ‘“‘ First Impressions of England.” etc. 12mo, cloth, $1.25.
his is a personal narrative of a deeply interesting and instructive character, concerning one of the

wost remarkable men of the age. No one who purchases this book will have occasion to regret it.
U

GOULD AND LINCOLN,

59 WASHINGTON STREET, BOSTON,

Would call particular attention to the following valuable worss described
in their Catalogue of Publications, viz.:

Hugh Miller’s Works.

Bayne’s Works. Walker’s Works. Miall’s Works. Bungener’s Work.
Annnal of Scientific Discovery. Knight’s Knowledge is Power.
Krummacher’s Suffering Saviour,

Banvard’s American Histories. The Aimwell Stories.
NewcOmb’s Works. Tweedie’s Works. Chambers’s Works. Harris’ Works.
Kitto’s Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature.
®Erg. Knignt’s Life of Montgomery. Kitto’s History of Palestin
Wheewell’s Work. Wayland’s Works. Agassiz’s Works.

F,

\ \ Ano. of Scient. Di,,
N\\ Earth and Man,
R\ Principles of Zoo) is \
\\ Comp2rative Anato, \
Mollusca and Bieiie” \
\\ Thesaur. of Eng, Word =

bert Chambers,
itto. — Cruden.
Eadie. — Williams,
Francis Wayland.
Jobn Harris,
Peter Bayne

OTD TASS.

William’s Works. Guyot’s Works.

Thompson’s Better Land. Kimball’s Heaven. Valuable Works on Missions,
Haven’s Mental Philosophy. Buchanan’s Modern Atheism.
Cruden’s Condensed Concordance. Eadie’s Analytical Concordance.
The Psalmist: a Collection of Hymns.

Valuable School Books. Works for Sabbath Schools.

Memoir of Amos Lawrence.

Poetical Works of Milton, Cowper, Scott. Elegant Miniature Volumer,
Arvine’s Cyclopzedia of Anecdotes.

Ripley’s Notes on Gospels, Acts, and Romans.

Sprague’s European Celebrities. Marsh’s Camel and the Hallig.
Roget's Thesaurus of English Words.

Hackett'’s Notes on Acts. M’Whorter’s Yahveh Christ.

Siebold and Stannius’s Comparative Anatomy. Marco's Geological Map, U.8.
Religious and Miscellaneous Works.

Works ia the various Departments of Literature, Science and Art.

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