mation. The Doctor announced his intention of reading, at the next meeting of the Society, a description of the different Veins that occur in East Lothian, and of giving a short statement, of the geognostical and economical inferences to be deduced from the appearances which he has investigated with so much care. It is indeed only by investigations like those of Dr Ogilby, that we obtain any certainty respecting the mineral treasures of a country; and such alone can afford us data for speculating regarding the formation of the globe.

At the same meeting, a communication from Col. Montague was read, describing a new species of Fasciola, of a red colour, and about an inch long, which sometimes lodges in the trachea of chickens, and which the Colonel found to be the occasion of the distemper called the gapes, so fatal to these useful tenants of the poultryyard. The knowledge of the true cause of this malady, will, it is hoped, soon be followed by the discovery of a specific cure: in the mean time, a very simple popular remedy is employed in Devonshire: the meat of the chicks (barley or oat meal) is merely mixed up with urine, in place of water, and this prescription is very generally attended with the best effects.

Monthly Memoranda in Natural

History.

Aug. 1.-5. FROM the 1st to the

5th of the month, a great deal of rain has fallen; so that, on this last day, the rivers near Edinburgh have, in several places, risen above their banks, and flooded the low grounds.

15. The rain has now continued, with some intervals of sunshine, for nearly three weeks. Much of the hay-crop remaining on the field is already deeply injured, the ricks, in many cases, having become green, from

the vegetation of the seeds on their rotted surface. The corn-crops are not, it is said, materially damaged.

August 19. After two or three fine warm days, the wheat and barley harvest is seriously begun. This is more, early than the average date of our commencing to reap in this neighbourhood.

25. The weather continuing excellent, the harvest is become general, and it promises to be abundant,

FISH-MARKET.-A good many of the Newhaven fishers having, during this month, withdrawn themselves to the coast of Caithness for a time, to share in the profits of the rich herringfishery at present existing there, the supply of white fish in the Edinburgh market has been unusually deficient. At the same time, the Good Town has been deprived of the labours of the trawl-net fishers from England; for these, it seems, have been paid off and dismissed, the returns of the fishery not promising to be sufficient to cover even the ordinary expences which must necessarily have been incurred in continuing the experiment. In a former number of this Magazine, while we announced the experiment, and gave due credit to the society of gentlemen who projected and conducted it, for the goodness of their motives, we abstained from making any remarks that might have tended to disparage the plan they had adopted,— which we always, indeed, considered as a bad one, but from which we un

derstood they could not then easily resile. Among fishermen'in general, we should think it desirable that their reward should be made to depend in some measure on their diligence and success, on the proceeds of the fish sent to market. The English trawlnet fishers, however, (if we be not misinformed,) were sure of their money, fish or no fish!" We trust we may now, without impropriety, submit to the society, whether it is not at least probable that fishers, encouraged

by

by them, but depending partly on their own exertions, would not have sent more targoes to market in the same space of time? perhaps four in the week, in place of two? or whether, where six pairs of soles were taken, it is not probable that double diligence might have produced twelve pairs? In any future attempts, theretore, we hope that this principle, of connecting the interest of the fishers with the success of the fishery, will not be overlooked. And we beg leave further to suggest to the society, that fishermen, every way qualified for the trawl-net and well-smack fishery, are to be found on the shores of our own frith, and that, by encouraging these, every beneficial purpose may be attained, without running any risk of again exciting that jealousy and discontent which the late employment of strangers did not fail to create. We have yet to learn that there is any great mystery in this mode of fishing; and, at any rate, there are, (we are told,) many fishers inhabiting the coast towns of the frith, who have formerly seen and practised it. Our own men must be better acquainted with the fishing-grounds in the mouth of the frith, and would probably procure greater quantities of saleable fish, and be much less incommoded with shoals of sea-dogs, drift ware, &c. than strangers to the nature of the bottom. The cod, ling, and mackrel fishery, might, by the encouragement of such a society, be also much improved and promoted. Edinburgh, Aug. 25th, 1808.

N.

Memoirs of the Progress of MANUFACTURES, CHEMISTRY, SCIENCE, and the FINE Arts.

MR. RR. KNIGHT has published a description of a new Eudiometer lately made on the suggestion of Mr Davy, for the more commodious dis

play of the formation of water by the combustion of oxygen and hydrogen gas, by means of the electric spark.The instrument consists of a strong cylindrical glass tube to receive the gases, open at the lower end, of the capacity of two cubic inches, and graduated into decimal parts; and a stand to which the tube is attached by a clasp and screw, and of a strong iron cylinder, containing a strong spiral spring, on the principle of the pocket steel-yard, the spindle or central bar of which is fixed on three feet, in order that it may be firmly secured on the side of a mercurial bath, with the mouth of the tube immerged in quicksilver. By this arrangement, the sudden and violent expansion, which takes place at the moment of the combustion of the gases, is relieved by the elasticity of the spring, which, by yielding, allows the glass tube to be heaved up a little way, without being driven from its situation. The success of the experiment is thus secured; and all danger of accident to the apparatus is effectually prevented.

It has been asserted by most writers and experimentalists, that silver burns with a bright emerald green light. In Mr Davy's late lectures at the Royal Institution, the deflagration of silver leaf was attended by the emission of a brilliant white light, which the professor ascribed to the great purity of the silver employed; and he expressed an opinion that the green flame, usually observed, arose from the admixture of copper with the silver. Mr G. B. Singer has, however, discovered that this phenomenon proceeds from a different cause. Having observed that Mr Davy's conducting wires were terminated by charcoal, he repeated the experiment with a similar arrangement; and applying the charcoal to pure silver leaf, it immediately burned with a beautiful white light. Some of the same portion of silver having been before employed when the green flame

wa

was produced; it became evident that the white light in this and in Mr Davy's experiment proceeded from the charcoal; and that this was really the case, appeared from the immediate evolution of green light when the contact was made by a metallic wire.By the application of charcoal to the extremity of a wire, so bent that either the wire or the charcoal may touch the silver at pleasure, the white and the green flame may be alternately produced; and a conclusive demonstration of the fact, with a pleasing variation of a brilliant experiment, will be thus at once afforded.

M. RITTER, a member of the academy of Munich, has lately been engaged in the investigation of a new instrument which possesses the remarkable property of being affected by the smallest degrees of electricity. His object was to account for the marvellous circumstances ascribed to the divining rod, as it was called, and to refer them to the electric fluid. His instrument is nothing more than a small bar of metal, which he places in equilibrium, on the end of one of his fingers, commonly the longest finger of the left hand, holding this vertical, and shutting the others, The bar is so placed, that one end is next to the person who holds it, and the other pointing directly from him. This instrument, which M. Ritter calls the balance, varies by position, by contact of metals, or other substances, by the person holding it, and even by the contact of persons holding by the hand, for instance, the one who is making the experiment. In some cases the approach of the hand towards objects affects the instrument; but actual contact is more efficacious. M. Bitter is engaged in the examination of these variations, which are more perceptible with some persons than others.

M. PLANCHE has found that, in the making of amber varnish, a consider

able quantity of succinic acid, which no one has ever before thought of turning to any useful purpose, is emitted. This he proposes to collect, and asserts from experiments made by himself, that every matrass containing twenty-four ounces, will furnish eighty or ninety grains of acid, without any injury to the quality of the varnish. For taking off this acid, he has invented a kind of tin spoon, differing from others in the form of its bowl, which is but little concave; the front of it forming a segment of a circle, and adapted to the size of the matrass. From the observations of M. Planche, it appears that varnish-makers, without any alteration in their processes or apparatus, may collect a considerable quantity of succinic acid, which has hitherto been confined to medical uses, but may soon be found beneficial in other arts. Various trials which he has made, give him reason to think that its solution in alcohol may be employed to imitate the colour of some valuable woods.

The following very remarkable fact relative to the fecundating principle of the palm date-tree, is attested by M. Michaux. This naturalist travelled in Persia, when several usurpers were in arms contending for portions of that vast empire, The different parties alternately victorious, in order the more speedily to reduce the inhabitants of the provinces into which they penetrated, burned all the male-date trees. The most dreadful famine would have desolated these unhappy countries, had not the Persians taken the precaution to preserve a great quantity of the pollen of the antheræ, for the purpose of fecundating the female individuals. This observation proves, that the dust of the date-tree preserves its fecundating property for a long time; for it appears that they kept it eighteen years without its having lost this virtue.

A

A Journey through the HIGHLANDS and WESTERN ISLES, in the Summer of 1804.—In a Series of Letters to a Friend.

BY THE ETTRICK SHEPHERd.
Letter II.

DEAR SIR,

AM, in these letters to you, always studying brevity, and as constantly running into the opposite extreme. I will be obliged to quit this epistolary way of communicating my sentiments to you altogether, as it hath no fixed boundary or limitation, and send you whole essays, or tours, in a parcel with the carrier.

“In my last, I was got no farther than Hamilton, which is a neat, elegant little town; and much beautified, as well as benefited, by the immediate vicinity of the mansion-house, and the attachment of the Dukes of Hamilton to the place from whence they draw their title. We set out in the mail coach at eight o'clock, and, in a short time, found ourselves at the Saracen's Head, in the city of Glasgow. This is a very cheap conveyance, being only two shillings inside, and the distance full nine miles. We flew too fast over this track for me to describe it particularly; for though we asked abundance of questions at the passengers, yet the quick succession of objects rendered it impossible for the memory to retain any traces so distinct as to be depended on.

"It is true, we failed not to be continually pushing our heads out at the side-windows, and to pretend a deep interest in the appearance of the crops on the different soils; and were very attentive to impress upon others a deep sense of our importance and skill as farmers; and made many turn up the white o' th' eye to our discourse; who, if they had seen our own fields at home, would have been capitally convicted of the difference betwixt August 1808.

theory and practice. We also, very kindly, endeavoured to entertain our fellow travellers with appropriate remarks on the infallibility of the turnip husbandry succeeding to a miracle on such lands, and of its infinite superiority to their present modes of agriculture unfortunately none of us could authenticate it, by an appeal to the abundant profits which we ourselves had reaped from that excellent plan.

:

At Glasgow, we tarried no longer than to breakfast, and call upon one of our countrymen; and the morning coaches being all gone, we took our passage for Greenock in the flyboat. It is not easy to conceive any thing of the same nature more delightful than was our passage down the river that day. There was a brisk breeze from the south; the atmosphere was pure and light after the rain, and objects discernible with perspicuity at a great distance; and tho' the vessel run with unusual velocity, yet, so smooth and steady was the motion, that we were obliged to call in the aids of philosophy to convince us that we were not quite stationary; and that the mountains, rocks, towns, and villages, were not all flying away like chaff before the wind.

"We were landed safely on the quay at Greenock in less than three hours from the time we left Glasgow; and Mr G. not being arrived, we took up our lodgings in Park's tavern.That evening we spent in Mr Park's family, whom I mentioned to you last year, very much to our satisfaction.— Mr James received us with the affection of a brother, and favoured us much with his company during our stay; a favour that was equally coveted by us all, it being impossible to carry on a conversation with him without receiving information, let the topic be what it will.

"Mr G. joining us next day, we walked out and viewed the environs

of