} 25 { Roget, Turner.

SECTION D.-ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY,
Subjects.

Sams voted. Directors. 27. Experimental Inquiry into the Growth of Plants

under glass, and excluded from air, on the plan 25 Henslow.

of Mr. Ward. 28. Report on the present State of Knowledge on Ichthyology.

Yarrell.

}

SECTION E.-MEDICINE, 29. Investigation of the Anatomical Relations of Veins

} 50 Former Committee. and Arteries. 30. Investigation of the Motions and Sounds of the

} 50 Heart.

Former Committee, 31. Inquiry into the Chemical Constitution of the Se

creting Organs. 32. Inquiry into the Physiological Influence of Cold in

| 25 King. the Arctic Regions on Man and other Animals. 33. Investigation of the Effects of Poisons on the Ani

} 25 Hodgkin, Roupell. mal Economy.

Adams, Carmichael, 34. Investigation into the Pathology of the Brain and

25 Nervous System.

Green, Macdonald,

O’Beirne, Smith. 35. Investigation of the Physiology of the Spinal Broughton, Cock,

25 Nerves.

Harpey. SECTION F.-Statistics. 36. Inquiry into the actual State of Schools in England,

Hallam, considered with regard to numerical analysis 150 Porter, only.

Sykes.
SECTION G.-MECHANICAL SCIENCE.
37. Analysis of the Reports of the Duty of Steam-

Cubitt, Rennie,
Engines in Cornwall.

Taylor. 38. Report on the various Methods of Printing which

Taylor. have been proposed for the Use of the Blind.

Rejected by the Revising Committee. Application to the East India Company and the Board of Control, for an accurate

Census of the British Possessions in Bengal, &c.

} 50 {

{

Philanthropic Deposit.

mitous and fatal results."—(See History

of Fossil Fuel, the Collieries and Coal “ I FEEL it to be a public duty, to Trade, 1835, p. 249, &c.) make known an act of Mr. Buddle, The dictates of humanity which which will entitle him to the gratitude prompt us to aid in the preservation of of posterity, and has set an example human life, no less tha the economical which, if generally followed, will save view of rendering available, at a future the lives of thousands of unfortunate time, the residuary portions of our beds miners, that must otherwise perish for of coal, which will not now repay the want of information, which can, at this cost of extracting them, should induce time, be easily recorded for their pre- all proprietors, and other persons conservation. This eminent Engineer and nected with coal-mines, and especially Coal Viewer has presented to the Na- engineers and coal-viewers, to leave to tural History Society of Newcastle, their successors a legacy, which will be copies of his most important plans and to them precious, by preserving minute sections, accompanied by written docu- and exact records of the state of the ments, of the under-ground workings coal in their respective districts. It can, in the collieries near that town, in which however, scarcely be expected, that all those spaces are carefully noted from such measures will be generally and whence the coal has been removed. systematically adopted throughout the The sudden irruption of water into a many coal-fields of this country, unless mine adjacent to such reservoirs, is the subject be legislatively taken up by occasionally attended with most cala- | those official persons, whom it behoves, as guardians of the future welfare of of an intermediate part of the arc of the nation, to institute due measures, the meridian, measured by Delambre whilst the opportunities exist, for pre- and Méchain. It was too much to exventing that loss of life and property, pect that a Frenchman, at such a mowhich a little attention bestowed in sea- ment, could have gone further, and son will preserve to posterity:-(BUCK- stated the consequences of the error. LAND, Bridgewater Treatise, 1836.) It was an act of heroism in him to have

mentioned it at all,—to have dared to Return of Rain-Water to the Sea. point out the slightest spot on the

blaze of French glory, which it was his One third only of the water which duty to exhibit to all present. But we falls in rain, within the basin of the Seine, tlows by that river into the sea ; who detected and honestly exposed the

suppose the inflexible geometrician, the remaing two-thirds either return error, was present; and reluctant as M. into the atmosphere by evaporation, or go to the support of vegetable and ani- Dụpin must have been, to have touched

a jarring chord in the feelings of such mal life, or find their way into the sea

men as M M. Biot and Arago; he perby subterranean passages.-(ARAGO. Ånnuaire, par le Bureau des Longi. He did not, however, state, as he might

haps felt it was impossible to avoid it. tudes, 1835.)

have done, that the error has had the

effect of vitiating the correctness of the Immutability of the Nature of Light.

modern French unit of weight and “ We learn from the resemblance of measure,—the celebrated Metre. these most ancient organizations* to The length assigned to this measure existing eyes, that the mutual relations by the Academy, and sanctioned by of light to the eye, and of the eye to law, is now found to be somewhat too light, were the same at the time when little. A quantity, it is true, not large crustaceans, endowed with the faculty enough to be of any consequence in the of vision, were first placed at the bottom ordinary concerns of life, but enough to of the primæval seas, as at the present be appreciable by the eye in the metre moment." --(BUCKLAND, Bridgewater itself, and extremely annoying to maatise, 1836.)

thematicians and geometricians who

consider that as false which is not Valuable Acid for Engravers. rigorously true.

The enunciation of the error produced, M. DELESCHAMPS has written to the Académie des Sciences that he has ac

as might be expected, a most lively complished the solution of the following

sensation in the Academy, particularly problem, for every kind of biting acids

as two of its most eminent living mememployed in engraving. To obtain a

bers, MM. Biot and Arago, had been clean and deep line, without sensibly with the continuation southwards of the

members of the commission intrusted enlarging the furrow in ordinary en.

M. Puissant, graving, and without eating away the measurement of the arc. sides of the subject in engraving in

a most able geometrician, who had had relief. He uses a composition of ace

for some years the scientific superintate of silver, and hydrate of nitrous tendence of the grand national map of ether. Immediately after the contact, Nouvelle Description Géométrique de

the French territory, and author of the the acetate is precipitated into the lower la France, brought the subject before part of the furrow, where it produces a rapid and energetic action. The upper "A new determination of the length of

the Academy by reading a notice entitled parts of the furrow are occupied by the the arc of the meridian, comprised benitrous ether, and preserved by its

tween Montjouy and Formentera, expresence.

hibiting the incorrectness of the length Error in the Length of the French

as given in La Base du Système métrique

décimal." Metre.

The general triangulation of France In the discourse of the Baron C. Dupin being necessarily connected with the on the recent progress of mathematics triangles of the Dunkirk meridian, and in France f. He noticed the correction actually united to it by seven bases, * Trilobites.

1767

presented an opportunity of again com- | according to a method, which necessarily paring the bases of Melun and Per introducing different combinations, as pignan. In the long reticulation of necessarily gave additional confidence triangles which separates these bases, on the results. At a subsequent sitting, some are favourably disposed, and were when M. Puissant, in proceeding, stated advantageously substituted, in the line that he now, by a mode of calculation between the forest of St. Croix and peculiar to himself, found that an Bourges, for those of the meridian of increase of 57 toises was necessary in Dunkirk. Now, this new comparison, that part of the meridional arc which so far from confirming the well-known crossed the triangulation of the astronoand, probably, accidental agreement* mers of the commission, it was asked of these two bases, did on the contrary, by M M. Arago and Biot, “ whether the exhibit a very great discrepancy; for error lay on the side of the three calcuthe base of Perpignan calculated from lators, or did it result from the new that of Melun differed im ·82, (about formula ? If it could be possible that 5.3 English feet,) from the actual ad- each of these three calculators could measurement.

have made each separately an error of This unexpected difference, which, the same quantity, was it not also posthere is now no reason to doubt, produced sible that this newly-introduced formula a necessity of correcting the length of might not be quite exact ? And,” say the arc of the meridian obtained by MM. Arago and Biot, “as the works Delambre, and which was employed con- relative to the determination of the currently with that of the equator in metre are not even yet entirely pubthe calculation of the length of the lished, nor definitively settled, we shall Metre, seeing that this unit was defi- again undertake this subject, and then nitively settled to be 3 feet 11 lines 2016 we will scrupulously examine the meof the ancient iron toise of the academy thods employed in the calcution of our taken at 13° of the thermometer of triangles, and on whichever side shall Réaumur. M. Puissant then showed, fall the error of the actual computations, that the true length of the arc of the we shall not hesitate to point it out." meridian, which extends from the pa- M. Puissant, by no means disposed to rallel of Greenwich to that of Formen- accept this promise of future correction, tera, exceeds by 90.2 toises, the length continued to agitate the question with given by Delambre. Consequently, the his scientific colleagues, and after having metre ought to be lengthened the 77 o gone through the calculations by two of a line, or about the sixth of a milli- different methods, and by means of metre t, in order to be precisely, as was tables of geodæsical measures, his first intended, the ten millionth part of the conclusion was confirmed; and he asdistance from the equator to the pole.

serted that there was an error of 57 As MM. Arago and Biot had been toises, (about 1214 English yards) two of the commission for the con- which affected the true meridional dis. tinuation of the project, they naturally tance as calculated by the Bureau des felt that the result announced by M. Longitudes, between Montjouy, and ForPuissant appeared to call the correct- mentera,—" an error," said M. Puissant, ness of their splendid work into question. "which it is important to the interests of To meet the suspicion, the two acade- science to correct, and which can only be micians pointed out to their colleague explained by supposing some mistake that the result published by the com- between the two stations at Morella, mission had been obtained by three which are a very small distance from calculators unknown to each other, and each other, and were required to con

nect Montjouy with the general trian*“On this point,” a French writer gulation." says, an incontestable proof of the accu- Subsequent investigations, made by racy of these observations is, that the base the indefatigable M. Puissant, into of Perpignan, calculated from that of Melun by the chain of triangles which connects every part of his previous labour, and

document on which his calcu

every from the actual admeasurement of the latter, lations were founded, and additional though the interval which separates them repetitions of his calculations, not only is more than 700,000 metres,” (about 435 established the reality of the error, and English miles.)

a

where it occurred. He ascertained that “In 1832, Mr. W. O. Trerelyan reit ought not to be attributed to De cognised coprolitest in the centre of the lambre nor to any of the scientific suc- nodules of clay-ironstone, that abound cessors to him, in that part of the arc in a low cliff composed of strata belongmeasured by them, but that it pro- ing to the coal-formation at Newhaven, ceeded from the circumstance, that the near Leith. I visited the spot with this station of the second order, fixed by gentleman and Lord Greenock, in SepMéchain at Sierra Morella, has, inad- tember, 1834, and found these nodules vertently, been taken for that which he strewed so thickly upon the shore, that had used, at the same place, to form a few minutes sufficed to collect more the triangle Matas-Montjouy-Sierra-Mo- specimens than I could carry; many of rella, (the first of the Table, p. 179, these contained a fossil fish, or fragment Vol. IV., of La Base du Système of a plant, but the greater number had Métrique.) M. Puissant has, in con- for their nucleus a coprolite, exhibiting sequence, assigned to the arc in ques- an internal spiral structure; they were tion a length of 153662.75 toises, and probably derived from voracious fishes, not that of 153605-2, given to it by whose bones are found in the same MM. Bouvard, Mathieu, and Burckhard. stratum, These nodules take a beau

Though it is to be lamented that an tiful polish, and have been applied by error, of the smallest possible account, the lapidaries of Edinburgh to make should have occurred in so important a tables, letter-pressers, and ladies' ornawork, yet it will not be without some ments, under the name of beetle-stones, good effects; it will establish the neces- from their supposed insect origin." sity of the increasing vigilance and un- In spite of their polish and their compromising rigour, so ably urged by beauty, beetle-stones will now, we fear, M. Dupin, in his Discourse before the be irrevocably banished from the toilet Academy*, as imperiously demanded in and the writing-table. Alas! all such operations; and, piqued as the

“Where ignorance is bliss, surviving members of the commission

'Tis folly to be wise.” must be, it will enlist all the personal feelings and gigantic acquirements on

Cold fatal to Barbel. the side of further investigation, so that, eventually, the length of the metre will M. AGAssız has observed that a sudden be determined to the greatest possible depression to the amount of 15°, of the minuteness, and without any chance of temperature of the water in the Glat, future correction ever being found to be which falls into the lake of Zurich, necessary.

caused the immediate death of thousands The method, by the aid of which M. of barbel. Puissant has determined the length of an arc of the meridian, is based upon First Belgian Scientific Congress. the most indisputable principles, and the various applications he has made of The first national association of scienit have demonstrated its simplicity and tific and learned men, in Belgium, met correctness. In using it for the pur- at Liège, on the first of August last. pose referred to, he ascertained that the About 130 members had entered their depression of the terrestrial spheroid, names at the commencement of the generally taken at zog, is only zóī, an session; among them were those of two amount precisely the same as that de- ladies, one a botanist, the other a poetess. duced from the lunar inequalities. M. Caumont, of Caen, the founder of Blissful Ignorance.

+ Fæcal remains, in a state of petrifac

tion, dispersed through the same strata in The ladies of North Britain and others, which the skeletons of some fossil animals admirers of the beetle-stone, and who are buried. frequently select it from their trinket

The state of preservation of these very box, and place it in a conspicuous situa- curious petrified bodies is often so perfect tion on the person, in the shape of a

the scientific congresses of France, was liam Allen, delivered an address on the elected president. The business of the abolition of the slave-trade, and on the congress was, as in other similar national complete emancipation of the negroes. associations, divided into sections; but The second Belgian congress is to be the subjects of inquiry were of far held at Ghent, in September, 1837. greater variety than in the German or the British meetings. At Liège there Bug-destroying made easy. were added to the list, legislation, social M. Fournel, after having in vain economy, agriculture, manufactures, attempted, by every known means, to commerce, history, archæology, philo-destroy the bugs which infested a bedlogy, and literature. Another distinct feature of the Belgian in the room where the bedstead stood, a

stead, happened, accidentally, to place congress was, the preparation of ques- handful of the roots of the narrow-leaved tions on points considered the most desirable to be elucidated. These

pepper-wort, (Lepidium ruderale.) A amounted to about 80: they were printed prised, to find the bugs had entirely dis

short time after, he was greatly surin a programme, and distributed. At the general meetings they were pro- ceived that the insects had attached

On examination, he per

appeared. posed seriatim, and several of them gave themselves in prodigious quantities to rise to discussions of great interest, and pregnant with the most valuable infor- every branch, leaf, and flower of the mation. When it is stated these discus- pepper-wort. The fact is of great imsions did not prevent papers, of great nishes an easy means of attracting these

portance to domestic comfort, as it furinterest, being read at the general assemblies, it will puzzle the visiters of retreats, and consequently of effectu

insects from their generally inaccessible the Bristol session of the British Association, to imagine how so much busi

ally extirpating them. ness could be accomplished. It may Application of Science to Navigationbe useful that they should know that the Belgian philosophers met in section

French Prize-question. at sir o'clock in the morning, and During the time that the Baron C. worked till two. They then rested and Dupin held the office of Minister of the refreshed, and, at four in the afternoon, Marine, in the government of France, met in general assembly. If we sup- he induced the king to offer a reward of pose, as we reasonably may, from the 6000 francs (2401.) for " The work or business done, that the Bureaux were memoir, in which the application of the attentive, the chairmen exact to the mathematical sciences to the art of naappointed hour, and the members punc- vigation shall be carried to the farthest tual, what a contrast shall we have to extent. the blank days, the late hours*,

The term prescribed for the receipt of empty committee-rooms, and the vacant the competing works expires in the enchairs, which were so frequently com- suing month. The decision on their plained of at Bristol !

merits is to be made by the Bureau des One very remarkable circumstance

Longitudes. occurred, and, it is said, commanded the deepest attention of the congress: a New Theodolite for surveying underMiss Anna Knight t, niece of Mr. Wil

ground. • The sectional committees at Bristol rarely met before half-past ten, and it was

M. COMBEs, professor at the Ecole des seldom that a section was in actual opera- Mines, has supplied a deficiency felt by tion till eleven, frequently much later, and, mining engineers, of an instrument for except in one or two of them, “school was subterranean surveying; it is an adaptaup” often before three. This, with “ half- tion to this express purpose of Gambey's day holidays," on Tuesday, Thursday, and theodolite, which was constructed for the Saturday, made a most serious waste of time. French national geodæsic operations.

+ We should think this is, perhaps, an The minutiæ of the construction of M. error, and that it was the ci-devant Miss Combes's Subterranean Theodolite, as Frances Wright (now married to a French he has termed it, would not be intelligentleman, and resident at Paris), the lady gible without a figure; and we notice who made such heroic efforts in this cause in the United States, that addressed the the improvement merely to apprize our

the

9