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stone, and formed columns out of it.-Silli

man's Journal.

A paper, by M. Fleurian de Bellevue, was read to the academy of sciences last year, on meteoric stones, and particularly on those which fell near Jonzac, in the department of Charente. This paper is long, and contains much and minute investigation of those appearances, which accompanying these pheno mena, afford the only means of ascertaining their real nature. We shall, probably, take an opportunity of abstracting and condensing this paper; in the mean time the following conclusions are presented as those drawn by

M. Bellevue.

1. The appearances presented by the crust of meteorolites seem to prove that their surface has been fused whilst rapidly traversing the flame of the meteor, and rapidly solidified into a vitreous state on leaving that flame.

2. They prove that in the first moments the movement of the meteorolites was simple, that is, that they did not turn round on their own axis whilst those two effects took place.

3. That the impulse each meteorolite has received has almost always been perpendicular to its largest face.

4. That the largest face is almost always more or less convex.

5. Our meteorolites (those of Jonzac) offer new proofs of the pre-existence of a solid nucleus to bolides or meteors.

This nucleous could not contain the combustible matter which produces the inflammation of the meteor.

7. It cannot have suffered fusion during the appearance of the phenomena.

8. The gaseous matter which surrounds this nucleus is dissipated without producing any solid residuum. No trace of this matter appears ever to exist in the crust of the meteorolites.

9. Meteorolites are fragments of those nuclei which have not been altered in their nature, but simply vitrified at their surfaces.

10. Many of the irregular forms which these fragments present may be referred to determine geometric forms.

11. These latter forms are the consequence of the rapid action of a violent fire, according to a law of the movement of heat in solid bodies, discovered by M. Emer.-Brande's

Journal.

A new Determination of the Proportions of the Constituents of Water; and the Density of certain Elastic Fluids, has been made by M. M. BERZELIUS and DULONG.

From the mean of three experiments it appears that 100 parts by weight of oxygen unite with 12,488 of hydrogen to produce water; which is equivalent to 88.9 per cent. of oxygen, with 11.1 of hydrogen. Whereas the number formerly assumed as the proportion of hydrogen to 100 of oxygen, is 13.27 instead of 12.488, which makes a difference of nearly a twelfth part.

The following are the results of the specific gravities of the gases according to these exMONTHLY MAG. No. 360.

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Dr. HENRY of Manchester concludes a long Essay on the aëriform compounds of charcoal and hydrogen as follows:

1. That carburetted hydrogen gas must still be considered as a distinct species, requiring for the perfect combustion of each volume two volumes of oxygen, and affording one volume of carbonic acid; and that if olefiant gas be considered as constituted of one atom of charcoal united with one atom of hydrogen, carburetted hydrogen must consist of one atom of charcoal in combination with two atoms of hydrogen.

2. That there is a marked distinction between the action of chlorine on olefiant gas, (which in certain proportions, is entirely independent of the presence of light, and is attended with the speedy condensation of the two gases into chloric ether,) and its relation to hydrogen, carburetted hydrogen, and carbonic oxide gases, on all of which it is inefficient, provided light be perfectly excluded from the mixture,

3. That since chlorine, under these circumstances, condenses olefiant gas without acting on the other three gases, it may be employed in the correct separation of the former from one or more of the three latter. 2 Y

4. That

4. That the gases evolved by heat from coal and from oil, though extremely uncertain as to the proportions of their ingredients, consist essentially of carburetted hydrogen, with variable proportions of hydrogen and carbonic oxide; and that they owe, moreover, much of their illuminating power to an elastic fluid, which resembles olefiant gas in the property of being speedily condensed by chlorine.

5. That the proportion of oil gas and coal gas, which chlorine thus converts into a liquid

form, does not precisely agree with olefiant gas in its other properties; but requires, for the combustion of each volume, nearly two volumes of oxygen more than are sufficient for saturating one volume of olefiant gas, and affords one additional volume of carbonic acid. It is probably, therefore, either a mixture of olefiant gas with a heavier and more combustible gas or vapour, or a new gas sui generis, consisting of hydrogen and charcoal in proportions that remain to be determined.

BRITISH LEGISLATION.

ACTS PASSED in the FIRST YEAR of the REIGN of GEORGE THE FOURTH, or in the SECOND SESSION of the SEVENTH PARLIAMENT of the UNITED KINGDOM.

CAP. LI. To explain an Act made in

the Fourteenth Year of His late Majesty King George the Third, for explaining an Act made in the Twelfth Year of Queen Anne, intituled, An Act to reduce the Rate of Interest, without any Prejudice to Parliamentary Secu

rities.

Securities made in Great Britain to be as valid as if made in the Country where the Property affected is situate.

CAP. LII. To improve the Land Revenues of the Crown, and of His Majesty's Duchy of Lancaster, and for making Provisions and Regulations for the better Management thereof.

I. Commissioners of His Majesty's Woods, Forests, and Land Revenues, empowered to grant Leases of Crown Lands within the Survey of the Exchequer, for the Terms and subject to the Restrictions directed by former Acts.

IV. The Commissioners of Woods, &c. empowered to make Exchanges of Freehold Estates for partial or chattel Interests of equal value in other Estates, the Reversion whereof is or shall be in the Crown.

IX. Lessees of the New Theatre in the Haymarket empowered to erect a Portico.

X. Commissioners of His Majesty's Woods, &c. empowered to authorize Lessees to make Gateways into King Street and Vine Street.

XI. Houses built in the New Street, in the Parish of St. James, Westminster, as are situated on the Site of the old Street, exonerate from Land Tax.

CAP. LIII. To regulate the Proceedings in the Civil Side of the Court of King's Bench, and also in the Court of Common Pleas, and in the Pleas or Common Law Side of the Court of Exchequer in Ireland.

I. No Fees shall be taken by the Officers of the Courts, except Tipstaffs, &c. under Schedule, Penalty 5001.

CAP. LIV. To regulate the Office of Clerk of Assize or Nisi Prius, or Judge's Registrar, in Ireland.

I. Clerks of Nisi Prius shall not take any Fees or Recompence for performing the Duties of their Office, except according to this Act.

CAP. LV. To remove Doubts as to the Amount of Stamp Duties to be paid on Deeds and other Instruments, under the several Acts in Great Britain and Ireland respectively.

III. Nothing in this Act to affect Duties on Bills of Exchange.

CAP. LVI. To amend an Act, passed in the Twenty-second Year of His late Majesty, for the better Relief and Employment of the Poor.

I. Power given to Guardians to sell Poor Houses and Lands.

II. A competent Part of the Money arising from every such Sale shall be applied in defraying the Expences attending the Sale, and in or towards discharging any Incumbrances affecting the said Workhouse, or other Houses, Tenements, and Buildings, Outhouses, Offices, Yards, Gardens, Orchards, Lands, and Grounds respectively, and any Debts which may have been contracted by the Guardians, or Visitor and Guardians of such Parish, Township, or Place, or united Parishes, Townships, or Places respectively, by way of Charge on the Poors' Rates or otherwise; and the Residue of any such Money shall be paid by such Guardians, or Visitor and Guardians, to the Churchwardens and Overseers for the Time being of such Parish, Township, or Place, or several united Parishes, Townships, or Places respectively, in the like Shares or Proportions as they contributed towards the Purchase or Erection of the Workhouse, or

other Houses, Tenements, and Buildings, Outhouses and Offices, Yards, Gardens, Orchards, Lands, and Grounds respectively, which shall be so sold, and be applied by such Churchwardens and Overseers of the Poor respectively, as Part of the Rates to be collected for the Relief of the Poor of the same Parish, Township, or Place, or several Parishes, Townships, or Places respectively.

CAP.

CAP. LVII. To amend an Act, made in the Fiftieth Year of the Reign of His late Majesty King George the Third, relating to Prisons in Ireland.

I. Grand Jury of Three Grand Jurymen empowered to visit all Country Prisons, and examine how far the Regulations under 50 Geo. 3. c. 103. &c. are complied with, and in case of any Misconduct report to Lord Lieutenant or the Grand Jury at the Assizes, &c.

II. Keepers, Inspectors and Officers of Prisons shall attend and answer all En. quiries of the Grand Jury.

III. Poor Prisoners shall be supplied with Food and Necessaries at the Public Expence.

IV. Money for providing such Food and Necessaries shall be raised by Presentment.

V. Inspector shall prepare Dieting Table of Provisions for poor Prisoners, to be approved by Three Grand Jurymen or Justices of Peace; and Provisions shall be distributed according to such Table, under Regulation of 50 Geo. 3. c. 103.

VIII. Lord Lieutenant to appoint Two Inspectors General of Prisons.

IX. Counties to be apportioned into Two Circuits, the Prisons of which shall be visited yearly by an Inspector General.*

X. Reports of Inspectors General to be laid before the Grand Juries at the Spring

and Summer Assizes.

XII. Inspectors General to make out Lists of Prisons, &c. within their Circuit.

XIII. Returns to be made yearly of the State of the Prisons, at the Office of the Chief Secretary, and laid before Parlia

ment.

* How much such regulations are wanted in Great Britain.

A

XIV. Inspector General shall visit every Prison, &c. once in Two Years.*

XV. Penalty on Inspector General for False Returns, 5001. and Loss of Office.

XVIII. Book to be kept in each Prison, in which Member of Grand Jury and Inspector, &c. shall enter Observations.

XX. Grand Jury may appoint Matrons, &c. for Gaols, to be paid by Presentment. XXI. Grand Juries to appoint Houses of Correction in Prisons, and Keepers.

XXIV. Poor Prisoners shall be kept to Work under Orders of Board of Superintendance, &c.

XXV. Tools, &c. shall be provided by Presentment.

XXVI. Poor Prisoner shall have One Third of his Earnings, and Two Thirds shall be applied to his Maintenance.

XXIX. Grand Juries (except in Dublin) may appoint not less than Six nor more than Twelve Persons, One Third being Justices or Grand Jurymen, to be a Board of Superintendance of the Goals within the County.

XXXIV. Notice to be put up in every Prison that Fees are abolished.

This act, if benevolently executed, will be the means of extricating thousands from gross oppression, and we heartily congratulate the country on the parliamentary feeling which passed ment adopted in England, where the it, and hope to see a similar arrangegoals are full of persons who would forthwith be enlarged if their cases were known, and reported by liberal-minded inspectors. The laws are not only harsh, but they are indiscriminate, and those who exercise them are too much used to the employment, and by use their feelings become blunted.

* Too seldom, it ought to be every 4 months.

NEW BOOKS PUBLISHED IN OCTOBER,
With an HISTORICAL and CRITICAL PROEMIUM.

Authors or Publishers desirous of seeing an early notice of their Works, are requested to transmit copies before the 18th of the Month.

N elegant and highly interesting vo

lume has appeared on the Kit Kat Club. It contains engraved portraits from the pictures or their copies by Faber, with memoirs and anecdotes of the several parties. The engravings might have been better executed, but the literary part of the volume exhibits great taste and extensive research. Indeed we have seldom met with a book which has gratified us by a greater variety of curious and amusing literary and historical anecdote. The editor is severe on Tonson, and on booksellers generally, and dwells on the profits de

rived from authors of celebrity and established works; forgetting that every publisher has five blanks for one prize, and that the latter must be made to balance the former, or the bookseller become insolvent. It is probable that Tonson gained ten times more by his government appointments than by Dryden, Addison and Pope, and that his profits from these were sunk by his unavoidable speculations with less popular writers. At the same time it must be admitted that publishers, from habit, acquire the same feelings towards their clients, which lawyers, surgeons, and butchers ac

quire towards their professional objects, the Irish Academy, and had appeared in the and while this condition is to be deplored, it cannot well be avoided. The portraits and characters are forty-eight in number; and it appears that this bookseller's club consisted of no less than ten dukes, one marquis, fifteen earls, five other peers, and sixteen knights and gentlemen, all of the first order in power, influence and talent. Such an assemblage must be regarded as a phenomenon, for we are not aware that a cotemporary nobility of treble the number, would furnish half a dozen members willing to associate for purposes merely literary. The epoch in which such a club flourished was, however, the Augustan age of English literature, as well as of aristocratic patriotism; for the members of this club were whig patriots, and if the volume has any drawback, it is in a certain leaven of toryism which too frequently appears in the author's sentiments and selection of anecdotes.

Mr. THOMAS NOBLE, the author of various poetical pieces, chiefly of a national and political character, and occasionally inserted in the public prints, has recently added to them a volume of original poems, not inferior in merit to those that preceded them. We recommend a few passages from our author's epistle "On Political Servility," which if not equal in poetic genius and satiric wit to the more nervous lines of his contemporaries, at least display sense and principle.

"But while a nation sinks in want and woe,
Shall their oppressors no distresses know?
Yes, these shall feel;-for thro' the social chain
Flies, like the electric shock, contagious pain,
When misery palsies labour's strenuous hand,
And the hind sickens on the uncultured land,
And pale mechanics stand in groups around,
Listening in vain the loom's or mallet's sound,
While babes and mothers ask the scanty meal,
And gaze despairing on the idle wheel."

Epistle on Poilical Servility, p. 161. Without pretending to claim for Mr. Noble any very high station among the best poets of the day, we may safely allow him the qualities of good sense, taste and feeling, which he generally succeeds in embodying and colouring in language, if not highly imaginative and forcible, at least always sensible and clear.

Mr. ACKERMANN proceeds with his elegant series called the World in Miniature. He has just published in six small volumes the part on Turkey, and in regard to this empire, we have not a more complete or correct account in the language. It contains the history of the empire brought down to the present time, with local descriptions of its extensive provinces, and particulars of the manners of their inhabitants. The plates are copied from a Parisian work with spirit, and very neatly coloured.

An Enquiry concerning the Primitive Inhabitants of Ireland has been published by DR. WOOD. It was a prize Essay of

Transactions of that distinguished body. Such a volume tends to set at rest some doubts of the learned, relative to the antiquity of the Irish nation, and of its origin in Galician emigration; but Dr. W. has not had access to the most ancient sources, and the world must wait for the genuine chronicles about to be published by Mr. Roger O'Connor, whose materials are much superior to the monkish legends so successfully exposed by Dr. Wood. The volume is illustrated by Ptolemy's curious and original map of Erin, itself a singular relic of ancient geography, and worthy of a place in such a work. If Dr. W. has not countenanced many vulgar prejudices relative to the Irish, he has not done justice to the subject by rejecting the authority of the early native historians and bards, for we are satisfied that the true history of ancient Ireland is only to be found in the Phoenician language.

We have been heartily entertained by A Dialogue between St. George and St. Denis; stated to have been overheard and published by Mr. Hugh Melros, which sounds to us something like a "nom de guerre." It has so much comic, heroic and satiric excellence throughout, that we cannot prevail upon ourselves to believe that it belongs to a name so entirely new, as far as we know, to the "world of rhyme." This amusing conversation of the patron saints of France and England, is humourously observed hy the author, to have occurred on ship-board, in his passage from Dieppe; and as it took quite a national and political turn, naturally awakened the attention of our passenger. The saints returning from a tour to each other's country, meet in crossing over the channel, and instead of giving battle, like our own more earthly saints belonging to Calvin, Luther or Wesley, they agree to perch quietly together on the shrouds, and talk over what they have seen and heard.

"

The vessel is suddenly becalmed-the author hears "their whispering plumes,' and apprehensive of some saint or being of the sky:

"Yes, to our thought a voice replying,

Allayed our doubts and closed our search,
Two genii wearied out with flying
Would gladly on your rigging perch,
St. George myself-I'm rather faint
With such a passage thro' the clouds,
And Denys is the other saint-

Be seated Denys, on the shrouds."
Here a very animated description of the
tour of the respective saints begins-each
zealous, of course, for the honour of his coun-
try, and sadly disappointed with his visit
to the other's. The prejudices and follies
of both, contrasted, are well hit off-there
is some good joking and good national an-
tipathies brought in; the political changes
and innovations are particularly well told,
and the humorous gravity with which

each

each argues in support of worthless laws and customs, while he exposes those of his rival is truly amusing. The peculiar genius and excellencies of the saints, with the character of the people they patronize are altogether well preserved. There is also "much food for thought," delivered in no unpoetical language, both for travellers and statesmeu; while the general reader cannot fail to be entertained with its satire or its wit.

We have waded through a Treatise on Cataract by PHILIP DE LA GARDE, without being able to discover a single fact or opinion new to the opthalmia surgeon; the nature of this disease, however, is so well understood, and its several operations and their respective merits have been so clearly elucidated in the treatises previously before the public, that much novelty could not have been expected. We were surprised to find in the author's enumeration of the species of this disease, that black cataract was excluded; but our amazement was still greater, when, in the progress of the work, we were informed that it was the antient name for amaurosis, in a manner which implies his disbelief of its existence. The surgeons of former times did, in fact, confound the one disease with the other; but that the existence of black cataract as an affection of the chrystallinelens is wholly distinct from paralysis of the optic nerve, we know from actual observation. birth of the performance is explained as being the substance of two essays written for a society of students. When Mr. De la Garde is a few years older, he will probably have learned that a performance may be respectable and useful for the purpose of exciting discussion among hospital pupils, and absolute lumber in company with the works of Scarpa, Hey, Ware and others of the same stamp. If the author should meditate any fresh flights, we recommend him to avoid egotism, of which he has given us an unpardonable specimen. When his opinions, by an unlucky fatality, seem to be copied from Ware or Sir W. Adams, he tells us with unexampled sang-froid, that their opinions are the same as his!

The

On Sir RICHARD PHILLIPS's Twelve Essays, we forbear, for obvious reasons, to make any observations, except that at least three fourths of the volume of six hundred pages are perfectly original, and that a quantity equal to the other fourth, has at sundry times been presented to the public through this miscellany. The work embodies and systematizes the theory of motion, and extends the doctrine to atomic phenomena of every kind. It contains also many calculations, demonstrations and applications altogether new.

A small anonymous tract, entitled a Phisiological Essay on the sensibility of Animals, is intended to shew that sensibility

is the result of the combined action of the arterial and nervous system. That a nervous fluid is elicited in the operation of the artery upon the nerve, and such fluid has the property of restraining chemical affinities; that heat is evolved during its elicitation, and the blood passes through the lungs and is exposed to the air in a large surface to part with its superabundant heat.

The lovers of genuine poetry will be highly gratified by the perusal of a volume from the pen of Mr. DAVID CAREY, entitled the Lord of the Desert, Sketches of Scenery foreign and domestic, Odes and other Poems. The first piece contains an Arabian tale of deep interest, and many fine and poetical delineations of oriental manners. The sketches of foreign scenery are highly picturesque; the view from Mont Martre in particular, in the neighbourhood of Paris, is unquestionably the most spirited and accurate description we have seen given of any foreign landscape. The lyrical effusions are equally entitled to our commendation.

The second series of Sketches from St. George's Fields, by GIORGIONE DI CASTEL CHIUSO, is executed with unabated spirit and ability; and, from the intelligence, poetical powers, and good feeling evinced by the author, gives us reason to regret that he should ever have been in a situation to delineate such scenery with such expressive colours. To depict human life as it is found within those precincts, the artist should possess a deep and affectionate sympathy with human infirmities and sufferings, which are often most keenly felt when the gesture or the speech assumes an air of levity. This requisite the author possesses, and while we read and are highly amused with his ludicrous images and descriptions, thoughts of a more serious nature arise in our minds, and leave behind them impressions both salutary and lasting. As a specimen of the grave powers of Giorgione, we may instance the highly-wrought description of the death of the maniac, which equals in horror any thing we recollect; and, in his lighter vein, he is very happy in the story of the Three Bolters, which is touched in the true spirit of Border minstrelsy. But in the midst of his mirth, the bard seems ready

"To smite his breast and rush aside,

The tears he cannot check to hide;" and there is a gall and bitterness in his highest glee which suit well with his subject, and give the author and his work almost a painful interest in our feelings.

The first number of a work has lately appeared, entitled, Denmark Delineated; or, Sketches of the present State of that Country; illustrated with Portraits, Views, and other engravings, from drawings by eminent Danish artists. The work

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