unequal periods above mentioned; and the honour was reserved for M. Encke of foretelling, for the first time, that his comet would return in May 1822: in the same manner, and on the same principles of elliptical calculations, that the Halley comet was foretold by that astronomer, at its fifth observed return in 1759; and, latterly, the Olbers comet by that astronomer, for its return about 1894. Unfortunately, the last return of the Encke was invisible to European observers; but M. Rumker, resident at Paramatta, in New South Wales, was able to observe it from the 2d to the 23d of June, 1822, in its retreat from the sun; and these observations seem to establish a period of something more than 1204 days, with a mean distance of 2.2244, eccentricity 84472, and inclination of the orbit 13° 20′ 36". Surely these elements well entitle the Encke to a place amongst the planets of our system, rather than its comets; because, although the site of its perliclion lies within the orbit of Mercury, that of its aphelion lies about mid-way between the almost equal orbits of the four new small planets (improperly named after heathen deities, instead of their discoverers,) and the orbit of Jupiter. What is there, under these circumstances, to exclude the Encke from the same rank with Pallas, Vesta, Ceres, and Juno? The boletus igniarius, or tinder fungus, has been observed by Professor EATON to possess the singular property, that, if cut or torn whilst growing, the parts on being replaced unite again in a manner closely analogous to that in which wounds heal in the flesh of animals. Parts of a growing fungus cut off, and having remained separate for two days, united again perfectly, on being affixed in their former situations; and grew as before. A singular spasmodic disease, which much affected the imaginations, as well as the bodily health, of the patients, lately appeared among the work-people at a cotton-factory at Argues, in France; which M. NICOLLE attributes to the inhaling of the gazeous oxide of carbon, produced by the excessive heating of oil in cans, incautiously placed on a cast-iron stove. The lightness of this gas occasioned its ascent to the upper stories, where the disease first showed itself. Capt. SCORESBY has discovered, that the peculiar green colour of some parts of the Polar Seas is owing to myriads of microscopic insects, which serve as food to larger insects called actina sepia, and which in their turn supply the comparatively small stomachs of the enormously large whales, who have long been known to frequent these greenish parts of the ocean, without the cause of their so doing being before known. Artificial Palate.—A silver palate ef a very superior construction was some time ago invented by Mr. A. CLARK, of Grosvenor-strect, a skilful dentist and most ingenious mechanic. The invention fits the parts with the utmost nicety, is worn without pain, and can be taken out or put in by the wearer in the space of a minute. The mechanism by which it is fixed is very ingenious, and yet so simple as to be in no danger of getting out of order. One superiority of this palate consists in its not pressing upon the edges of the defect which it is meant to supply, and thus not augmenting the disease. The use of it in one instance has been attended with the reproduction of a great part of the natural palate; and, in all cases where it has been applied, it has been much approved of both by the wearer and by surgeons of eminence. Instead of securing it to himself by patent, Mr. Clark keeps one by him for public inspection; but he runs no great risk of being deprived of it, as there are very few who, like him, combine an accurate knowledge of the anatomical structure of the mouth with complete dexterity in the working of metals. A common silversmith could not easily be made to understand what to make; and a common surgeon and dentist would not know how to make it. Mr. PERKINS is said, in a paper sent to the Royal Society of London, but which was, through some unexplained cause, not announced to the members at the last meeting previous to the recess, to have stated, that he had effected the liquefaction of atmospheric air, under a pressure equivalent to 1100 atmospheres; that, with other degrees of enormously high-pressure, he had liquefied several other gases; and had also succeeded, by similar means, in crystalizing several liquids, heretofore unknown in a solid state. Temperature of Mines.-The controversy mentioned in p. 531 of our last volume, regarding the evidence afforded by the unusual beat experienced in deep mines, proving or not a central heat within the earth, has continued to rage in Cornwall, and between the Plutonists and Neptunists of Scotland, with unabated fury: but Mr. MATTHEW MILLER has has lately offered an explanation, which bids fair, we think, to set the matter at rest. The mines in which the heat has been great, and found to increase with the depth, are those in which atmospheric air is made to descend in great quantities, and circulate constantly through the workings, before it re-ascend; and it is the condensation which these successive portions of air undergo, in descending so far below their former station, which occasions the evolution of heat, sufficient, in time, to raise the temperature of the adjacent rocks, and the waters percolating through them into the workings. We trust mainly to Mr. Moyle, for giving to Mr. Miller's suggestion the authority of experiments, sufficiently numerous and varied, in the down-cast and in the up-cast shafts of the Cornish deep mines, to end for over the idle controversy alluded to. Doctor HARE and Professor SILLIMAN pursue with ardour in America, their respective experiments on charcoal, on uninflammable coal or anthracite, and on plumbago, which promise to issue in a thorough knowledge of these substances, and of their relations to the diamond, and the manner of the latter's formation. Plumbago, so soft as to be crushed with ease between the thumb and finger, has, by the intense heat of the deflagrator, been melted into globules, vastly harder than any kind of glass. Ice Caves. In the mountain of Rothorn, not far from Thun, Swisserland, at an elevation of about 5500 feet above the level of the sea, the Schaflock or sheep's-hole cavern is situated, in a grey limestone-rock, of great thickness: the mouth of this cavern faces the cast, and is about fifty feet wide and twenty-five feet high, of a rude semi-elliptical shape; but the dimensions within are much greater, and its plan somewhat resembles the letter z. In entering this cave on the 5th of September, when the surrounding air stood at 77° of Farenheit, M. DUFOUR, after passing the first great bend, found that the water dripping from the roof was frozen upon the floor, in a sheet of solid and transparent ice; over which he and his companions found much difficulty to walk and slide to the further end of the cave and back. JOHN HAWKINS Esq. a pupil former ly, and a warm admirer, of the celebrated Werner, in an interesting paper presented to the Cornwall Geological Society, and printed in the second volume of its Transactions, on the nomenclature of the Cornish rocks, speaking of MONTHLY MAG. No. 388. grey-wacks, observes, that the confusion and long continued disputes in geological writings, as to this rock, have originated from considering it (as M. Werner taught) as a derivative one; that is, asserting it to be composed of the disintegrated parts and fragments of clay slate and others of the primitive rocks; or, with Mr. Jameson considering it, as commencing a new geognostic period, when mechanical depositions first began to succeed those of a crystaline character, exclusively; for, observes Mr. H. if this had been the case, nature unquestionably would have left a bold line of distinction between strata, the origin of which had been so essentially different; whereas no such line exists, the transition, locally, of clay-slate into greywacke being often insensible; indicating a mode of deposition, both chemical and mechanical, without being derivative," to be commop to both these rocks; a doctrine which, as Mr. H. says, would exclude grey-wacke as a distinct rockformation, and admit it only as a subordinate, or locally imbedded one. We hail this concession from so zealous a geognost, as the beginning to renounce several other unfounded dogmas of the same school; and hope, for the interest of useful Geological Science, that cre long the mischievously theoretic terms and distinctions of Primitive, Transition, Secondary, &c. will be banished from geological writings, and be succeeded by well-compounded names, expressive of the qualities of rocks or strata, accompanied by the mention of their actual super-position, and of their subposition also whenever attainable, with respect to other defined rocks, in cach district of country described: laying aside, for the present, all theorizing, until the habitable globe has been more generally examined. The killas of Cornwall no-wise differs from the clay-slate of Saxony; its ironstone is chiefly hornblend, and its elvan mostly fire-grained granite, according to solemn decisions of the Freyburg professor himself. Steel.-Amongst the many curious and obscure, yet highly useful, properties of Steel, one, which has long been privately known amongst particular workmen, has lately been brought before the public, in the monthly "Technical Repository;" it is this, that the capacity of heated steel to be hardened, on suddenly cooling it, commences at a precise point or degree of heat, and increases therefrom, accordingly as the heat is increased, through a certain increasing 2 Y range range of temperature: but it has not hitherto been generally known, that from the fixed point above mentioned, a capability for being softened commences and increases through a certain range of decreasing temperature, accordingly as the heat given to the steel falls short of the fixed point, at the instant of being suddenly plunged into water, or otherwise suddenly cooled. In preparing steel articles which require to be planished or hammer-hardened, this discovery proves of important service, by enabling the skilful workmen to heat his steel to the precise proper degree, under that fixed one (where no hardening or softening would ensue, as above mentioned,) and suddenly then to plunge it under water; by which proofs, the steel is found more uniformly and better softened, or annealed, than by any previously known process. Steel-wires or rods, of the various sizes, and under one or two feet lengths, may be preserved perfectly straight in the hardening, by laying them, properly beated, on a thick flat cold plate of iron or other metal, (or, perhaps, a stone might answer,) and immediately rolling another such plate over them, and continuing the rolling operation, until the wires or rods are cold; by which simple means, the unequal cooling, and the consequent warping and setting of the steel, will be prevented; and doubtless, flat plates of steel might by similar means be hardened; using sufficiently large and very flat cooling plates, and adopting the principle of the plate-glass grinder's movements, in moving the upper plate. Mount Vesuvius.-M. HUMBoldt, and M. ROSE, an eminent chemist of Berlin, and M. MONTICELLI and M. COVELLI, all concur in contradicting the assertions of two Neapolitan che mists, that the ashes ejected from Vesuvius in the last great eruption, contain portions of gold and silver. M. Hum boldt has also ascertained, from numerous measurements, that fifteen to eighteen inches is the greatest thickness, independent of wind-drifts, of the dry ashes lately strewed on any of the plains near this volcano; and this thickness he believes to amount to three times as much as all the ashes collectively, which have fallen over the same or similar plain spaces (accordingly as the wind has been different.) since the untimely death of the elder Pliny, in the last year of Vespasian. The over- Depth of Rain annually at Bombay. In 1817 1818 ....... 103.79 inches. 1819 ... 1820 1821...... ...... 81.14 77.10 77.34 82.99 112.61 1822 ordinary a degree varied from their Amongst the singular properties of BRITISH 1 BRITISH LEGISLATION. ACTS PASSED in the FOURTH YEAR of the REIGN of GEORGE THE FOURTH, or in the FOURTH SESSION of the SEVENTH PARLIAMENT of the UNITED KINGDOM, CAP. XX. For fixing the Rates of the gradual Discontinuance of the DuSubsistence to be paid to Inn- ties on certain other Articles, the Makeepers and others on quartering Sol-nufacture of Great Britain and Ireland diers. respectively, on their Importation into either Country from the other. Cap. XXI. For granting and applying certain Sums of Money for the Service of the Year 1823. Cap. XXII. To confirm an Agreement entered into by the Trustees under an Act of the last Session of Parliament, for apportioning the Burthen occasioned by the Military and Naval Pensions, and Civil Superannuations, with the Governor and Company of the Bank of England. Cap. XXIII. To consolidate the several Boards of Customs, and also the several Boards of Excise, of Great Britain and Ireland. Cap. XXVII. To amend an Act passed in the 7th year of the Reign of his late Majesty King George the Third, respecting Justices of the Quorum in Cities and Towns Corporate. Cap. XXVIII. For the more speedy Reduction of the Number of Serjeants, Corporals, and Drummers, in the Militia of Ireland, when not in actual Service. Cap. XXIX. To increase the Power of Magistrates, in Cases of Apprenticeskips. Cap. XXX. To regulate the ImporCap. XXIV. To make more effectation and Exportation of certain Artitual Provision for permitting Goods eles subject to Duties of Excise, and imported to be secured in Warehouses, certain other Articles the Produce or or other Places, without Payment of Manufacture of Great Britain and IreDuty on the first Entry thereof. land respectively, into and from either Country from and to the other. Cap. XXV. For regulating the Number of Apprentices to be taken onboard British Merchant Vessels; and for preventing the Desertion of Seamen therefrom. Sec. 1. so much of the 57 G. 5, c. 73. as requires the masters of vessels trading to the West Indies to have apprentices onboard, repealed. §2.-After Jan. 1, 1824, the number of apprentices shall be proportioned to the tonnage. §3. Not to affect any Act not amended or repealed by this Act, by which vessels are required to have apprentices on-board. § 4-Apprentices exempted from impressment. $5.-Apprentice may be employed in any ship of which his master is captain or owner, and may be transferred. $7.-Mates of ships of a certain burthen exempt from impressment. § 9.-Deserters from ships to forfeit all wages, and all claims thereto. 11.-Wages to be paid over to Greenwich Hospital, and applied, if claim be not established before two justices within six months after deposit.-But persons unjustly withholding wages, to pay double the amount, and treble costs. $12.-Act not to prevent seamen entering into his Majesty's service, or subject them to the forfeiture of their wages. Cap. XXVI. To repeal the Duties on certain Articles, and to provide for Cap. XXXI. To amend an Act passed in the 19th year of the Reign of his late Majesty King George the Second, intituled "An Act more effectually to prevent profane Cursing and Swearing." Provision of recited Act requiring the same to be read quarterly in all parish churches, &c. repealed, Cap. XXXII. For the amendment of the Laws respecting Charitable Loan Societies in Ireland. Cap. XXXIII. To make more effectual Regulations for the Election, and to secure the Performance of the Duties, of County Treasurers in Ireland. Cap. XXXIV. To enlarge the Powers of Justices in determining Complaints between Masters and Servants, and between Masters, Apprentices, Artificers, and others. Cap. XXXV. To enable Trustees or Commissioners under Acts of Parliament to meet and carry such Acts into Execution, although they may not have met according to the Directions of such Acts. Cap. XXXVI. To discourage the granting of Leases in Joint Tenantcy in Ireland. Cap. XXXVII. To amend an Act for the more speedy Return and Levying of Fines, Penalties, and Forfeitures, and Recognizances estreated. Cap. XLII. To amend the several Acts for the Assistance of Trade and Manufactures, and the Support of Com mercial Credit, in Ireland. Cap. XXXVIII. For settling the Compensation to the Holders of certain Offices in the Courts of Law in Ireland, abolished under an Act passed in the 1st and 2d years of the Reign of his present Majesty, for regulating the same. Cap. XXXIX. To continue an Act of the last Session of Parliament, for allowing a Drawback of the whole of the Duties of Customs on Brimstone used and consumed in Great Britain, in the making and preparing Oil of Vitriol or Sulphuric Acid. Cap. XL. To amend several Acts for the Regulation of the Linen and Hempen Manufactures in Scotland. Cap. XLI. For the registering of Vessels. Cap. XLIII. To regulate the Amount of Presentments by Grand Juries, for Payment of the Public Officers of the several Counties in Ireland. Cap. XLIV. To repeal the Duties and Drawbacks on Barilla imported into the United Kingdom, and to grant other Duties and Drawbacks in lieu thereof. Cap. XLV. For allowing Persons to compound for their Assessed Taxes for the Remainder of the Periods of Composition limited by former Acts; and for giving Relief in certain Cases therein mentioned. VARIETIES, LITERARY AND MISCELLANEOUS; Including Notices of Works in Hand, Domestic and Foreign. A METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY has just been instituted in London; and, from the nature of its subjects, which require simultaneous distant observations, it is likely to render itself most useful in promoting the study of nature. Its constitution is of a liberal character; and, till after the 12th of November, all friends of such pursuits will be admitted members, on paying their two guineas to Mr. Wilford, the secretary, at the London Coffee-house. Among the gentlemen present at its institution were Drs. T. Forster, Clutterbuck, Shearman, Mr. Luke Howard, &c. The chair was taken by Dr. Birkbeck, and the following resolutions were agreed to: That the formation of a Society, to pro mote the advancement of Meteorology, have the cordial approbation of this meeting. That a Society be formed, to be called "the Meteorological Society of London." That the business of this Society shall be conducted by a president, vice-presidents, treasurer, secretary, and council; and that the number of vice-presidents and members of the council be determined at a subsequent meeting. That Mr. Thomas Wilford be requested to officiate as secretary to this Society (pro tempore), and that he be authorized to send a printed summons to attend the next meeting, to each person who shall become a subscriber. That an annual subscription of two guineas be paid in advance by every member of this Society. That scientific men throughout the United Kingdom be solicited to co-operate with this Society, and to transmit communications to it; and that this Society will always be ready to receive meteorological observations from the cultivators of science throughout the various quarters of the globe. That no other qualification be required to constitute eligibility to this Society than a desire to promote the science of Meteorology. That after the next meeting the election be by ballot, upon the proposition of three, and that a majority of members decide. That this meeting do adjourn to the 12th of November next, to meet at the same place and hour. -As there are no natural phenomena with which men are more intimately changes; and of these, strange as it concerned than with atmospherical may seem, less is known than of most other subjects of nature, so the new Society promises great practical utility, and seems likely to reap a rich and glorious harvest of important discoveries. All the leading branches of science are now provided in London with societies, composed of efficient and operative members. Thus we have |