The animal matter, when heated, gave carbonate of ammonia, empyreumatic oil, and charcoal. It appears to form a true combination with potash or lime, or their subsalts, and seems, in part, to neutralize the alkali, whilst, at the same time the alkali confers great solubility on the substance. M. Vauquelin expresses his fear that the supposed vegeto-alkaline bodies, which have been procured from many plants of the solanum species, and received names as new substances, are only combinations of organic matter with alkalies, or their subsalts.-Mém. du Mus. xii. 204.

III. NATURAL HISTORY.

1. Meteoric Appearance on Ben-Lomond; Ascent of Vapour.-The following appearance is described by Mr. W. T. Ainsworth, who, with Mr. Savage, observed it on Sunday, May 8, from the summit of Ben-Lomond. At three o'clock in the morning a cold damp wind blew from the south-west, the sky there being covered with dark dense clouds, whilst, towards the east, a small extent of deep azure sky was seen, where, however, clouds were fast forming. In a short time it began to rain, and continued to do so incessantly for two hours, when, in an interval of fine weather, the travellers again resumed the ascent of the mountain. The clouds then broke, and the sun shone forth; and about this time, says Mr. Ainsworth, "having our faces turned towards the west, we observed streams of vapour rise from the earth in two or three places (at about a mile distance from us, and 400 or 500 yards apart from one another,) and ascend in a perfectly straight direction towards a heavy dark nimbus, passing over at the time. Using my hat as a level, I lay down on the ground, and found it to be rather lower than the situation I occupied near the summit of the mountain. Their bases were, I should suppose, not above three or four feet in diameter, which did not increase nor diminish till their junction with the cloud, when they assumed a more conical shape, the base of which was in the cloud. They resembled immense columns, or pillars; they had no motion forwards or backwards, and, as far as our eye could ascertain, they had no revolving motion upon their own axis. The attraction existing between the pillar and the cloud was so great, that, at the supervention of a strong breeze, though the centre of the pillar yielded, it never deviated from its columnar form, and the top remained precisely over the point from which it arose, forming, as it were, for the time, a segment of a circle. A short time after perceiving this remarkable phenomenon, we had occasion to remark the same process taking place on the lake itself. The columns, though at a great distance from us, we could plainly perceive were vapour, and not water, but they did not take on themselves so uniform an appearance. During this interesting scene, I hung two small balls hewn out of

the pith of an elder tree at the end of a stick of gum lac, a strong insulating substance, and more portable than glass; the repulsion from one another was such as to indicate that the atmosphere was in a high state of electricity. Hygrometer I had none. Thermometer stood at 45°.-Edin. Phil. Journal, 185.

2. Description of an Earthquake. The following minute account of an earthquake is given by Professor Ferrara, of Catania, who seems to have been in the most favourable situation for the observation of such a phenomenon. On Wednesday, the fifth of March, 1823, at twenty-six minutes after five P. M., Sicily suffered a violent shock of an earthquake. I was standing in the large plain before the palace, in a situation where I was enabled to preserve that tranquillity of mind necessary for observation. The first shock was indistinct, but tending from below upwards; the second was undulatory, but more vigorous, as though a new impulse had been added to the first, doubling its force; the third was less strong, but of the same nature; a new exertion of the force rendered the fourth equal, on the whole, to the second; the fifth, like the first, had an evident tendency upwards. Their duration was between sixteen and seventeen seconds; the time was precisely marked by the second's hand of a watch which I had with me. The direction was from north-east to south-west. Many persons who ran towards me from the south-west at the time of this terrible phenomenon, were opposed by the resistance of the earth. The spear of the vane on the top of the new gate connected with the palace, and upon which I fixed my eyes, bowed in that direction, and remained so until the Sabbath, when it fell; it was inclined to the south-west in an angle of twenty degrees. The waters in the great basin of the botanical garden, as was told me by an eye-witness, were urged up in the same direction by the second shock; and a palm-tree, thirty feet high, in the same garden, was seen to bow its long leafless branches alternately to the north-east and south-west, almost to the ground. The clocks in the observatory which vibrated from north to south, and from east to west, were stopped, because the direction of the shock cut obliquely the plane of their respective vibrations, and the weight of one of them broke its crystal. But two small clocks in my chamber kept their motion, as their vibrations were in the direction of the shock. The mercury in the sismometer preserved in the observatory was put into violent motion, and at the fifth shock it seemed as much agitated as if it were boiling.-Silliman's Journal, ix. 216.

3. Extraordinary Rise of the Rio de la Plata.-This river, as is well known, is flooded at certain periods; and, like the Nile, inundates and fertilizes the country. The Indians then leave their

huts and betake themselves to their canoes, in which they float about until the waters have retired. In April, 1798, it happened that a violent wind heaped up the immense mass of waters of this river to a distance of ten leagues, so that the whole country was submersed; and the bed of the river remained dry in such a manner, that it might be walked over with dry feet. The vessels which had foundered and sunk were all exposed again; and there was found, among others, an English vessel, which had perished in 1762. Many people descended into this bed, visited and spoiled the vessels thus laid dry, and returned with their pockets filled with silver, and other precious articles, which had been buried more than thirty years in the deep. This phenomenon lasted three days, at the expiration of which the wind abated, and the waters returned with fury into their natural bed.-Edin. Phil. Journal, xiii. 188.

4. Fall of a Meteoric Stone at Nantgemory, Maryland, Feb. 10, 1825. By Dr. Carver.-I take the liberty of forwarding you a notice of a meteoric stone, which fell in this town on the morning of Thursday, Feb. 10, 1825. The sky was rather hazy, and the wind south-west. At about noon the people of the town, and of the adjacent country, were alarmed, by an explosion of some body in the air, which was succeeded by a loud whizzing noise like that of air rushing through a small aperture, passing rapidly in a course from N.W. to S.E., nearly parallel with the river Potomac. Shortly after a spot of ground on the plantation of Captain W. D. Harrison, Surveyor, of this port, was found to have been recently broken, and on examination a rough stone, of an oblong shape, weighing 16lbs. 7oz. was found about eighteen inches under the surface. The stone when taken from the ground, about half an hour after it is supposed to have fallen, was sensibly warm, and had a strong sulphureous smell. It has a hard vitreous surface, and when broken appears composed of an earthy or siliceous matrix, of a light slate colour, containing numerous globules of various sizes, very hard and of a brown colour, together with small portions of brownish yellow pyrites, which become darke coloured on being reduced to powder. I have procured for you a fragment of the stone, weighing 4lbs. 10oz., which was all I could obtain. Various notions were entertained by the people in the neighbourhood on finding the stone. Some supposed it propelled from a quarry eight or ten miles distant on the opposite side of the river, while others thought it thrown by a mortar from a packet lying at anchor in the river, and even prepared manning boats to take vengeance on the captain and crew of the vessel.

I have conversed with many persons living over an extent of perhaps fifty miles square; some heard the explosion, whilst others heard only the subsequent noise in the air. All agree in

stating that the noise appeared directly over their heads. One gentleman, being about twenty-five miles from the place where the stone fell, says that it caused his whole plantation to shake, which many supposed to be the effect of an earthquake. I cannot learn that any fire-ball or any light was seen in the heavens., All are confident that there was but one report, and no peculiar. smell in the air was noticed.

Captain Harrison, whose account is added to this, and on whose; grounds the stone fell, states, from his own observation, that the time was between twelve and one o'clock, that the explosion was sharper than a cannon; that then a buzzing noise was heard over head, first like that of a bee, but increasing till like a spinning wheel, or a chimney on fire, and that then something was heard to fall, the time from the explosion to the fall being perhaps fifteent seconds. After a while the stone was found about twenty-two or twenty-four inches beneath the surface; it had a strong sulphureous smell, and there were black streaks in the clay, which appeared marked by its descent; the mud was thrown in different directions from thirteen to sixteen steps. The stone, when. washed, weighed 16lbs. It fell within 250 yards of Captain Harrison's house, and within a hundred yards of the habitation of the negroes. This account was given from memory on the 28th of the following April.-Silliman's Journal, ix. 351.

5. Composition of Aërolites.-M. G. Rose, of Berlin, has succeeded in separating crystals of pyroxene from a large specimen of the aerolite of Juvenas, and has measured the angles with the reflective goniometer: one of the crystals is of the octoedral variety, represented in the 109th figure of Haüy's mineralogy. The same rocky tissue contains microscopic hemitrope crystals, which appear to be felspar, with a base of soda, i. e., albite.

M. Rose has also examined, at the request of M. Humboldt, the aërolite of Pallas, and the trachytes collected on Chimborazò, and the other volcanoes of the Andes: he has found that the olivine of the mass of Pallas is perfectly crystallized, and that the trachytes of the Andes are, in part, mixtures of pyroxene and albite like the aerolite of Juvenas. Perhaps the same is the case with those of Jonzac and Stannern, of which, as yet, the masses have not been studied mineralogically by trituration, the microscope, and the reflective goniometer.-Ann. de Chimie, xxix. 109.

$ 6. Flexible Marble of Berkshire Country, U.S.-Dr. Dewey states that this marble, which has been known for some years, and until lately was found chiefly in West Stockbridge and Lanesborough, is now obtained at New Ashford, from an extensively wrought quarry. He had three fine specimens of it in slabs from five to six feet in length, and seven inches in width. Its flexibility and

elasticity may be shown as it stands upon one end, by applying a moderate force to the middle or the other end. Its flexibility is seen, too, by supporting the ends of it in a horizontal position upon blocks. The marble has various colours, nearly white, with a Some of it has a fine reddish tinge, gray, and dove-coloured. grain; other specimens are coarsely granular, and have a loose texture. It is not uncommon for one side of a large block to be flexible, while the other part is destitute of this property. It takes a good polish, and appears to be carbonate of lime, and not a magnesian carbonate.

It is well known that Dolomieu attributed the flexibility of the marble he examined to exsiccation, and that Bellevue ascertained that unelastic marble might be made elastic by exsiccation. The flexible marble of this counry, however, loses this property in part on becoming dry. When it is made thoroughly wet by the operation of sawing, or of polishing, it must be handled with great care, to prevent its breaking; and the large slabs of it cannot be raised with safety unless supported in the middle as well as at the ends.-Silliman's Journal, ix. 241.

7. Extraordinary Minerals discovered at Warwick, Orange County, N. Y.-These extraordinary minerals are described by Dr. Fowler, in Silliman's Journal, ix. p. 242. They belong, he says, to the formation of crystalline limestone, which there, perhaps, has no parallel in any other region of the world, and were discovered in the township of Warwick. "What will be thought of spinelle pleonaste, the side of one of whose bases measures three to four inches, or twelve to sixteen inches in circumference? These crystals are black and brilliant, sometimes aggregated, at other times solitary; at this locality seldom or ever less than the size of a bullet. Some are partly alluvial, their matrix decomposing, but when unaltered, they are found associated with what has never yet been described, namely, crystals of serpentine, slightly rhomboidal prisms, of a magnitude parallel with the crystals of spinelle, often greenish and compact, at other times tinged yellow by an admixture of Brucite."

"In the same mass also are associated very large prismatic crystals of chromate of iron, at least so they appear to be, by the beautiful green colour which they impart to nitrate of potash, having a specific gravity of 4.3. Some of these prisms are an inch in breadth, and two inches in length, with two lateral faces broader than the rest."

"Not far from the same locality also is found, associated generally with a fine green and crystalline serpentine, the red spinelle, of various shades and degrees of translucence," &c.

"These are

from a line in diameter to three quarters of an inch on each side of the bases; now and then they occur in hemitrope." "At By