1806, they established at Woolwich, on a very large scale, a college for the artillery and engineers: they have constructed large buildings, with every necessary appendage of apart ments, halls, laboratories, libraries, cabinets of models, &c. Professors have been appointed, who have suitable apartments, where lectures are given. The students are examined, after a twelvemonth's preparatory study, and the candidates admitted remain four years at college, at the expence of government.

Pupils are instructed in the ma. thematics, physics, chemistry, mechanism, fortification, geodesy, topography, &c., the application of the theory of all these sciences to the practice of the military arts, the different kinds of design, the French language, dancing, fencing, &c.

The English have established for their troops, as well as their officers, schools well organized and properly attended to, where they learn reading, writing, and arithmetic, and a little of geometry and mechanism. The schools for the troops have also their libraries; and the taste for reading is such among the soldiers, that lately, when a corps was setting out for the colonies, they clubbed to buy some books, which government did not fail to increase immediately at their own expence.

At the school at Chatham, our traveller saw the troops on an extensive plain drawn up for practical exercises: they were occupied in forming entrenchments, and in attacking them; they were exercising in undermining, mining, &c. and the pontoon train manœuvred, in silence and at command, bridges, which they extended, closed, &c.

The English were far behind us in their military education twenty years ago. Since that time they have studied our institutions, our army, our

wars, our success, our faults, our books, and our experience. They have copied from us: but the Eng lish are imitators who frequently surpass their models.

The Train of Artillery.-There are in the single depôt at Woolwich more than 10,000 pieces of cannon, an immense number of mortars, howitzers, carronades, swivels, &c. The Emperor of Russia was astonished to see such a considerable quantity of ord nance; as, for these twenty-five years past, the English have lavished their arms upon every nation that was willing to fight. They told him that, before the last war, they had 25,000 cannons, and stores in proportion, besides the enormous quantities which had been furnished from other foundries.

The parks of Portsmouth, Chatham, Plymouth, &c. are less worthy of notice than that of Woolwich; though they also contain an immense quantity of artillery.

The stores are put up in the magazines in the most orderly and careful manner. Every thing is classed by its kind and size, and is dismounted and packed up ready for immediate embarkation; so that, even from the middle of the country, England can, in twenty-four hours after orders have been issued, send off an astonishing quantity of military stores.

Enormous quantities of projectiles, exceedingly well made, are seen in the arsenals; some piled in heaps of from 20,000 to 30,000, the others are in wood, loaded, and solidly packed up.

There are a great number of mortars for the defence of forts, a beautiful train of mountain-artillery, a quantity of forged and cast-iron carriages for the coast and the colonies, with fort and coast carriages, which are naval carriages on a pivot à la Françoise.

Progress and Improvements of the Artillery. The artillery department is continually endeavouring to improve. In 1811 they tried before the Admiralty, as a new invention, combustible balls, which have been known in France for some years past.

The English have shells filled with case-shot, which they prize very much. The best judges of a destructive invention are those against whom they have often been used; and the effect they had upon our troops proves how necessary it is for us to adopt the use of them.

Among the works which the search after perfection has caused to be un dertaken in England, we distinguish, at Woolwich, the different species of scannon-ball practice commenced by Dr Hutton. This ball practice is continued by the chiefs and professors of the arsenals and the head school. A great deal of experience, perseverance, talents, and money, are expended on it. They teach the arstillery of other nations the first elements of balistics, presently but too little known. It is done with a very exact pendulum of great dimensions, and sometimes by means of turning discs, invented by a French officer.

It was with infinite pleasure that M. Dupin found the English occupied in accomplishing attempts that had been made in France, to discover the essential properties of the different woods.

They have made lately in England experiments, which they have well followed up, on the means of lightening the great guns. These experiments have the naval service particularly for their object. Whatever security the English navy may aspire to, those who possess that science do not occupy themselves with less ardour to bring it to perfection.

Generals Congreve and Bloomfield are continually endeavouring to at

VOL. XII, PART II,

tain this great object: the inventions of the former were spoken of with great éclat, as possessing peculiar properties, which those of General Bloomfield did not. Both, however, have been more advantageous for the service for which they were destined than the great guns. General Congreve is the most active promoter of inventions in the English artillery. He pays great attention to the construction of the frames of cannons, and has published a pamphlet on the subject.

General Congreve has taken out a patent for this, which, without conferring on him the right to pass as its inventor, affords him the exclusive advantage of selling to the ship-owners of his own country frames of cannons that his patent restrains them from making, which would be very easy, after reading the French works on the subject.

The principal invention of General Congreve is the rockets which bear his name. It is believed in England, (at least it is said, but without any reason,) that these rockets had great effect at the battle of Leipsic. The Artillery of different powers have thought seriously of them. It is to be hoped that the French artillery, who have some right to set examples, will not follow this; for, out of a small number of especial cases, these rockets have had no effect; and it is humanity, more than military science, that ought to rejoice, if such arms were not used again.

The English have rockets for the naval and land service of all sizes, for infantry and cavalry, to burn, to throw case-shot, &c.

General Congreve adds to all this his own inventions ;-new rockets, carrying a parachute, which, at the highest degree of their projection, unfold, and walk majestically through the air,-a bomb, which ought, if the

and pouring into the liquor a certain quantity of barytes, and causing a current of carbonic acid gas to pass over it, if there is an excess of this; then, by pouring upon it sulphuric acid, the barytes is thrown down, and the new acid obtained, which is dried under the receiver of an airpump by sulphuric acid. The greater number of the salts which it forms, with earthy or metallic bases, are soluble and crystallize. The hyposulphites of barytes and lime are unalterable in air. The suberic acid and chlorine do not decompose the hyposulphite of barytes. This new acid is composed of two proportions of sulphur and five of oxygen.

Messrs Dulong and Petit have presented the continuation of their researches on heat. By means of a very simple instrument of their own invention, they have made numerous experiments, and obtained several very important results respecting the capacity of bodies for caloric. One of the most important of these is, that, from the proportion of the atoms of which a body is composed, its capacity for heat may be deduced, and vice versa. It appears also, from their experiments, that the quantity of heat disengaged in chemical combinations, does not depend on the capacity of the body for heat; and, therefore, that the ordinary theory must be rejected.

A sum of money having been anonymously transmitted to the Institute, for the purpose of founding a prize in physiology, a gold medal of 440 francs value will be given to the author of the printed work or manuscript sent to them before the 1st of December 1819, which shall be considered as having contributed most to promote the progress of experimental physiology.

WERNERIAN SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH.

The business of this season was commenced by Professor Jameson, who on the 9th of January read the first part of an account of the Geognostic Structure of the Grampians.

Jan. 23.-Dr Hibbert read to the society his observations on the Stratification of the Shetland Islands.

Feb. 6.-Professor Jameson continued his Mineralogical Account of the Range of the Grampian Mountains, illustrating his descriptions by numerous sections of the country.

Feb. 20.-Dr Hibbert read the second part of his account of the Geognosy of the Shetland Islands, consisting chiefly of Observations on the Relations of the Quartz and Sandstone of the western parts of the country.

March 6.-Mr Campbell of Carbrook read a paper on the Gradations in the scale of Being, and particularly on the Living Principle. After remarking the chain of connection which binds the whole of creation, material and intellectual, together, Mr C. stated, that he limited his abstract to the material division of the scale, and to the consideration of the characters which distinguish the Living Principle from organization and instinct. The first principle, which he pointed out as affecting the individual particles of matter, which lie at the bottom of the scale, and dependent on gravity, was Aggregation. To that succeeds Stratification, the regularity of which he referred to the agency of Almighty Power. The next point in the scale, and a principle more precise in its operation, was Crystallization; from the consideration of which the au

thor proceeded to Organisation, in his opinions respecting which he differed from Drs Thomson and Barclay. He maintained, that the Living Principle cannot be the soul, because plants, which have no souls, have unquestionably the living principle. The structure is the organisation; the living principle is something else. From organisation, which is a lower point in the scale, we ascend to the living principle, or vis vitae. The author's observations, however, being rather of a negative than a positive kind, it does not very clearly appear what are his views on this curious, difficult, and, we fear, inexplicable subject.

March 20.-Professor Jameson read a communication from Dr Brewster, on the optical properties of minerals. Dr B. stated, that in a very extensive examination of the optical constitution of minerals and artificial crystals, he was led to ascertain their number of axes of double refraction, and that he had proceeded only a short way in the inquiry when it became obvious, that a very unequivocal connection existed between the form of the primitive nucleus and their number of axes of double refraction. Every new experiment added to the truth and generality of this result; and when he had examined the greater number of those bodies whose primitive nucleus was known, he had the satisfaction to discover that all the crystals with one axis arranged themselves under a certain series of primitive forms; and that those with two axes arranged themselves under another series; while the remaining primitive forms were occupied by those crystals whose doubly refracting forces were in equilibrio by the combined action of three equal and rectangular axes. To this singular coincidence there is only one or two exceptions. We re

gret that our limits restrain us from giving a more detailed abstract of this very learned and ingenious pa per, to which we refer the reader who is desirous of further informa tion.

April 3.-The Secretary read communication from Captain Scores by, on the means of overcoming some of the difficulties that obstruct discoveries in the Arctic Seas; and Dr Hibbert gave a description of the sienite district of Shetland, in continuation of his general account of the Geognosy of these islands.

April 10.-Dr Hibbert gave an ac count of the granite and sandstone districts of Shetland; and completed his view of the Geognosy of these islands by some remarks on Papa Stour.

April 24.-The Secretary read a communication from Mr Stewart, containing remarks on the germina tion of some kinds of cryptogamous plants, and a list of some of the rarer cryptogamous plants which have been lately found in the neigh bourhood of Edinburgh: likewise a description, illustrated by drawings, of the fossil remains of a cetaceous animal found in slate clay near Whit by, by the Reverend G. Young.

May 1.-The Secretary read a p per entitled, "Account of some fes sil remains of the beaver (Castor Fr ber L.) found in Perthshire and Ber wickshire, proving that that animal was formerly a native of Scotland.” The first instance in which the foss remains of this animal were discover ed in Scotland occurred as far back as 1788. These remains were found in the parish of Kinloch, near the foot of the Grampians, embedded in one of the marl-pits of the Loch of Marli, on the property of Mr Far quharson of Invercauld, which had been partially drained for the sake of