gined; the passages lie well for the this canzonet, yet the passages are smooth and connected, and the general effect bespeaks' both taste and judg ment. The Maid of Erin; a Ballad. Composed by The unaffected ease of this little ballad, aided by the piano-forte accom paniment, which is chiefly in the arpeggio style, will not fail to give it currency among the admirers of vocal simplicity. VARIETIES, LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL. * Authentic Communications for this Article will always be thankfully received. W E have great pleasure in present-. ing our readers with a test of security, in regard to persons who have undergone the vaccination, and who may be made uneasy by the false and interested alarms of malignant persons. Let a patient be selected on whose arms the vaccine pustules have regularly advanced to the 7th, 8th, or 9th, day. From one of these pustules, let the subject intended to be put to the test of security, be re-vaccinated, and at the same time, and with a portion of the same vaccine fluid, let another child, who never has had either the cow-pox or the small-pox, be also vaccinated. On the arms of the child put to this test, if it was previously secure, the virus will produce in a short space of time, (two or three days perhaps), an inflammation around the parts punctured, and sometimes small irregular vesicles, accompanied with itching, which commonly dies away, long before the regular pocks on the arms of the child that had not been before secured, arrive at maturity. The reason why Dr. Jenner recommends the vaccination of a child not in a doubtful state, with the one whose situation may be supposed doubtful, is to prove to a certainty, that the vaccine fluid employed, is in a state of perfection. The insertion of variolous matter by way of test, in the early periods of the vaccine practice, was adopted and recommended by Dr. Jenner; but although it did not produce the smallpox on those previously vaccinated, it sometimes occasioned very extensive and troublesome inflammation on the arms. In a short time will be published, an Essay on Theatres, and on the Propriety of Vaulting them with Brick and Stone. Illustrated with a plan and section for a new Theatre. The object of this essay is to revive the knowledge exemplified by the Free and Accepted Masons, in the construction of the vaults of the ancient cathedral; and to show that a theatre built upon similar principles, would be of considerable benefit to the proprietor, both in reducing the expense of the erection, and the rate of insurance; and at the same time secure the audience against the dreadful hazards, to which they are liable, from the present mode in which these edifices are built. In the course of this month, Mr. JoSEPH CRISP, of Holborn, will publish, for the use of fentale seminaries, Lessons in Geography, with an Introduction to the use of the Globes, calculated solely for the exercise of the memory, and as an introduction to larger works. The second edition of a Treatise on Malting, by Mr. REYNOLDSON, late of Newark, now of Bromley, Middlesex, will appear in a few days. Mr. G. DYER, who has been for some years past occupied in making inquiries into the state of the Public Libraries of this island, has, we understand, found it expedient to suspend his researches, though he has by no means given them up. But, as the work branches out into various parts, and is become far more extensive than was originally intended, it is not likely to make its appearance for some years. In the mean time, Mr. Dyer is employed in preparing for publication, a complete edition of his Poetical Writings, in four volumes, duodecimo. It will be published by subscription. Mr. JAMES NORRIS BREWER, will, in a few days, publish the first number of Descriptions Descriptions Historical and Architectural, of splendid Palaces, and celebrated Buildings, English and Foreign, with Biographical notices of their Founders or Builders, and other eminent persons. This work, printed in quarto, will be comprised in six monthly parts, and embellished with highly-finished engravings by Storer, Porter, and other eminent artists. Mr. WILLIAMSON, of the Inner Temple, has a Treatise ready for publication, entitled, A Companion and Guide to the Laws of England; comprising the most useful and interesting heads of the law; viz. the whole law relating to parish matters, bills of exchange, and promissory notes, wills, executors, landlord and tenant, trade, nuisance, master and servant, jurors, carriers, bankruptcy, apprentices, gaming, &c. &c. to which is added a summary of the Laws of London. An Irish gentleman of rank, who lately spent three years in London, is preparing for publication, a Series of Letters to his Father in Ireland, containing the secret history of the British Court and Metropolis, and said to illustrate, with singular ability, the state of modern manners and society. The Rev. EDWARD VALPY, author of Elegantic Latinæ, is preparing a new edition of that scarce and very useful work, Robertson's Phrase Book, with alterations and improvements; in which it is intended to modernise the obsolete English phrases, and to introduce, he sides known and common idioms, every word which may be susceptible of variation and elegance. Mr. W. WARD, lecturer on experirimental chemistry, has in the press, a Dictionary of Chemistry and Mineralogy, which will speedily make its appearance, in one volume, illustrated with plates. The Rev. JOSEPE WILSON is preparing for the press, an Introduction to Butler's Analogy, in a series of Letters to a Student at the University. The Rev. GEORGE WHITTAKER, master of the grammar school in Southampton, wil in a few days publish a work design ed for the use of junior boys in classical schools; entitled Exempla Propria, or English Sentences, translated from the best Roman writers, and adapted to the rules in syntax; to be again translated into the Latin language. The second edition of M. Gener, or a Selection of Letters, by the Rev. Jony MUCKERSY, of West Calder, is in the press, and will be published in a few days. The editor of this work intends to ↑ continue it in quarterly numbers, the first of which will appear in August next. The Peerage of Scotland, by Sir RoBERT DOUGLAS, of Glenbervie, Bart.. continued to the present time, by J. P. WooD, Esq. in 2 vols. is in the press. The first edition of this work, the result of the most assiduous application for many years, and a painful enquiry into the public records and ancient chartularies, published in 1764, having become extremely scarce; the editor has made every endeavour to obtain accurate information, in order to complete and correct the work to the present time. A Translation of Laborde's View of Spain, composing a descriptive itinerary, or topographical delineation of each province, and a general statistical account of the country, will shortly appear. Mr. JAMES WARDROP, Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, and of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, has in the press, Observations on the Fungus Hæinatodes, or Soft Cancer. It contains the history and appearance, on dissection, of that disease, in several of the most important organs of the body, illustrated by cases and plates. A Treatise on the Diseases and Ma nagement of Sheep, with introductory Remarks on their Anatomical Structure, and an Appendix containing Documents, exhibiting the value of the Merino Breed, and their progress in Scotland, will soon appear from the pen of Sir George Stew art Mackenzie, of Coul, Bart. Sir BROOKE BOOTнBY, Bart. has in the press, the English Esop, a collection of fables, ancient and modern, in verse, translated, imitated, and original, in two post octavo volumes. The Rev. MELVILLE HORNE, Minister of Christ Church, Macclesfield, will shortly publish in a duodecimo volume, An Investigation of the Definition of Justifying Taith, the Damnatory Clause under which it is enforced, and the Doctrine of a direct Witness of the Spirit, held by Dr. COKE, and other methodist preachers. Mr. WALTER NICOL s preparing a work entitled, The Villa-Garden Direc tory, or Monthly Index of Work to be done in Town and Villa-Gardens, Shrub beries, and Parterres; with Hints on the -Treatment of Shrubs and Flowers usually kept in the Green Room, the Lobby, and Drawing Room: Mr. ANDERSEN, author of a Tour in Zealaud, is preparing for publication, A Dane's Dane's Excursion in Britain, to consist of two or three small octavo volumes. The Rev. Dr. WASHBOURN, of Wellinborough, is revising and correcting Bishop Reynolds on Ecclesiastes, &c. which will appear in the course of a few months. Sir JOHN CARR has for some time been employed in revising his poems for the press. They will form an octavo volume, with a portrait; but a few copies will be printed in quarto. Mr. HENRY WEBBER will speedily publish in two volumes, octavo, the Dramatic Works of JOHN FORD, with an Introduction and Explanatory Notes. The same gentleman is also engaged on a work entitled, Metrical Romances of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Centuries, published from ancient manuscripts, and illustrated by an Introduction, Notes, and Glossary. This work will make three volumes, crown oc tavo. Mr. A. MURRAY, Fellow of the Antiquarian Society of Edinburgh, and Secretary for Foreign Correspondence, will Soon publish in quarto, Researches into the Origin and Affinity of the Greek and Teutonic Languages. The Crede of Pieral Plowman is printing in a small quarto volume, with a black letter type, the text accurately collated with the printed copies, and occasionally corrected by an inspection of the existing manuscript. An historical Introduction will be prefixed, and the poem copiously illustrated with notes. At a meeting of the Wernerian Natu ral History Society of Edinburgh, held on the 8th of April, was read the first part of a Description of the Mineral Strata of Clackmananshire, from the bed of the river Forth to the base of the Ochils, illustrated by a voluminous and very distinct, plan or section of those strata, executed from actual survey and from the register of the borings and workings for coal, in W.N. Erskine of Mar's estate in that district, communicated by Mr. ROBERT BALD, Engineer. In this first part he treated only of the alluvial strata; and in continuing the subject he intends to illustrate it still farther by exhibiting specimens of the rocks themselves.-Mr. CHARLES STEWART laid before the society, a list of insects found by him in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, with introductory remarks on the study of entomology. It would appear that the neighbourhood of Edinburgh affords no very peculiar insects, and but few rare ones. The list contained about four MONTHLY MAG, No. 186. hundred species, which, Mr. Stewart stated, must be considered the most common, as they were collected in the course of two seasons only, and without very favourable opportunities. It was produ ced he added merely as an incitement to younger and more zealous entomologists. At a subsequent meeting of this society, on the 13th of May, the second part of Mr. Bald's interesting Mineralogical De scription of Clackmananshire was read, giving a particular account of two very remarkable slips or shafts in the strata, near one thousand feet in depth, and by means of which the main coal-field of the country is divided into three fields, on all of which extensive collieries have been erected.-The Rev. Mr. FLEMING, of Bressay, laid before the society, an outline of the Flora of Linlithgowshire, specifying only such plants as are omitted by Mr. Lightfoot, or are marked as uncommon by Dr. Smith. This, he stated, was to be considered as the first of a series of communications illustrative of the natural history of his native county.-Mr. P. WALKER stated a curious fact in the history of the common eel. A number of eels old and young were found in a subterraneous pool, at the bottom of an old quarry, which had been filled up and its surface ploughed and cropped for. more than twelve years past.-The se cretary read a letter from the Rev. Mr. MACLEAN, of Small Isles, mentioning the appearance of a large sea-snake, between seventy and eighty teet long, among the Hebrides in June 1808. Hle also produced a list of about one-hundred herbaceous plants, and two-hundred cryptogamia found in the King's park, Edinburgh, and not enumerated in Mr. Yalden's Catalogue of Plants, growing there; communicated by Mr. G. Don, of Forfar, late superintendaut of the Royal Botanic Garden, at Edinburgh. Scientific men have often had occasion to regret the difficulty of procuring fibres sufficiently fine and elastic for micrometers. The difficulty of obtaining sil ver wire of a diameter small enough, induced Mr. Troughton to use the spi der's web, which he has found so fitie, opaque, and elastic, as to answer all the purposes of practical astronomy. But as it is only the stretcher, or long line, which supports the web that possesses these valuable properties, the difficulty of procuring it has compelled many opticians and practical astronomers to employ the raw fibres of unwrought silk, or what is still worse, the coarse silver wire 4 I manufactured manufactured in this country. For these, Dr. BREWSTER has succeeded in obtain ing a substitute, in a delicate fibre which enables the observer to remove the error of inflection, while it possesses the requisite properties of opacity and elasticity. This fibre is made of glass, which is so exceedingly elastic that it may be drawn to any degree of fineness, and can always be procured and prepared with facility. This vitreous fibre, when drawn from a hollow glass tube, will also be of a tubular structure, and its interior diameter may always be regulated by that of the original tube. When the fibre is formed and stretched across the diaphragm of the eye-piece of a telescope, it will appear perfectly opaque, with a delicate line of light extending along its axis. As this central transparency arises from the transmission of the incident light through the axis of the hollow tube, and this tube can be made of any calibre, the diameter of the luminous streak can be either increased or diminished. In a micrometer fitted up in this way by Dr. Brewster, the glass fibres are about 1200 of an inch in diameter; and the fringe of light is distinctly visible, though it does not exceed of an inch. In using these fibres for measuring the angle subtended by two luminous points, the fibres may be separated, as hitherto done, till the luminous points are in contact with the interior surfaces; but, in order to avoid the error arising from inflection, it is proposed to separate the fibres, till the rays of light issuing from the luminous points dart through the transparent axis of the fibres. The rays thus transmitted evidently suffer no inflection, in passing through the fibre to the eye; and, besides this advantage, the observer has the benefit of a delicate line, about one-third of the diameter of the fibre itself. Mr. JOSEPH HUME has discovered a new method of detecting arsenic. The test which he proposes as a substitute for those hitherto used, appears to be more efficacious, inasmuch as it produces a more copious precipitate from a given quantity of that substance. It is composed in the following manner :Let one grain of white oxide of arsenic, and the same quantity of carbonate of soda, be dissolved by boiling in ten or - twelve ounces of distilled water, which ought to be done in a glass vessel; to this, let a small quantity of the nitrate of silver be added, and a bright yellow precipitate will instantly appear. This is a more decisive test than sulphate of copper, which forms Scheele's-green, (arseniate of copper) and though the process answers very well with potash or lime-water, yet Mr. Hume is inclined to prefer the common sub-carbonate of soda. A correspondent of the Philosophical .... Magazine, taking into consideration the present imperfect mode of finding the rates of time-keepers, suggests the establishment of a public observatory for trying time-keepers and keeping their rates, to which every maker, if he thought proper, might have access at stated hours, and where he might be allowed always to keep a certain limited number of pieces. Here he might try the effect of improvements and gain experience; then alter and try again till he succeeded to his mind; an advantage which he could not, perhaps, enjoy in his own house, for want of instruments of sufficient accuracy and leisure to make the necessary computations. A book containing the rate of each timekeeper might be kept always ready for the use of the owner, and, if he thought proper, for the inspection of the public, by which he would be enabled to fix a price on the machine, proportioned to the excellence of its going. From this place captains of ships and others might always be furnished with timekeepers, suitable to the price they could afford, or adapted, with respect to accuracy of going, to the purposes for which they might be required. The writer expresses his surprize that, considering the many evident advantages of such an institution, the watch-makers have not already established one at their own expense. That valuable plant, smyrna madder, has lately been introduced into this country by Mr. SPENCER SMITH, who furnished the Society of Arts with some seed; from which Mr. Salisbury, of the Botanic Garden, Sloane-street, has raisedplants that have grown in the most promising manner. He expects to obtam : seed from them, and there is every reason to hope that this useful dye-root will become naturalized in our soil. When the French siezed Liege, the gentlemen belonging to the seminary of that place were obliged to make a precipitate retreat, abandoning a large establishment, together with a valuable hibrary and a fine collection of mathe-. matical instruments. Having since found an asylum in this country, they have have formed an establishment at Stonyhurst, in Lancashire, where they are making a laudable attempt to introduce the sciences, in their improved state, into their common course of education. As a first step, a handsome room for a library, and another for a mathematical apparatus have been built; to which it is intended to add a chemical laboratory as soon as possible. It is not doubted that they will soon be enabled not only to finish the erection of their building, but to procure the books and instruments necessary for the completion of their undertaking; a very liberal subscription having been procured among the friends to their establishment. FRANCE. M. VAUQUELIN has examined the root of a species of polypody, known by the appellation of calaguala. Of the substances which compose it, only those soluble in alcohol and water are capable of producing any effect on the animal economy. These are saccharine matter, mucilage, muriate of potash and resin, which last he conjectures would be found to destroy the tape-worm. He has likewise made similar experiments on the roots of the common polypody and male fern, and obtained from them precisely similar principles and nearly in the same proportions as from the calaguala. The former roots, however, contain a small quantity of tannin. Thus the analogy of organization, which led Jussieu and Richard to conclude, that the medicinal virtues of the calaguala-root must be similar to those of other ferns, is fully confirmed by chemical analysis. The following method of making ar tificial stone in the vicinity of Dunkirk has been published by M. BERTRAND :—— The materials employed for this purpose are the ruins of the citadel, consisting of lime, bricks, and sand. These are broken to pieces by means of a mill formed of two stone wheels following each other and drawn by a horse. Water is added, and the matter when well ground is reddish. This is put into a trough and kept soft by means of water. When the trough is full, some lime is burned and slaked by leaving it exposed to the air, and this is mixed in the proportion of one-eighth with the above cement. A wooden mould is laid on the stone, and after a thin layer of sand has been thrown on the latter to prevent the adhesion of the cement, a layer of cement is poured in, and on this a layer of bricks broken into acute-angled fragments. Thus two other strata are put in before the last which is of pure cement. The mould being removed, the stones thus formed are laid in heaps to dry. The lime being very greedy of water, and quickly becoming solid, these stones are not long in forming a hard body fit for building. M. BRACONNOT has analysed some fossil horns of an extraordinary size found in an excavation at St. Martin, near Commercy. He supposes them to have been the horns of the great wild ox, the urus of the ancients, and aurochs of the Germans. From one hundred parts he obtained phosphate of lime, .composed of Line Phosphoric Acid 28.3 Water 41 Solid Gelatine < ;} 69.3 11. 4.6 4:5 4.4 4. 1. 0.7 0.5 100. |