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on the concave fide. The opportunity afforded by thefe glaffes of looking round at various objects, it is thought may not improperly be expreffed by the naine of Perifcopic fpectacles.

Mr. R. WINTER, of Red Cross Wharf, London Bridge, has, from the obfervations made by Ptolemy, A.D. 130, December 13, and by Caffini, Flamead, Hornfby, Mafkelyne, Bradley, and Mayer, during the two laft centuries, calculated the length of the folar year to be 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 47 feconds, and that of the fidereal year will be 365 days, 6 hours, 9 minutes, 14 feconds.

Mr. CHENEVIX has constructed a new Wind-furnace, the fides of which are inverted instead of being perpendicular, fo that the hollow space is pyramidical. The furface at the bottom is thirteen inches fquare, that at top only eight, and the perpendicular height is feventeen inches. This form appears to Mr. C. to unite the following advantages:-1. A great furface is expofed to the air, which, having an easy entrance, rushes through the fuel with great rapidity. 2. The inclined fides act in fome measure as reverberating furfaces; and 3. The fuel falls of itfelf, and is always in clfe contact with the crucible placed near the grate.

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The celebrated PIAZZI is faid to have discovered another new planet.

The Chinese characters, cut in wood, which had lain above fixty years in the National Library at Paris, have been lately transferred to the Printing Office of the Republic, for the use of Dr. HAGAR. Before their removal, they were counted by a Commiffary, of the Library and a Commiffary of the Printing Office; and the number of them was found to amount to 86,417. They are contained in 236 boxes; and M. DE LA RUE, one of the above-mentioned commiffaries, is claffing them according to the 214 elementary figns, and arranging them in a cabinet appropriated to that purpose. In the mean time, Dr. Hagar has written a Catalogue and Defcription of the Kare Chinele Coins in the National Cabinet, which, it is expected, will foon be printed.

M. LANGLES is employed upon an edition of the Arabic Original of the Travels of two Mahometans to China, of which RENAUDOT published a French Tranflation at Paris in 1718, but the learned then doubted of the exiftence of the original. M. Langles intends to enrich his edition with numerous annotations.

Don RAFAELLE, a learned Maronite, from Cairo, has been appointed affittant to M. DE SACY, as Profeffor of the Arabic

The cultivation of the annual funflower is recommended to the notice of the public, as poffeffing the advantages of furnishing abundance of agreeable fod-Language in Paris. der for cattle in their leaves. When in flower, bees flock to them from all quarters to gather honey. The feed is valuable in feeding fheep, pigs, and other animals it produces a striking effect on poultry, as occafioning them to lay more eggs; and the dry talks burn well, the alhes affording a confiderable quantity of

alkali.

The Emperor of all the Ruffias has founded an Univerfity, on a very comprehenfive and liberal fcale, in Lithuania, for the Cultivation and Diffufion of the Arts and Sciences in that Part of the Empire. -Mr. FLETCHER CAMPBELL, a Scotch gentleman of confiderable note as well as talents and accomplishments, has, on commiflion, been beating up, as it were, for recrusts at Edinburgh, Aberdeen, and Glafgow, to fill the new profefforfhips. It may easily be imagined, which is in fact the cafe, that in a country where learning is fo common, and the young men, from temper as well as receflity, fo adventurous, Mr. Fletcher's labours have not been in

vain.

M. TITSINGH, formerly Dutch Ambaffador to the courts of China and Japan, has prefented to the National Library in Paris a part of the Japanese books, which he had collected during his refidence in that country.

M. DE LA TOUR, a wealthy book feller in Paris, who had for many years carried on an epiftolary correfpondence with the Miffionaries in China, and received from them a great number of curiofities from that country, has lately printed a Defcription of his Cabinet, and various Articles of Intelligence relative to China. The remainder of his numerous MSS. have been put into the hands of the Abbé GROSIER, who is preparing, from them, for the prefs an improved and enlarged edition of the "Defcription Générale de la Chine," which hitherto formed the thirteenth volume of the "Hiftoire Générale" of Father Moilla. The natural hiftory of China, with which we have hitherto had but an imperfect acquaintance, will in particular be enriched by thefe

materials.

M. CHEVENIX,

M. CHENEVIX, in a letter, dated Def den, obferves, that DES COSTILS difieres raw platina in nitro-muriatic acid, and precipitates it by muriate of ammonia at feveral times. The first portions are yellow, the last redder. He reduces the red precipitate, and obtains an alloy. He expofes this alloy to a current of oxygen, and a blue oxide is volatilized; pure platina remains behind. The blue fublimate is the oxide of his new metal.

A new vegetable falt, containing a new acid, has been difcovered by KLAFROTH. It confifts of a faline mafs, excluded from the trunk of the white mulberry, morus alba, L. on the furface of the bark; it has the appearance of a coating, in little granulous drops of a yellowish and black

ifh brown.

Profeffor SPALDING has juft published a fecond volume of his edition of the Inftitutes of Quintillian.

SCHWEIGHAUSER has lately published two new volumes of Athenæus, one of the text and the other of notes.

Profeffor HEYNE has in the prefs a new edition of Virgil, intended chiefly for fchools; it will be comprifed in four fmall volumes.

A new edition of the Argonautics of Orpheus has been lately published, with notes, by SCHNEIDER.

BECK is preparing for the prefs, a new edition of Sophocles, in three volumes, quarto; it is expected to be ready for publication at the end of the present year. From an official account of Louifiana, we learn, that there exifts, about 1000 miles up the Miffouri, and near that river, a mountain of falt, 180 miles long, and forty-five in width. It is composed of folid rock-falt, without any trees or even fhrubs on it. Salt fprings are very numerous beneath the furface of the mountain.

Some French chemifts have difcovered platina to be a compound fubftance, containing, befides platina, a blue oxide of fome new metal, tellurium, chronium, and a black powder unknown.

C. F. REINHARD, of Strafburgh, has obtained a patent for his new method of printing mufical notes with folid plates. Thefe ftereotypes differ from Didot's, who fets up moveable types to form a matrix, whereas Reinhard requires no intermediate matrix, but fets up directly with moveable matrices: a procefs at once fimple, certain and unexpensive. M. Reinhard by printing with two colours has likewife fucceeded in imitating written mufic with more effect than can be done by means of engraved plates.

An excellent regulation has lately been published in Holland, which prevents ignorant quacks from felling their poi, fons, and tampering with the conftitutions of their infatuated patients.

Profeffor WIBORG, of Copenhagen, has invented a machine for weighing corn. by means of which the quality may be difcovered from its weight.

The Society of Domeftic Economy at Copenhagen has offered a prize of 100 rix dollars for the beft answer to the

queftion-What is the beft process for converting bones into nutritive food?

M. WOLF, of Turnau, in Bohemia, has difcovered a peculiar kind of vitreous matter, which is obtained from a blackish bafaltes, found in abundance at Buchberg, in Bohemia. When this ftone is laid in the glafs-furnace, it becomes fluid in eight hours time, fo that fnuff-boxes, candlesticks, &c. of the most approved form, may be caft with it. It is more fluid than fufed glafs, and therefore cannot be blown like that fubftance, but may, how ever, be drawn into coarfe threads and bars. When cold, it becomes harder than glafs, and is not fo eafily ground and cut. In cafting it, the mafs ftrongly adheres to iron moulds; to prevent which inconve nience, they must be made of brass. It likewife corrodes the fmelting-pots more than glafs; it may, however, be used inftead of manganefe, as an addition to the latter, which it colours.

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In the circle of Littau, in Eaft Pruffia, about twelve miles from the Baltic, a piece of amber was lately found in digging a drain to a meadow; the greatest length of it was thirteen inches and a quarter, and its greatest breadth eight inches and a half. It contains 318 Rhineland cubic inches, and weighs fifteen pounds, fifteen ounces and three quarters, fo that it confiderably exceeds in fize and weight the piece of amber in the King of Spain's Cabinet of Natural History at Madrid, which weighs eight pounds, and has been esteemed the largest piece hitherto either found on the fea-fhore, or dug out of the ground. A dealer offered 3000 dollars for this curious fpecimen; but, all the amber found in Pruffia being the property of the fovereign, the King has ordered it to be depofited in the Cabinet of Minerals at Berlin, allowing, however, 1000 dollars to the proprietor of the estate where it was found.

The Depot Militaire at Paris has lately published, in two volumes, octavo, with a map, a Notice Defcriptive de l'Angleterre, l'Ecoffe, et l'Irlande, containing particular information (chiefly from English works)

relative

relative to the fituation of places, the fources and courfes of rivers, the roads, the population, foil, productions, manufactures, and trade of Great Britain and Ireland; for the ufe of the army of Invaders!

M. REGNIER has invented a new thermometer, the tube and graduation of which are the fame as in common thermometers, the mounting only exhibits a new arrangement proper for rendering it ferviceable in agriculture and the arts. The cane, containing this the mometer, is about three feet four inches in length. The focket is of copper; it forms a long fer. rule, which preferves the glafs cylinder, containing the liquid of the thermometer. The focket is pierced with feveral fmall holes, through which the fluid enters when the end of the cane is plunged into it. The iron end of the cane, which res upon the ground, is fupported at the extremity of a focket by a spring that yields when the end of the cane refts upon hard fubftances; by this contrivance, the thermometer is equally preferved from fhocks on every kind of ground.. Another fpring, placed over the bulb of the thermometer, yields when too much weight is borne upon the cane. The upper part of the cane is terminated by a ball of cork, covered with Morocco leather; the elaticity of the cork keeps the thermometer from breaking, if the cane be accidentally dropped. In the center of this cane a cavity is made, in which the tube of the thermometer is fixed, and half of its circumference towards the top opens by a hinge, for the purpofe of making obfer vations, when the liquid of the tube is feen, and the fcale graduated upon ordinary principles. The thermometer is extremely useful,

To afcertain and to compare, at a certain depth, the temperature of fown land, when the furface is hard and frozen.

2. To estimate the heat of haystacks, which frequently take fire before the farmer

is aware.

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out danger. The body of the pulley is a cylinder of the diameter that would have been given to the groove, and the fame thicknefs as a common pulley. This cylinder is fixed into an arm, which has two pivots; to each fide of this arm is faftened a fmall piece of wood, of fufficient diameter to form, above the cylinder, a narrow paffage, the fides of which are of fuch a height as to contain the cord. Thefe pieces project, and have grooves, which begin at a certain distance from the center, and proceed to the circumference; and, on their inner furface, they are made rough, that they may the better hold the cord. A kind of fork, moveable on pivots, is continually preffed by a spring against the two pieces of wood, fo that each of its teeth enters the grooves made in them; but, when the cord is pulled the ufual way, the fork is no obftacle to the motion of the pulley, but the moment it is let loofe, the fork, preffing by the effect of the fpring against the projecting pisces of the wood, prevents it from flipping, while the pulley itself is stopped by the teeth of the fork that fix themfelves into the grooves. A lever ferves upon occafion to remove the fprings, and pre vent their action.

M. ESMARK, Member of the Norwegian Council of Mines at Kongsberg, has, in a late tour in Norway, made many interefting experiments in order to determine the boundary Ine of vegetation, and of the unmelting of the fnow. Of the mountains which he afcended for this purpofe, the higheft is Schneehütten, which, according to his obfervations, lifes rather more than 8000 Rhineland feet above the level of the fea. It is covered with eternal fnow, and, at a place where the fnow had tumbled down, twenty five layers of it might be diftinguished, each of them with a rind of ice. The uppermoft layer, which has a wave-like shape, was, in the hollows of the fnow-waves, weaker, and of an amethylt colour; which appearance has likewife been obferved in in an oblique direction towards the north the Alps. Where the rays of the fun fall and north-eaft, the boundary line of the fnow is as low as 3000 feet above the furface of the fea; but, towards the fouth and wet, where the heat of the fun is more powerful, it is only at the height of 7000 feet above the level of the fea that the fnow is found never to thaw. The higheft parts, which M. Elmark climbed, confifted of a tone compofed of quart. zore and micaceous particles, except Mount Tromfieldet, betwixt Tönftel and Foldalen, the fummit of which confifts of

a hitherto

a hitherto non-defcript kind of stone, which is a mixture of feldfpath and fchilJerfpath, at an elevation of nearly 4500 feet above the level of the fea. This kind of tone is fo powerfully magnetical, that it changed the direction of the needle at the distance of four feet. It will take a very fine polish, and, with respect to colour, fomewhat refembles the Labrador ftone. The boundary of vegetation in Norway differs in different places, as do likewife the kinds of trees and plants, which are capable of bearing a greater or lefs degree of cold. At the height of 1000 feet, fome of the better forts of fruit-trees thrive, and are productive. The pitch-pine (pinus picea LIN.) bears a greater degree of cold in Norway than

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the fir (pinus abies LIN.), the latter thriving only at the height of 2000 feet, which the former is found at an elevation of 3000 feet above the level of the fea; the birch likewife thrives at that height: but, at a greater height, Mr. Efmark met with no other vegetable productions, except the betula nana, fome falices, and the juniper bufh, which, however, do not thrive at a greater elevation than 3200 feet above the level of the fea. Barley and oats will indeed grow at the elevation of from 1500 to 1800 feet, but only in fheltered valleys. At an elevation of from 1200 to 1300 feet, the night frost does frequently great injury to the young crops.

PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES.

ROYAL SOCIETY OF LONDON.

ONE

NE of the most important papers presented to this learned body during the year 1803, was Major Mudge's account of the measurement of an arch of the meridian, extending from Dunmofe, in the isle of Wight, latitude '50° 37' 8" to Clifton in Yorkshire, latitude 53° 27′ 31′′ carried on in the years 1800, 1801, and 1802. Mr. Mudge was led to select Dunmofe for one of the extremities of his line, as obfervations made there, in conjunction with others at Greenwich, would enable him to make corrections of the latitudes of places given in papers formerly printed in the Tranfactions of this Society. Befides, by this, he had the means of afcertaining the distance of the Royal Obfervatory from the northern to the fouthern end of the line, and consequently, of connecting it with the parallels of Dunkirk and Paris.

Dunmole being fixed on, his object was to carry on the triangles, as nearly as poffible, in the direction of its meridian, felecting the stations, fo that their fides might be properly inclined to it, and of fufficient length. The northern ftation was to be brought as near the meridian of the southern one as poffible, and likewife in the neighbourhood of fome open fpot of ground, proper for the measurement of a base of verification. A station having these advantages was found near Clifton, a fmall village in the vicinity of Doncaster, and a level of fufficient extent for a base, on Misterton Carr, in the

northern part of Lincolnshire. At Clifton the direction of the meridian was obtained from numerous obfervations on the pole ftar, at the times of its greatest eastern and western elongations from the meridian.

Having premifed these circumstances, Major Mudge gives a very accurate defcription of the Zenith Sector with which he made his obfervations; with the manner of adjusting the inftrument previously to use. The fector and obfervatory made for its reception, were first erected in the Tower, and afterwards in the garden of the Aftronomer Royal at Greenwich, with a view of obferving the zenith diftance of certain stars, which were afterwards to be obferved at Dunmofe, to afcertain the latitude of that station.

In our account of this paper we cannot follow the worthy Major in his operations, but we may obferve that he made ufe of every precaution to prevent the poffibility of error, and to obtain refults which, in future, might be depended on in all calculations.

As the meridional line fixed on by Mr. Mudge was not far eastward from the Duke of Marlborough's obfervatory, he obtained from his Grace leave to make ufe of the observations he might have made at Blenheim, by which he had the means of afcertaining the lengths of the degrees on the meridian, at the middle points between Blenheim, and the two extremities of his arc. The mean zenith distance of Draconis at Blenheim, on the ift of January 1802, was 0° 19′ 23′′ 06

fouth.

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fouth. And the zenith distance of this far, at the fame period, at the ftation Dunnofe, was 0° 53′ 56′′.63 north. Therefore the 'difference of latitude between Dunnose and Blenheim was 1° 13′ 19".69. The latitude of Dunnofe is 50° 37' 8".21; that of Greenwich being taken at 51° 28' 40", their difference is 5131.39. Hence 50° 37' 8".21 + 1° 13′ 19′′.69 = 51° 50′ 27,".9 must be the latitude of Blenheim, within a mall part of a fecond of the truth.

Mr. Mudge found the fubtenfes in the heavens, of the different parts of his terreftrial, arc as follows: Between Dunnose and Clifton 2° 50′ Between Dunnofe and Arbury

Hill....

Between Arbury Hill and Clif

ton.

Between Dunnofe and Green

23".30

19.98

3.40

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Taking the diftance of Blenheim Obfervatory from the perpendicular to the meridian of Dunnofe at 446458 feet (fee Philofophical Tranfactions 1800); and the parallel to the perpendicular at Dunnofe from that observatory, where it curs the meridian of the former, being about of a second in latitude north of the latter, therefore Mr. Mudge takes the distance of Blenheim north of Dun

nofe to be 446498 feet; hence he obtains the following terreftrial arcs, from which he computes the lengths of the fevera degrees; for by dividing the arcs by their correfponding celeftial ones, and afterwards multiplying the quotients by 3600", we get the lengths of the de

1936

I 14

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Feet.

31.39

grees.

Fathoms.

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Taking the latitude of Greenwich at 51° 28' 40" from the feveral arcs now ‚given, the latitudes of their middle points are readily found; and, with the lengths of the degrees, when properly arranged, will ftand as follows:

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51 13 18.2

60890

60884

Dunnofe and Greenwich

From this measurement it appears, that the length of a degree on the meridian in latitude 52° 2 20" is 60820 fathoms, fuppofing the whole arc fubtending an angle of 2° 50′ 23′′.38 in the heavens, and a diftance of 1036337 feet on the furface of the earth.

The length of the degree at the middle point (51° 35′ 18′′) between the southern extremity of the arc and Arbury-Hill is 60864 fathoms, which exceeds the above by 44 fathoms. But this degree, admitting the earth to be an ellipfoid, with the ratio of its axes as 229 to 230, should be about 10 fathoms lefs.

MONTHLY MAG, No. 112,

'

51 254.2

Mr. Mudge is, however, perfectly convinced of the general accuracy of his whole undertaking; and after carefully. re-examining his books, he thinks it highly probable, that an error in the whole distance of 197 miles, does not amount to more than 100 feet correfponding to " in the amplitude of the whole arc, or even to half that quantity.

From the late operations of the French Academicians it appears that the merido nal diftance between Dunkirk and Barce lona is 3527921 feet; the distance between Dunkirk and Paris is 133758 feet; and the distance between Paris and Greenwich

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