234- ON THE PROCESSES FOR CLARIFYING LIQUIDS. 



The art of constructing fountains or fprings with fand is not 

 yet carried to the degree of perfection it is capable of, and 

 though it may feem to be an object of little importance, it 

 well defer ves to fix the attention of philofophers. 

 Obfervations. Experience alfo (hews, that filters or fountains of fand can- 

 not be ufed with fuccefs but for a limited time. It is neceflary 

 to change the fand frequently, or at leaft to wafh it, in order 

 to deprive it of the earthy heterogeneous fubftance, depoiited 

 by the water, and which when accumulated to a certain point 

 would not only oppofe or diminilh the filtration, but alfo com- 

 municate to the fluid a flavor, which is the more difagreeable 

 in proportion to the length of time it remains in contact with it. 

 Nothing is more eafy, as is well known, than to deprive river 

 water of the earth which it fufpends, and which obfcures its 

 tranfparence. For this purpofe it requires only to be left a 

 few hours in an earthen veffel uncovered, becaufe the action 

 of the air is neceflary to effect this precipitation fpeedily and 

 completely. 



(To be continued.) 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



Extract of a Letter from Briinn, in Moravia, dated 

 January 3, 1 802. 



J\. CHEMIST of Vienna pretends to have obferved, that the 

 new metal tellurium, difcovered by Klaproth, and generally 

 acknowledged as fuch, is nothing elfe but regulus of antimony: 

 an obfervation which, according to my own experiments, 

 has. much probability, 

 Water faid to be Galvanifm is at prefent a fubject of occupation of all the 

 decompofed by German philofophers and chemifts. Tromfdorff has burned 

 various metals by means of a pile of 150 plates; and at 

 Vienna a difcovery has been made, that an artificial magnet, 

 employed inltead of a Volta's pile, decompofes water 

 equally well as that pile and the electrical machine ; whence 

 (as they write) the eleclric fluid, the galvanic fluid, and the 

 magnetic fluid are the fame. * 



* I applied the poles of a five bar magnet to two fteel wires in 

 the tube of water, having their extremities in the water lefs than 

 one-tenth of an inch afunder, and perceived no effe8»-~W. N. 



ft 



Tellurium is 

 aflerted to be 

 antimony only. 



niagnetii'm. 



