Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 233 



HEAT GIVEN OUT DURING COMBUSTION. 



M.Despretz read at the Academy of Sciences, on the 15th and 22d 

 of October last, a memoir on the heat given out during combustion. 

 By means of a new method of observation, he found that hydrogen is 

 the body, of which a given weight gives out most heat, and the me- 

 tals least. The result will be opposite if we refer the results to the 

 same weight of oxygen. It is remarkable that carbon, which in burn- 

 ing does not alter the volume of oxygen gas, produces three-fifths of 

 the heat developed by the metals, iron, zinc, and tin, which reduce 

 the oxygen to the solid state. Hence it is in the act of combination 

 that we must seek for the principal cause of the development of heat, 

 and not in the approach of particles. 



In his second memoir, M. Despretz has shown that the quantity of 

 heat developed by a certain quantity of a body which burns without 

 changing the volume of the gas, is the same, whatever be the density 

 of the gas. — Le Globe. 



INFLAMMABLE GAS ARISING AFTER BORING FOR SALT. 



In boring for salt at Rocky Hill, in Ohio, about a mile and a half 

 from Lake Erie, after proceeding to the depth of 197 feet, the auger 

 fell, and salt water spouted out for several hours. After the exhaus- 

 tion of this water, great volumes of inflammable air issued through 

 the aperture for a long time, and formed a cloud ; and by ignition, 

 occasioned by the fire in the shops of the workmen, consumed and 

 destroyed every thing in the vicinity. — Transactions of the Philoso- 

 phical Society of New York. 



INFLAMMABLE GAS FROM SALT MINES EMPLOYED FOR PRO- 

 DUCING, LIGHT. 



In the salt mine of Gottesgabe at Rheine, in the county of Teck- 

 lenbourg, there has issued for sixty years from one of the pits, (which 

 has on this account been called the Pit of the Wind,) a continued cur- 

 rent of inflammable gas. The same gas is produced in other parts of 

 the mines. M. Roeders, the inspector of the salt mines, has used this 

 gas for two years, not only as a light, but as fuel for all the purposes 

 of cookery. He collects it in pits that are no longer worked, and 

 conveys it in tubes to the house. It, burns with a white and brilliant 

 flame. Its density is about 0*66. It contains only traces of carbonic 

 acid and sulphuretted hydrogen, and therefore should consist of car- 

 bonated hydrogen and olefiant gas. — Brewster's Journal, Jan. 1828. 



NATURAL GAS LIGHTS AT FREDONEA. 



This village, on the shores of Lake Erie, is lighted every night by 

 inflammable gas from the burning springs, as they are called, in its 

 vicinity. Captain Hall has visited this village, and will no doubt give 

 us a good account of it on his return. — Ibid. 



New Series, Vol. 3. No. 15. March 1828. 2 H iodine 



