Mr. Sowerby on the Penetration of the Seainto corked Bottles. 119 



a limit which, between the 15th and 17th degrees of south 

 latitude, and on the sides of the Bolivian Andes, seldom de- 

 scends below 17,100 feet above the sea. 



The great mass of the eastern cordillera, situated north of 

 the parallel of 1 7° S. is likewise formed of the transition rocks 

 above enumerated ; the sienitic or crystalline rocks becoming 

 more abundant on its northern prolongation. The schistose 

 rocks here also abound in auriferous veins ; and through the 

 deep dells which intersect them, descend the numerous auri- 

 ferous torrents, which empty themselves into the river Beni 

 and its confluents, and give to the tropical district bordering 

 on the river of Tipuacio (in the province of Larecaja), the 

 fairest claim to the title of the El Dorado of the new world,— 

 from the great quantities of gold, which have been and are 

 still collected from the alluvial deposits that form its banks. 



I am, Gentlemen, yours, &c. 



June 25, 1828. J. B. PENTLAND. 



XIX. On the Penetration of Water into stoppered and corked 

 Bottles sunk to a greatDepth in the Sea. By J. de C. Sowerby, 

 Esq. F.L.S. $c. 



To Richard Taylor, Esq. 

 Dear Sir, 

 TV/I" ANY papers having at different times appeared upon the 

 ■** popular paradox, a bottle filling with water when sunk 

 to a great depth in the sea, however well it may have been 

 corked and sealed, without any satisfactory explanation having 

 been given, and seeing the subject resumed by Dr. Green, in 

 your Philosophical Magazine for this month, — I am induced to 

 send you my explanation of the phenomenon. 



Dr. Green thinks that by proving (as others had done) that 

 the water would not penetrate glass, he had reduced the ques- 

 tion into very narrow limits ; and that the water enters glass 

 vessels through the " cork and all its coverings in consequence 

 of the vast pressure of superincumbent water, in the same 

 manner as blocks of wood are penetrated by mercury in the 

 pneumatic experiment of the mercurial shower." 



It may be concluded from recorded experiments, that well- 

 fitted glass stoppers (by the bye, every chemist knows such 

 are rarely to be obtained as will confine the vapour of nitric 

 acid) will exclude the water; corks when properly protected 

 will also prevent the water from entering. When mercury 

 is made to pass through a block of wood by pneumatic pres- 

 sure, it finds its way by the longitudinal tubes ; such tubes do 



not 



