ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERT. 



molecule-. A cry-tal, like a plant, H developed in a medium; and as the 

 plant ouo the -pi-rial peculiarities of its individual form, notwithstanding 

 the seeminirlv perfect freedom of its growth, to special circumstances in the 

 -oil, the air, the weather, during that growth; and its general similarity to 

 other plants of its kind, to the organic laws that control the conditions of its 

 species; so must the crystal be considered as the result of many cooperating 

 influences, including those of the foreign constituents of the mother liquid, 

 those of temperature and other physical conditions, and involving the prin- 

 ciple that the molecules, whether those deposited, or those about to become 

 so, affect or are affected by and that to considerable distances the whole 

 <f the formed and forming crystal matter. 



It would l.e as useless to expect to explain the growth of a crystal without 

 some Mich view as this, as to endeavor to account for the growth or outward 

 form of a particular plant by the development of a single leaf. 



CURIOUS NUMERICAL RELATIONS. 



Col. James, R. E., in a communication to the London Aihenaium, points 

 out the following curious relations of numbers: 



The length of a solar year is 365.242 days. The length of a degree of 

 longitude at the equator, taken from the printed Geodetical Tables of the 

 British Ordnance Survey, is 365,234 feet; so that if the length of a degree at 

 the equator is divided by the number of days in the year, it will give 1,000 

 feet, or, more exactly, 999.977 feet, which would give the foot within one 

 thousandth part of an inch, a quantity which cannot be seen. 



Again, the length of a degree of latitude at the central point of the British 

 Islands is 365,242 feet, and the length of a degree of latitude, measured on 

 that parallel, divided by the number of days in the year, gives exactly 1,01)0 

 feet. 



There is no connection between the number of days in a 3*ear and the 

 number of feet in a degree of latitude or longitude ; but after a lapse of a few 

 thousand years, the scientific traveller from New Zealand may pay us the 

 same compliment which some of our scientific travellers are now paying the 

 Egyptians, and attribute to scientific refinement that which is simply a 

 curious accidental agreement in the numbers. 



DYNAMICS OF GASES. 



The following is an abstract of a paper presented to the British Association, 

 " On the Dynamical Theory of Gases," by Professor C. Maxwell. The phe- 

 nomena of the expansion of gases by heat, and their compression by 

 pressure, have been explained by Joule, Claussens, Herepath, etc., by the 

 theory of their particles being in a state of rapid motion, the velocity depend- 

 ing on the temperature. These particles must not only strike against the 

 sides of the vessel, but against each other, and the calculation of their 

 motions is therefore complicated. The author has established the following 

 result^ : 1 . The velocities of the particles are not uniform, but vary, so that 

 they deviate from the mean value by a law well known in the "method of 

 least squares.' 2. Two different sets of particles will distribute their veloci- 

 ties, <o that their circs vine will be equal; and this leads to the chemical law, 

 that the equivalents of gases are proportional to their specific gravities. 3. 

 From Professor btokes's experiments on friction in air, it appears that the 



