Mr. Crosse s Electrical Experiments. 101 



SCIENTIFIC NOTICES, INTELLIGENCE, &c. 



[Since our first sheet was made up, containing a translation of M. Tur- 

 pin's notes upon Mr. Crosse's new species of Acarus, a report has appeared 

 in the Morning Post of January 22nd, furnishing the substance of a com- 

 munication made by the latter gentleman, to the Electrical Society; and as 

 the article bears the stamp of authenticity, we have transferred a considera- 

 ble portion of it to our own pages. Ed.] 



"In endeavouring to form artificial minerals by along-conti- 

 nued electric action on fluids, holding in solution such sub- 

 stances as were necessary for the purpose, every variety of 

 contrivance had been employed by Mr. Crosse which might 

 enable him to keep up a never-failing electrical current of 

 greater or less intensity, or quantity, or both, as the case re- 

 quired, and which would expose the solutions used to the 

 electric action, in the manner best calculated to effect the ob- 

 ject in view. Amongst other contrivances, a wooden frame 

 was constructed of about two feet in height, consisting of 

 four legs proceeding from a shelf at the bottom, supporting 

 another at the top, and containing a third in the middle, each 

 of these shelves about seven inches square. The upper one 

 was pierced with an aperture, in which was fixed a funnel of 

 Wedgewood ware ; within this rested a quart basin, on a cir- 

 cular piece of mahogany placed within the funnel. When this 

 basin was filled with a fluidj a strip of flannel wetted with 

 the same was suspended over the edge of the basin, and in- 

 side the funnel, and, acting as a syphon, conveyed the fluid 

 out of the basin through the funnel, in successive drops. The 

 middle shelf of the frame was likewise pierced with an aper- 

 ture, in which was fixed a smaller funnel, of glass, supporting 

 a piece of somewhat porous red oxide of iron, from Vesuvius, 

 immediately under the dropping of the upper funnel. This 

 stone was kept constantly electrified by means of two platina 

 wires on either side of it, connected with the poles of a vol- 

 taic battery of nineteen pairs of five-inch zinc and copper 

 single plates, in two porcelain troughs, the cells of which were 

 filled at first with water, and 1 -500th of hydrochloric acid, 

 but afterwards with water alone. ( In all the subsequent ex- 

 periments relative to these insects, the cells of the batteries 

 employed were filled with nothing but common water.) The 

 lower shelf merely supported a wide-mouthed bottle, to receive 

 the drops as they fell from the second funnel, to be poured 

 back again into the bason above, without disturbing the po- 

 sition of the stone. The volcanic substance was selected by 



