4-26 Progress of Natural History^ 



mental farm at Roville are not only useful to the pupils, but 

 to agriculturists in general. 



M. Huzzard, the son, has communicated a manuscript trea- 

 tise on the breeding of horses. 



M. Warden has sent to the Academy some most interesting 

 facts concerning the advancement of the Cherokee nation. 

 Encouraged by the government of the United States, guided 

 by Anabaptist and Moravian missionaries, instructed by 

 the example of white men married to Cherokee women, they 

 have made the most surprising progress during the last twenty 

 years. Their villages consist of commodious dwellings, seve- 

 ral of which have from twenty to forty well-cultivated acres 

 attached to them. They have flour and sawing mills, they 

 weave their own broad cloth, they export their cattle and 

 maize, and receive sugar, coffee, and other commodities in re- 

 turn. One hundred thousand acres of land have been devoted 

 to the expenses of public education, their schools are fre- 

 quented by more than 500 children, who all read, write, and 

 speak English, and one of whom has invented an alphabet of 

 96 characters, by means of which the pupils correspond among 

 themselves in their own language. The nation has adopted a 

 constitution; the present population consists of 15,000 souls, 

 divided among sixty villages, and their movable property is 

 estimated at half a million of dollars. 



The Partie Mathematique of the Analyse, &c., has been sup- 

 plied by Baron Fourrier, also secretary to the Academy ; but 

 as the readers of natural history are not likely to feel interested 

 in it, I have now but a few words to add, and those on sub- 

 jects connected with natural philosophy. 



M. Ampere has presented two papers to the Academy, con- 

 taining a theorem for the propagation of light in the middle of 

 crystals, in forming which he has continued the researches of 

 M. Fresnel, though he pursues rather a different method of 

 deduction. 



ISh Chevreul has also sent a memoir to the Academy, which 

 bears the following title : " The Optical Influence which Two 

 Coloured Objects have upon each other, when seen simulta- 

 neously, and the Necessity of considering this Influence in 

 Dyeing, in order to judge of Colours, their Solidity being ab- 

 stracted." M. Chevreul has established this general fact ; that 

 two objects differently coloured, and in juxta-position, con- 

 stantly undergo a modification of colour which arises from 

 their vicinity. If one is lighter than the other, the first will 

 become still lighter, and the latter darker. M. Chevreul has, 

 by experiment, fixed the reciprociil modifications undergone 

 by the seven primitive colours, and black and white. He has 



