201 



Proceed' nigs oj Lettnied Societies. 



phuric and LyJrosulphuric acids, which depart 

 from Mariotte's law the more, the nearer they 

 are to their point of liquefaction, and hydro- 

 gen gas, which, compressed by thy weight of 

 twenty atmospheres, was in sensible agree- 

 ment with the air. A favourable report was 

 delivered by M. M. Latreille an.l Dumeril, 

 oh a memoir of M. Leon Dufour, entitled 

 Anatomical Researches on the Labidoiui 

 (tails with pincers), preceded by some con- 

 siderations on the establishment of a parti- 

 cular order for these insects. M. Bouvurd 

 presented a memoir, on the meteorological 

 observations made at the observatory of Paris : 

 and a paper was read by M.B. Schlickh, on 

 the Thames Tunnel. 30. M. Arago com- 

 municated a note of M. Savary, on the sounds 

 produced by a plate, placed at an orifice, 

 from which a current of aeriform gas is escap- 

 ing. Ou a report of M. M. Vauquelin and 

 Chevreul, the thanks of the academy were 

 pro He red to M. Moiin, an apothecary, at 

 Rouen, for the communication he had made 

 to them on the subject of a concretion, found 

 in the brain of a human subject. M. M. 

 Poinsot, Ampere, and Cauchy, delivered a re- 

 port on a memoir of M. Roche, relative to 

 the rotation of a solid body round "a fixed 

 point, as its centre of gravity the results had 

 been previously known. M. Poisson read a 

 paper on the rotation of the earth May 7. 

 M. de Freycinet read an extract from a letter 

 of M.M. Quoy and Gaimard, dated Port Jack- 

 son, December 4, 1826, stating that they 

 were about to forward a memoir and some 

 drawings. M. Arago communicated a me- 

 moir he had received from M. Broussingault, 

 on the composition of native argentiferous 

 gold. M. Moreau.de Jonnes read a memoir 

 OH venomous serpents, brought alive from 

 foreign countries when M. Majendie re- 

 marked that the employment of cupping is 



limited in its effects, and insufficient of itse 

 to counteract the effect of their bite. M. Cas" 

 sioi, president of the royal court of Paris* 

 was elected into the academy, in the place 

 of the Duke de la Rochefoucault. A very 

 highly complimentary report was made by 

 M. M. Arago and Dupin, on " A Course of 

 Mechanics applied to Machines," by Cap- 

 tain Poncelet, of the engineer.*. It would 

 have been inserted in the collections of the 

 academ3 T , had not the minister of war pro- 

 vided for its more unlimited circulation. Con- 

 formably to the wish of the minister of the 

 interior, a commission had been appointed 

 to investigate the facts relating to the death 

 of Mr. Drake, who had died by the bite of a 

 rattle-snake at Rouen ; it was proposed that 

 no venomous animals of that class should be 

 allowed to enter France, and adopted with 

 certain limitations. '14. M. Arago read a 

 letter addressed to him by M. Despretz, in 

 which the latter recounted some experiments, 

 designed to prove that the compression of 

 liquids constantly gives rise to a sensible de- 

 gree of heat water under a pressure of 

 twenty atmospheres evolved 0.015 of a de- 

 gree. He also read an extract from a me- 

 moir of M. M. de la Rive and Marcet, of 

 Geneva, on the specific heat of gases, which, 

 according to them, is the same in all the 

 gases subjected to the same pressure. M. 

 Clever de Muldigny read a memoir on the 

 breaking of stones in the bladder. Having 

 undergone the operation of cutting seven 

 times, he resolved to have the stones broken, 

 which was done with perfect success, by M. 

 Civiale, who himself announced that, 01 

 forty-three patients upon whom he had ope- 

 ra ted, forty-two were radically cured, without 

 the treatment being accompanied by any dis- 

 tressing accident. 



VARIETIES, SCIENTIFIC AND MISCELLANEOUS. 



"Receipt for a Croonian Lecture. RUMMAGE among old papers, especially If 

 bequeathed by a deceased relation, for some crude conjecture; upon said crude con- 

 jecture build a wild hypothesis; take from any subject, dead or living- brute-beast 

 or Christian whatever is so disgusting as to deter all otber examiners ; get a young- 

 surgeoivto prepare, and an old one to describe it; g'o to the seer who descries invisi- 

 bles, and, when told what you want to support your hypothesis, he will be sure to dis- 

 cover it ; cause his discoveries to be pourtrayed by one skilful artist, and engraved by 

 another ; destroy the old papers, instead of the hypothesis ; claim the latter as your 

 own, and it will form a proper lecture to be read to the Royal Society ; and then, with the 

 designs of one man the engravings of a second, illustrating the ravagf-s of a third on 

 the departed genius of a fourth by them to be communicated to Europe, as the ne 

 plus ultra of British physiology. 



>Ve understand that, in practice, the obove receipt has been found perfectly unob- 

 jectionable. That it has not become obsolete, is best shewn by the Croonian Lecture 

 for 1S27, with which a correspondent has furnished us : 



Harper cries, >Tis time To work some crude conjecture; 



And do it into rhyme For my next Croouian lecture. 



Critics often prate (They sha'n't say so this season) 



Your papers have of late Neither rhyme nor reason. 



If I catch the train, Soon I'll mould and shape her : 



Let UB thumb again Each musty spotted paper. 



