Prussian Elk and the American Moose-deer. 121 



How far the Prussian elk agrees with, or differs from, the 

 Scandinavian animal of that denomination, can probably not be 

 made out in the present state of the science. It may even 

 remain an undecided point for some length of time ; for the 

 Prussian elk falls not easily in the way of a scientific traveller : 

 it is, as far as I know, only to be met with in one place, a low, 

 swampy tract of land stretching along the eastern shores of the 

 lake called Curish Haff\ between the Russ and the Gilgue, 

 the two principal outlets of that river, which is called by the 

 Germans Memel, by the Polanders Niemen, by the Lithuanians 

 Niemona. This tract is for the most part covered with wood, 

 and in this wood the elk finds shelter and food ; it goes by the 

 name of the Forest of Ibenhorst. The thriving population in 

 the neighbourhood would long ago have destroyed this valuable 

 animal, if the Prussian government had not protected it by 

 laws, almost as severe as the game laws of England, against 

 the avidity of the poachers. 



ON GUNPOWDERS AND DETONATING MATCHES. 

 BY ANDREW URE, M.D., F.R.S., &c. 



/^UNPOWDER is a mechanical combination of nitre, 

 ^ sulphur, and charcoal; deriving the intensity of its ex- 

 plosiveness from the purity of its constituents, the proportion 

 in which they are mixed, and the intimacy of the admixture. 



1. On the Nitre. 



Nitre may be readily purified, by solution in water and 

 crystallization, from the muddy particles and foreign salts 

 with which it is usually contaminated. In a saturated aqueous 

 solution of nitre, boiling hot, the temperature is 340 Fahren- 

 heit ; and the relation of the salt to its solvent is in weight as 

 three to one, by my experiments not five to one, as MM. 

 Bottee and Riffault have stated*. We must not, however, 



* TraitS de 1'Art de fabriquer la Poudre a Canon, p. 78. 



