Journal of Facts 



557 



Established Church, of which the announcement will appear in a few days." 

 Well, the friends of the church took a great deal of pains to little purpose 

 if the Speech meant nothing, or at all events viewed its contents with very 

 different eyes from the Standard and the rest of that tribe. This is tory 

 unanimity, is it ? Pulling together with a vengeance truly ! But adherence 

 to fanaticism and political rancour must naturally blind people to the com- 

 mission of the most nonsensical absurdities. "When they are so harmless as to 

 afford us a laugh, as in the present instance, well and good ; but malignant 

 idiotcy is rarely passive. 



JOURNAL OF FACTS. 



Discoveries since 1766. 



The steam-engine improved 1769 



Spinning by steam 1782 



Air-balloons, four new planets re- 

 covering drowned persons .... 1792 

 Hydraulic press, and telegraphs.. 1794 

 Percussion powder, Galvanism 



the names in chemistry 1803 



The Argand lamp, boring : for wa- 

 ter, coal, &c 1804 



Roman cement, gas-light 181 



Sugar cultivated in Louisiana .... 1801 



Navigation by Steam 1811 



Printing by steam-power, circular 

 saws, sugar from the root o fbeet, 



lithographic impressions 1816 



Musical boxes 1877 



Safety lamps, chain cables 1820 



Chronometers perfected, power 

 looms for cloths, stockings, &c., 



the stomach pump , 1828 



Steam guns and carriages 1832 



Gum elastic shoes and boots 1 833 



Mining' Journal. 



Plumbago and Black Lead Pencils, 

 There is only one purpose to which this 

 form of carbon is applied in the solid 

 state, viz., for the manufacture of black 

 lead pencils. One of the most remark- 

 able circumstances connected with the 

 plumbago is the mode in which it is sold. 

 Once a year the mine at Borrowdale is 

 opened, and a sufficient quantity of plum- 

 bago is extracted to supply the market 

 during the ensuing year. It is then closed 

 up, and the product is carried in small 

 fragments to London, where it is exposed 

 to sale, at the black lead market, which 

 is held on the first Monday of every month, 

 at a public-house in Essex-street, Strand. 

 The buyers, who amount to about seven 

 or eight, examine every piece with a 

 sharp instrument to ascertain its hardness. 

 The individual who has the first choice 

 pays 45s. per pound ; the other 30s. But 

 as there is no addition made to the first 

 quantity in the market during the course 



of the year, the residual portions are ex- 

 amined over and over again, until they 

 are exhausted. The annual amount of 

 sale is about 3000/. There are three 

 kinds of pencils common, ever-pointed, 

 and plummets. The latter are composed 

 of one-third sulphuret of antimony and 

 two-thirds plumbago. In Paris, when you 

 buy a sheet of paper in a stationer's sho'd 

 some of these pencils are added to the 

 purchase. Now these are formed of a 

 mixture of plumbago, fuller's earth, and 

 vermicelli. Genuine ceder pencils must 

 cost Qd. each. If they are sold at a lower 

 price, they must be formed from a mix- 

 ture, not from pure plumbago. Pencils 

 are, however, sold as low as 4o?. a dozen. 

 Rec. of Gen. Sc. 



Light. The Italian natural philoso- 

 loper, Melloni, has recently invented a 

 mode of depriving the rays of light of ca- 

 loric, which seems to open the way; to 

 great discoveries respecting the nature of 

 light, when thus insulated. He passes 

 the sun's rays through a combination of 

 transparent bodies (water, and a particular 

 sort of glass coloured green with oxide of 

 copper), wlaieh bodies absorb all the ca- 

 loric, and but little of the light. The 

 light thus separated from its caloric is 

 very yellow, with a green tinge; and 

 when so concentrated by lenses, as to be 

 as bright as the direct ray, the most deli- 

 cate thermometer does not show the small- 

 est degree of warmth. It has long been 

 known that the prism, besides dividing the 

 ray into its several pencils of colours, sepa- 

 rated at one end of the spectrum a pencil 

 of heat-making rays, and at the other a 

 pencil of chemically-racting rays.both per- 

 ceptible only by their effect; but this 

 mode of severing the heat from the light 

 offered little means of experimenting upon 

 the unadulterated light, of which Melloni's 

 discovery seems to give the philosopher 

 as complete command as he has of the 

 gases, &c. 



