1835.] Great Britain and Ireland. 465 



Thus, we see that 114*75 lbs. saccharine matter had been 

 decomposed, and -965 parts of an equal weight of proof 

 spirits formed in its stead, and as a gallon of proof spirits 

 weighs 9*20 lbs., we find that 1247 gallons of such spirits 

 would have been formed, being at the rate of one gallon of 

 such spirits in respect to every 100 gallons of wash, for 

 every 4*7 degrees of attenuated gravity nearly. 

 (To he continued.) 



Article VIII. 

 Analyses of Books. 

 I. — Philosophical Transactions of the Boyal Society of 

 London, for 1835. Part i. 



( Concluded from p. 390.^ 



Physics. 

 Note on the Electrical Relations of certain Metals and Metalliferous 

 Minerals. By R. W. Fox. The author states that the crystallized 

 gray oxide of manganese holds the highest place in the electro- 

 negative scale of any substance examined, when it is immersed in 

 various acid and alkaline solutions ; and the other metals and minerals 

 rank after it in the following order : manganese, rhodium, loadstone, 

 platinum, arsenical pyrites, plumbago, iron pyrites, arsenical cobalt, 

 copper pyrites, purple copper, galena, standard-^old, vitreous copper, 

 silver, copper, pan brass, sheet iron. When employed in voltaic 

 combination he found that on being so arranged as to act in opposition 

 to one another, the direction of the resultant of their action, as indi- 

 cated by the deflection of the magnetic needle, did not coincide with 

 the mean of the direction of the needle when under the separate in- 

 fluence of each. He concludes, therefore, that the needle does not 

 indicate the whole of the electricity transmitted, and that electro- 

 magnetic action does not depend upon a continuous electric current, 

 but is better explained on the hypothesis of pulsations, formerly 

 advanced by him. 



Experimental Researches on Electricity, Ninth Series. By 

 Michael Faraday, D.C.L. &c. ' 



The inquiry which produced the developement of the facts con- 

 tained in this paper arose from the observation of Mr. Jenkin, that, 

 if an ordinary short wire be employed to form a communication be- 

 tween the two plates of an electrometer consisting of a single pair of 

 metals, it is impossible to procure an electric shock, but if the wire 

 which surrounds an electro-magnet be used, a shock is experienced 

 whenever the contact with the electrometer ceases, if the extremities 

 of the wires are held in the hand, while a briUiant spark appears at 

 the point of disjunction. In the prosecution of his researches the 

 author employed the conducting wire in four different modified forms : 

 1 St, as the helix of an electro- magnet, consisting of a cylindrical bar 

 of soft iron, 25 inches long and 1 J inch in diameter, bent into a ring, 



VOL. n. 2 H 



