S84f Scientific Inklligenee. — Geology. 



the latter frequently made the glass tremble. This salt owe% 

 its property of decrepitating to a gas which it contains in a 

 strongly compressed state, although no cavities are sensible to 

 the eye. When the experiment was made in perfect darkness, 

 no light was disengaged. The gas disengaged is hydrogen, 

 slightly carbonate ; when mixed with air it burns at the ap- 

 proach of a hght. This disengaging of gas will assist in explain- 

 ing the numerous accidents which have happened from fire- 

 damp in salt mines. Several portions of the salt were nebu- 

 lous, others were transparent. The nebulosities indicated the 

 existence of numerous minute cavities, probably filled with 

 condensed gas, and, in fact, a nebulous fragment dissolved 

 in water, gave more gas than an equal sized fragment of the 

 transparent salt. This new fact, described by M. Dumas, shews 

 how frequent, in the course of geological accidents, are the pheno- 

 mena to which are due the accumulation of gas in the cavities 

 of mineral substances, and how varied are the substances upon 

 which these phenomena have been exerted. M. Dumas has 

 endeavoured to reproduce salt, having the power of decrepitat- 

 ing in water, like that described. 



14. Interesting discovery of Fossil Animals. — There has been 

 lately sent to the Garden of Plants, a collection of fossil bones, 

 from the lacustrine deposits of Argenton (Indre), consisting 

 of five or six species of Lophiodon, from the size of a large rab- 

 bit to that of a horse; also species of the genus Anthrocotherium, 

 of the Trionyx, and Crocodile. Some recent discoveries in the 

 diluvian ossiferous deposite of Chevilly (Loiret) of the bones of 

 the extremities of the animal called Gigantic Tapir by Cuvier, 

 shews that this animal, by the test of its osteology, is closely 

 allied to the living tapir, although equalling, if not exceeding, 

 the rhinoceros. The Indri and Loiret are two departments in the 

 central districts of France. 



15. Dr Turnhull Cliristie. — Dr Turnbull Christie, who has 

 been appointed to examine the geology of the Presidency of 

 Madras, by the India Company, has left Edinburgh for our 

 Eastern Empire. He travels through France and Italy, enibarks 

 for Alexandria, — from thence he visits the Holy Land, Mount 

 Sinai,— sails down the Red Sea for Bombay, and from thencfe 

 by land or sea to Madras. From the varied talent and infor- 



