^4 Scientific Intelligence. — Botany. 



rious researches in aboriginal history, and might throw much 

 light upon the mysterious question of the population of the 

 New World. — Irving' s Life of Columbus. 



BOTANY. 



S5. Temperature of Plants. — Schutzer and Haider have pub- 

 lished, at Tubingen, an account of some experiments on this 

 subject. They inserted thermometers into the stems of trees, 

 - and so deep that the bulb reached the centre of the tree. The 

 same was done into a dead stem. It results from these experi- 

 ments, that vegetables appear to retain a certain medium tem- 

 perature, which cannot however be considered as originating 

 from heat evolved by the functions of the plant, as the dead 

 stem afforded the same temperature as the living, but can be sa- 

 tisfactorily explained by a reference to the bad conducting 

 power of the vegetable fibre and the wood, by which the tem- 

 perature of the surrounding aerial strata penetrates but slowly 

 into the interior of the plant. 



ARTS. 



36. On preserving Wine in Draught. By M. Imery. — 

 M. Imery of Toulouse has given us the following simple means 

 of preserving wine in draught for a considerable time ; it is suf- 

 ficient to pour into the cask a flask of fine olive oil. The wine 

 may thus continue in draught for more than a-year. *It is by a 

 similar process, that they preserve wine in Tuscany, which they 

 are accustomed to keep in large bottles, the glass of which is too 

 thin to resist the eff*ect of corking them tight. The oil, spread 

 in a thin layer upon the surface of the wine, hinders the eva- 

 poration of its alcoholic part, as well as prevents it from combin- 

 ing with the atmospheric air, which would not only turn the wine 

 sour, but also change its constituent parts. — GilVs Technological 

 Repository, May 1828. 



37. On an effectual cure for Smoky Chimneys. By Mr S. 

 Mordan.'^M.x Mordan, the patentee of the ever pointed pencils, 

 shewed the editor lately his contrivance for preventing his kitchen 

 chimney from smoking, and also for quickly exciting his fire, 

 without the aid of bellows. This fire-place, like many others, 

 had a wide open chimney to it, and was continually annoying 

 his family by smoking. He determined, therefore, to con- 



