Mr Robison oti the Cattting of Statues in Metal. 367 



If danger be apprehended from the hability of the surface of 

 iron to deteriorate by oxidation, we would say, that there is not 

 much difference in this respect between bronze and caatAron ; 

 and that if the same means be taken to prepare and preserve the 

 surface of an iron statue, as is usual with a bronze one, the 

 weather would make little impression on it. We see around us 

 examples of coarse castings, to the preservation of which little 

 or no attention has been paid, and in which no sensible degra- 

 dation of the surface has taken place, even in long periods of 

 time : It may therefore be fairly inferred, that, by the exercise 

 of a little skill, and of a moderate degree of attention, the exter- 

 nal appearance of a grand work of art in iron, may be made 

 pleasing to the eye of taste, and may be preserved uninjured for 

 generations. 



If we be not greatly mistaken in the effects which must flow 

 from the late improvements in the smelting of iron-ore, which 

 have been introduced in some of the furnaces on the Clyde, cast- 

 iron of the finest quality for such purposes, will soon be so 

 cheap that we shall see it largely employed in architectural de- 

 coration. We should take advantage, therefore, of the means 

 which nature and art have so liberally bestowed on us ; and we 

 should strive to make Britain as distinguished for her display 

 of the Fine Arts, as she has hitherto been for her success in the 

 Mechanical ones. 



On the Lepidodendron Harcotirtii. By Henry Witham, 

 Esq. F. G. S., &c. * 



In the month of January 1832, Mr Phillips, of York, ha- 

 ving sent me a fragment of a Lepidodendron, which had 

 been presented to him by the Reverend C. G. V. Vernon 

 Harcourt, rector of Rothbury, whose zeal and activity has 

 induced me to t.ake the liberty of naming this fossil plant 

 after him, I felt anxious, by means of slicing the stem, to ob- 

 tain an insight into its internal structure. I had so repeated- 

 ly examined the stems of vascular cryptogamic plants without 



• The above is an extract from a paper published in the Transactions of 

 the Newcastle Natural History Society, which we lay before our readers on 

 account of the important fact it contains — Kdit. 



