1826.] Scientific Noiices^^MisceUaneous, 155 



mercury was placed in the bend, and the funnel extremity being 

 filled with water, was covered by the hand for two hours ; the 

 mercury gradually approached the hand, proving, with the other 

 experiments, as M. Collard thinks, the absorption of water by 

 the skin. Archives Gen. Fev. — (Journal of Science.) 



10. Animal Magnetism in France. 

 A commission of the Academy Royale de Medicine has ac- 

 tually reported relative to animal magnetism, 1. That the judge- 

 ment given in 1784, by the members of the Academy of Sciences 

 and of the Royal Society of Medicine, charged with the exami- 

 nation; since, in matters of science, a first judgement has been 

 too often found defective, and because the researches made by 

 them had not been made with all the care that the habit of ex- 

 perimenting has since introduced. 2. That the magnetism on 

 which judgement was pronounced in 1784 differs entirely in 

 theory, practice, and phsenomena, from that now to be consi- 

 dered. 3. That magnetism, having not fallen into the hands of 

 learned men and physicians, and being a special subject of study 

 in most of the colleges of medicine in other countries of Europe, 

 it is for the honour of French physicians not to be behind those 

 of other nations. In fact, thai considering magnetism as a 

 secret remedy, it is not only an amusement but a duty of the 

 Academy to take notice of it. — (Journal of Science.) 



1 1 . Fossil Megalosaurus and Didelphis, 



" The bones of the Megalosaurus occur at Stonesfield, in strata 

 of an oolitic limestone slate, which is wrought for roofinghouses ; 

 and in the same quarries, which abound in organic remains, 

 there have been found several portions of a jaw, which un- 

 doubtedly belong to a small insectivorous animal, of the order 

 carnivora, which has been by some referred to the genus Di- 

 delphis. There occur in the same strata bones of birds and 

 reptiles, teeth of fishes, elytra of insects, and vestiges of marine 

 and terrestrial plants. Notwithstanding this association of 

 fossils, hitherto regarded as foreign to the deposits beneath the 

 chalk formation, English geologists have been led to think that 

 the Stonesfield slate forms part of the middle oolite system ; and 

 it is very remarkable, that at Cuckfield, in Sussex (the only 

 place in which there has hitherto been discovered a great 

 number of fossils, similar to those of Stonesfield), the strata 

 which contain them form parts of the formation of the iron sand, 

 inferior to the chalk, which is much newer than the middle 

 oolite deposits. The following, according to Mr. Buckland, is 

 a list of the fossils, which are found equally in the limestone ' 

 slate of Stonesfield and the iron sand of Tilgate Forest : bones 

 of birds ; of the megalosaurus ; of the plesiosaurus ; scales, 

 teeth, and bones of a crocodile ; humerus and ribs of cetacea; 



