Progress of' Foreign Science. 16'5 



X. Economics, or Applications of Science to the ordinary pur- 

 poses of life. Preservation of Grain. — In the present posture of 

 agricultural affairs, any plan which could promote the preser- 

 vation of grain merits public attention. In the year 1819, M. 

 Clement-Desormes published in the Journal de Physique an 

 ingenious paper on this subject, of which no account, we believe, 

 has been given in this country. 



It is well known, 'that water is the grand instrument of the 

 decay and destruction of all organized matter. Vegetable and 

 animal substances, deprived of moisture, will keep for any 

 length of time, if they be protected from the depredations of 

 insects. But these insects cannot themselves exist, or soon 

 perish, in an air hygrometrically dry. M. Clement ascertained 

 this important fact, on the insects which habitually prey on 

 grain. He therefore proposes to construct granaries of cast- 

 iron, in the form of great cylinders or parallelopipeds, which shall 

 be entirely filled with grain, and into which no air shall be 

 suffered to enter, till it has passed through a body of unslaked 

 quicklime. But as the air, interspersed among the grain, will 

 vary in volume, with the variations of the barometer and ther- 

 mometer, he attaches a valve to one extremity of the great iron 

 case, which allows the expanding air freely to escape, while 

 the equilibrium of pressure will be restored, when the bulk 

 of the included air contracts, by the passage of the dry air 

 over the lime, through a valve opening inwards. Since it is of 

 consequence to be able to inspect any part of the body of grain 

 at pleasure, he provides the iron magazine with two or more 

 vertical wells, consisting of square or round pipes of cast 

 iron, open within, but closely joined to the great iron case at 

 top and bottom, and sliding valves placed at different points of 

 this well, may be opened by appropriate rods, and will thus 

 exhibit the state of the included grain without laying open the 

 main magazine to the moist air of this climate. A magazine 

 of this kind may be built, at the present price of cast iron, 

 much cheaper than one of equal capacity of storage in stone 

 or brick-work ; for if it be 20 feet deep, it will serve for as 

 much grain as a building of 10 stories high, and of the same 

 horizontal area; allowing, in common granaries, the grain to lie 

 two feet deep. But a leading advantage of M. Clement's plan, 

 is the saving of the manual labour, required in the common way, 

 for turning over the grain from time to time. As the grain is 

 secluded from moist air, and all equally dry in the iron maga- 

 zine, there is no necessity whatever for that troublesome and ex- 

 pensive operation. 



The expense, we believe, will be much less to build an iron 

 than a common granary ; so much so, that we have no doubt 

 farmers will eventually preserve their grain in a similar 

 way. Supposing the house to be formed of large iron plates. 



