- means of jron. 
‘ and their 
| 
SOS, > 
Auxerre, in order to reach Paris by the 
, navigable parts of the Seine. 
The French chennists have not only 
repeated Mr. Davy’s one nah: on the 
decomposition of alkalis, but have con- 
_ firmed the accuracy of his researches, by 
obtaining similar results by a difcrent 
rocess, . Messrs. Gay and Thenard 
ee succeeded in deoxidating potash by 
The event is announced 
in Correspondance sur ’ Ecale Inperiule 
Polytechnique, Number 10, in the fol- 
Jowing terms :—‘‘ A lettér from London, 
dated November 23, 1807, announced 
that Mr, Davy had succeeded, by means 
of a strong galvanic pile, in decompusing 
the two alkalis uf potash and soda; and 
that be had read a memoir to the Royal 
Society, in which he concluded that these 
two alkalis were metallic oxides. On 
the 8th of December, Messrs. Gay and 
Thenard repeated Mr. Davy’s experi- 
iments at the laboratory of the Polytechnic 
School, and actually obtained at the ne- 
gative pole of a pile, with large plates, 
the two new metals, the existence of 
which had not even been suspected pre- 
vious to Mr. Davy’s experiments. The 
“above chemists, however, continued the 
inquiry in anew point of view. They 
Propeses| to themselves the discovery of 
a substance sufliciently oxidizable to take | 
oF the oxygen from the alkalis, which bad 
heen ascertained to be metallic oxides, 
experiments were attended 
-with the greatest success. On the 2th 
of Match, 1808, they informed the In- 
stitute of Franee that, upon treating 
potash with iron, in the five of ‘a rever- 
berating furnace, the iron deoxidated the 
paieen,2 “aud made it pass to the metallic 
State. 
M. Msetzz,a German mechanist, is at 
present exhibiting at Paris an Automaton 
cof a. singular construction, The figure 
nepresents ¢ a trumpeter in the uniform of 
the band of the French Imperial Guards, 
gud at the word of command raises a 
trumpet to its mouth and plays some ex- 
quisite pieces of martial music. . The 
whole 
within the chest of the Automaton: its 
feet vest upon a board to which castors 
ave affixed, and the proprietor moves it 
from place to piace, in the exhibition 
room, to shew that there is no Cormmuni- 
cation with any other apartment, Ta 
this respect it is superior to the celebra- 
ted Automaton flute-player of M, Vau- 
canson, which once made so much noise 
a geetnonss the latter figure reclingd 
Literary and Philosophical Intelligence. 
of the mechanism is contained. 
469 
against a wall, behind which some com- 
plicated machinery was supposed to be 
placed, The most wonderful part of M. 
Maelzl’s Autumaton, 1s the effect pro- 
duced by the hips of the figure upon the 
trumpet, which ave made to exhibjt all 
the delicacy af touchy peculiar to the dips 
of the hwnat body. No. . jarring or 
creaking sound «wf machinery is to be 
heard, although the ear is applied close 
to the body of the Automaton, nex can 
any musical sound be emitted unless 
when- the trumpct is applied to the 
mouth, At the conclusion of, the exta- 
bition, M. Maeizl sits down to.a piang= 
forte, aud his trumpeter performs an ace 
companiment to several pieces of music, 
with all the precision of a first-rate per- 
former. M. Maelzl has already distin- 
guished himself by several improvements 
en musical instruments, 
Canova has finished and transmitted 
to Paris a statue of the Empress. Jose- 
phine, which has excited the admiration 
of the connoisseurs, The striking re- 
semblance of the portrait, the nobleness 
of the attitude, the disposition and exe= 
cution of the draperies exhibit the trans 
scendant merit of this figure, while its 
soft and easy touch, its tranquil expres- 
sion, but at the same time full of soul, 
cannot bat increase the reputation of this 
celebrated statuary. In point of atutude, 
it resembles a statue generally supposed 
to be that. of the Agrippina of Germani+ 
cus, So far from this resemblance being 
a detect, it is au additional proof of the 
exquisite taste of the artist who hasknown 
how to imitate without servilely copy- 
iug, one of the most majestic attitudes 
which a sitting figure can admit of. The 
statuary who exccuted the Agrippina has 
binself imitated the Meénander, a statue 
still more accurate, formerly placed in the 
theatre of Athens, abd rowin the Napo- 
leon Museum, It is probable that thg 
artist to whom we are indebted for the 
Menander, and who without deubt fous 
rished under the successors of Alexander 
the Great,.had also: taken'some statue 
still more ancienr for his model. We 
know that the Grecian schools were in 
the habit of copying the attitades of the 
finest figures produced hy artists, and 
brought them to perfection by imitating 
them, Thus Cleomeues, in the Venus de 
Medicis, has imijated the Venus of 
Gnidos, a work of. Pr axiteles, while the 
sculptdp of the Colossi of the Quirial, 
seems to have found these groupes in the 
bas-reliefs of Phidias, which adorned the 
Partaenea 
