362 
have produced (such is the writer’s opi- 
nion) the genuine and dangerous small- 
OX in an individual who should not have 
een previously subjected to either in- 
oculation or vaccination. The vaccine, 
indeed, is not a new disease; it is merely 
a mild modification of, and therefore a 
most happy substitute for, small-pox ; and 
Report of Chemistry and Experimental Philosophy. [Nov. 1, 
those speéculatists have, it is presumed, 
truth on their side, who argne for the 
identity, in kind, of all “ vavioloid dis- 
eases ;’ chicken-pox and, vaccinia being 
included in the number. 
= DPD. Uwins, Mop. 
Bedford Row, Oct. 20, 1822. 
REPORT OF CHEMISTRY AND EXPERIMENTAL PHILOSOPHY. 
a 
SiR Houmpnrey Davy, often original, 
and always ingenious, has discharged a 
lance in ambuscade against the new Theory 
of Electricity, which theory asserts that 
electricity is always an effect, and that no 
fluid sui gencris, or power per se, is its 
eatse. The President has made some ex- 
Sepang within an aérial vacuum formed 
y glass, forgetting, however, that glass is 
always simultaneously affected on both 
sides, and is itself a much better electric 
even than air. His experiments, of course, 
are good for nothing as to his purpose, un- 
less they could be made with a body not 
Susceptible of action on the side next the 
air, as well as on the side next the vacuum, 
and not an electric. He talks, too, as 
usual, about attractions, &c. as though the 
very notion of attraction, or of the push- 
ing of bodies from their opposite sides, 
(where neither are,) had not been proved 
to be essentially absurd, and asa doctrine 
was not palpably disgraceful to the hu- 
man intellect. We wish him to keep the 
field: he must not, however, try air or its 
vacuum by the test of glass, for they both 
stand in similar relations to electric phe- 
nomena; and Sir Humphrey admits that 
the coated glass surrounding his vacuum 
became charged! In truth it was the 
glass, and not the vacuum, which was act- 
ed upon, and hence all his deductions are 
totally erroneous. He then throws some 
dust in the eyes of his-readers, by quoting 
Hooke, Boyle, and Euler, who could 
know nothing of electricity, ignorant as 
they were of the subsequent gaseous dis- 
coveries of Priestley. Even as it is more 
troublesome to be a rogue than an honest 
man, So the advocates of the superstitious 
phifosophy will find it infinitely more trou- 
blesome to give plausibility to the nonsense 
which they espouse, than to study the 
Theory of Matter and Motion, and yield 
to its irresistible evidence. The course of 
honouris plain; but “as it was in the begin- 
ning, so it will be,” &c. Truthand common 
sense must prevail, but not till they have 
fought the usual number of campaigns 
against prejudices in authority. 
A young Chemist has lately imvent- 
ed a new mode of tanning leather, by 
which raw hides are made perfect leather 
in less than six weeks, instead of lying 
twelve months in the tan-pit, as hereto- 
fore. ‘The expense, too, is less than one- 
half by the new process, The gentleman 
who has bought the discoverer’s invention 
is a noted opposition member and con- 
tractor; and, from the terms-of his stipu- 
lation with the fortunate chemist, we may 
form some judgment of the probable mag- 
nitude of the results. He has paid him 
10,0001. down; he has giving him obliga- 
tory deeds, securing him 5,000/. on the ist 
of January ; 5,000/. per annum for the four 
years next succeeding, and afterwards 
41,0001. a-year for life! Itis expected that 
the price ofa pair of boots will not exceed 
eight shillings; and that a corresponding 
fall will be produced in all articles of lea- 
ther manufacture, 
The waters of the Polar Seas abound 
with a variety of tints, from a deep blue 
to an olive-green. This does not depend 
on the state of the atmosphere, but merely 
on the quantity of the waters; they ap- 
pear to be subdivided into spaces or par- 
titions of different shades, wherein the 
fishermen more frequently find whales 
than in any other part of the sea. It has 
long been conceived that the greenish wa- 
ters derive their colour from the bottom 
of the sea; but Mr. W. ScoresBy, cap- 
tain of a whaler, and member of the Royal 
Society of Edinburgh, has discovered in 
these waters, by aid of the microscope, a 
vast number of spherical globules, semi- 
transparent, accompanied with small fine 
filaments, loose, not unlike little portions 
of very fine hair. These globules carry 
on their surface twelve nebulosities, con- 
sisting of brownish points, in alternate 
pairs of four or six. Mr. Scoresby. consi- 
ders these globules as animals of the Me- 
dusa kind. The filamentous or thready 
substance is composed of parts which, in 
their greatest dimensions, are about the 
1710th part of an inch, Whén examined 
with the strongest lens, each filament ap- 
pears to be a series of moniliform articu- 
lations, the number of which in the largest 
filament is about 300; the diameter is 
about 17300th part of an imch.- These 
substances were found many times to vary 
their aspect; and Mr. S. is unable to deter- 
mine whether they are living animals, e€a- 
pable of self-motion; but he entertains no 
doubt of the different tints of the Polar 
Seas being produced by them. By his 
calculation, a cubic foot of this water may 
contain 110,592 globules of the Medusa 
kind, and a cubic mile about 23,688,000 
hundreds of millious. He ‘conceives that 
these 
