58 
collection of the MSS. of Hercula- 
neum ; and the sentence in the speci- 
mens we unrolled, in which Mr. Elms- 
ley was able to find a sufficient number 
of words to infer their meaning, show 
that the works of which they are the 
remains. were of the same kind as those 
before examined, and belonged to the 
schools of the Greek epicurean philo- 
sophers and sophists. Nearly 1000 
columns of different works, a great 
part unrolled under the superinten- 
dence of Mr. Hayter, and at the ex- 
pense of George 1V. have been copied 
and engraved by the artists employed 
in the Museum; but from the charac- 
ters of the persons charged with their 
publication, there is very little proba- 
bility of their being, for many years, 
offered to the world. Should discove- 
ries of MSS. at any future time be made 
at Herculaneum, it is to be hoped that 
the papyri will be immediately excluded 
from the atmosphere, by being put into 
air-tight cases, filled with carbonic acid 
after their introduction, There can 
he no doubt that the specimens now in 
the Museum were in a much better 
s‘ate when they were first discovered ; 
and the most perfect even, and those 
the coarsest in their texture, must 
have been greatly injured during the 
69 years they have been exposed to the 
atmosphere. The persons who have 
the careof MSS. found at Herculaneum, 
state that their original number was 
1696, and that 431 have been operated 
upon or presented to foreign govern- 
ments, so that 1265 ought to remain ; 
butamongst these, by far the larger pro- 
portion are small fragments, or speci- 
mens so injured and mutilated that 
there is not the least chance of recover- 
ing any portion of their contents; and 
when I first examined the rolls in de- 
tail in January, 1819, it did not appear 
to me that more than from 50 to 120 
offered proper subjects for experiments ; 
and this estimate, as my researches 
proceeded, appeared much too high. 
An account of the Fishes found in 
the River Ganges and its branches, by 
FRANCIS HAMILTON (formerly Bu- 
- CHANAN) M.D. F.R.S. L. and E,. &c. 
in quarto, with a volume of plates, in ~ 
royal quarto, are in forwardness. 
The Rev. E. BERENS, author of Vil- 
lage Sermons, will shortly publish anc- 
ther volume, containing sixteen Village 
Sermons on certain parts of the Chris- 
tian’s character. 
A’Gazette of Fashion, or New Lon- 
don Weekly Mirror, is announced. 
Literary and Philosophical Intelligence. 
(Feb. 1. 
Mr. Crane, author of “+ English 
Synonyms Explained,” has in the 
press a Technological Dictionary, con- 
taining definitions of all terms of art 
or science, drawn from the most ap- 
proved writers, ancient and modern, 
and illustrated with numerous cuts, 
diagrams, and plates. It will be com- 
pleted in two quarto volumes, and 
published in monthly parts. 
Mr. Gin introduces into his re- 
pository a paper on consuming the 
smoke produced from the furnaces of 
steam-engine boilers, brewers’ coppers, 
sugar refiners’ pans, &c. It seems 
that the original invention was by Mr. 
Shefiield,who applied his patent air-con- 
ductors to the bridge of one of his most 
improved reverberatory furnaces; by 
which important addition, he obtained 
the power of admitting or excluding 
the atmospheric air in its purest state 
at pleasure, and thereby obtained the 
means of either calcining or reducing 
the ores, &c. operated upon in the fur- 
nace, as the circumstances required, 
It also constantly had the desired effect, 
on the air being admitted, of consum- 
ing the smoke produced from the coals, 
and conyerting if info flame. When, 
therefore, the consuming of the smoke 
preduced from the furnaces of steam- 
engine boilers, &c. became a desirable 
object, the application of this air-con- 
ductor to that purpose naturally oc- 
curred, and accordingly Mr. JOHN 
WAKEFIELD, of Manchester. took out 
a patent, subsequently to Mr. Sheftield’s, 
for the consumption of the smoke pro- 
duced from the furnaces of steam-en- 
gine antl other boilers; and in which 
patent he claims the inveution of this 
air-conductor, and also its application 
in the bridges and side-walls of such 
furnaces. Mr. WILLIAM JOHNSON, a 
brewer at Salford, near Manchester, 
has also since taken out a patent for 
the same object, and lately published 
his method ef carrying it into effect. 
On comparing it with Mr. Sheffields’, 
it will be found an exact counterpart. 
The furnaces of a steam-engine boiler, 
of many sugar-refiners’ pans, and of 
several brewers’ coppers in the metro- 
polis, have recently been so altered as 
to consume their own smoke on the 
above plans. 
A second volume of the Preacher ; 
being a collection of short, plain Ser- 
mons, partly original, partly selected, 
and adapted to village instruction, by a 
country Clergyman of the Church of 
England, is nearly ready for publication. 
The 
