242 
the James’s-keeping, and the two- 
bladed onion. 
ROYAL SOCIETY. 
The Second Part of the Philosophi- 
eal Transactions for 1521, among 
others, contains the following papers : 
An Account of the Skeletons of the 
Dugong, Two-horned Rhinoceros, and 
a Tapir of Sumatra; by Sir EVERARD 
HOME, Jart.—It appears that he has 
inspected the horns of the double- 
horned rhinoceros, brought from the 
interior of Africa, by Mr. Campbell, 
and as far as it respects the appearance 
of the horns Sir E. considers it entirely 
a new species. The lowest horn stands 
upon a projection, at the end of the 
nasal bones, with its base nearly hori- 
zontal, pointing forwards, and a little 
upwards. It is a yard long, very small 
at the point, and two feet in circum- 
ference at the base. The small horn is 
close to it, and stands perpendicularly 
behind the base of the long one; this is 
only twelve inches high, while the cir- 
cumference of its base is equal to the 
Jarger horn. There can be no doubt 
of this being the animal that has given 
rise to the various reports of the extinct 
unicorn having been lately discovered 
in Africa, 
On the Effects produced in the Rates 
of Chronometers, by the Proximity of 
Masses of Tron; by PETER BARLOW, 
Esq. — The first general conclusion 
Which Mr. Barlow draws from them is, 
that the rate of a chronometer is uh- 
doubtedly altered by its proximity to 
iron bodies, but that it is by no means 
a general case, that iron necessarily ac- 
celerates the rate of a chronometer. 
As a practical conclusion, it is obvious, 
that on ship-board, great care ought to 
be taken to keep the chronometers out 
of the immediate vicinity of any con- 
Siderable mass or surface of iron; on 
which account they ought not to be 
kept in the cabins of the gun-room-offi- 
cers, which are on the sides of the ves- 
Royal Society.—New Patents. 
[April 1, 
sel: and, probably, a strong iron knee, 
or even a gun, will be found, at a very 
inconsiderable distance from the spot, 
where the watch is most likely, in this 
case, to be deposited. In short, it ap- 
pears that a chronometer ought to be 
kept as carefully at a distance from 
masses of iron, as the compass itself. 
Of course as iron by the new philosophy 
obstructs the circulations which cause 
direction in the traversing needle, the 
re-action of those circulations will 
affect all moving or moveable bodies 
near the iron. 
Further Researches on the Magnetic 
Phacnomena, produced hy Electricity s 
with some new Experiments on the pro- 
perties of electrified Bodies, in their 
relations to conducting Power and Tem- 
perature, by the President.— Sir Hum- 
phry ascertains by these researches 
that the conducting power of metallic 
bodies varies with the temperature, and 
is lower in some inverse ratio, as the 
temperature is higher. Thus, a wire of 
platinum ;1,, and three inches in length, 
when kept cool by oil, discharged the 
electricity of two batteries, or of twenty 
double plates ; but when suffered to be 
heated, by exposure in the air, it barely 
discharged one battery. Whether the 
heat was vccasioneil by the electricity, 
or applied to it from some other source, 
the effect was the same. But this re- 
sult might have been anticipated @ 
priori from the principles of the new 
philosophy, which teach that conduct- 
ing power is nothing more than atomic 
continuity, which is destroyed or im- 
paired by the atomic action called heat. 
The members of the Royal Society, 
however, by pertinaciously continuing 
to recognize the occult and metaphysival 
properties of matter invented in the 
thirteenth and fourteenth, and illus- 
trated in the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries, are at this time a century 
behind the real state of philosophical 
knowledge. Some of their facts, how- 
ever, are amusing and curious. 
NEW PATENTS AND MECHANICAL INVENTIONS. 
—>—_- 
To JoHN Moore, of Castle-street, 
Bristol, for a certain Maehine or 
Machinery, or Apparatus, which may 
be worked by Steam, by Water, or by 
.Gas, as a moving Power. 
HIS invention consists of “a cer- 
tain machine or machinery, or 
apparatus, which may be worked by 
steam, by water, or by gas, as a moving 
power,” consiSts in a new arrangement 
and combination of parts, and apparatus 
already known and in use (in those 
machines. usually denominated rotary 
steam-engines, or steam-wheels,) with- 
out claiming any of the parts of the 
apparatus individually; but only the 
general 
