1825.] 
water, just as easily, and with no more 
pain, than in the air; and that the figures 
painted on the bottom of the basin, or 
pieces of money, small stones, &c. placed 
there, may be distinctly seen, and contem- 
plated with the greatest ease. We recom- 
mend, that in this way young boys should 
exercise, and habituate themselves to the 
holding of their breath in water, before 
learning to swim and dive. 
The Increase of Temperature of the Sea- 
Water at different Depths, in high northern 
latitudes, was, in May to July 1818, ascer- 
tained by Captain Franklin as follows, viz. 
Depths, Temp. of Increase 
in Latitudes. Sea-Water, of Temp. 
Fathoms. at Surface. below. 
600 .... 76°48’ .... 33° Fahr... 10° 
Bab. 80) 26: 5. S252 ee So 
MBN: GO 27 25 ve” BMT Oo ONES 
Begs) TBO. BB est). oe SO 
Baa o's 80 26) 80 a2 th oe 
Det 1D Ol sc: 5 oO via v0, ree ETO 
V7 66 ee0%9 SY oo oe BA. eee — 0° 
15.2... 79 44 .... 34...... —0" 
Our space will not admit of stating the 
results of about twenty other trials, at 
depths from 193 to 21 fathoms: two of 
these differences amounted to 5°, viz. at 
130, and at 103 fathoms of depth; and four 
of them to 4°, viz. at 198, 120, 119 and 83 
fathoms. The first experiment, only, was 
tried with a bottle; and this may, perhaps, 
account for the greatness of its result—all 
the others with a leaden box, with valves, 
open as the box descended, but closed 
whilst it was being drawn up in the water. 
That the Heat of Bodies which do not 
Shine, will not pass through Transparent 
Glass, has been shewn by Mr. Baden 
Powel; also, that such heat acts more on 
absorptive white surfaces exposed to its 
radiation than smooth black ones: but the 
radiant heat of shining hot bodies, part of 
it, penetrates and passes through glass and 
other transparent screens ; and acts more 
on smooth surfaces than on absorptive 
white ones. The solar heat is of this latter 
transmissible kind. 
Luminous Snow, owing, probably, to an 
excess of electricity in the atmosphere, was 
witnessed by some persons crossing Loch 
Awe, in Argyleshire, in a boat, a few years 
ago, after dark, The appearances lasted 
for twelve or fifteen minutes, and gradually 
subsided. 
An Hygrometer, by Mr. T. Jones, has 
been contrived, as an improvement on Mr. 
Daniel’s, whose principle is, to ascertain 
the temperature at which dew is deposited 
from the atmosphere. Mr. Jones’s ther- 
mometer, graduated to Fahrenheit’s scale, 
has its bulb of a flattened cylindrical form, 
_ of black glass, of considerable size; the 
lower end of which bulb turns up, and is 
exposed to the air whose degree of mois- 
ture is to be tried; but the rest of the bulb 
Spirit of Philosophical Discovery 
47 
is covered with muslin. To use the mstru- 
ment, this latter is moistened with ether, 
the sudden evaporation of which cools the 
bulb and its contained mereury: so that, 
in a few seconds, dew begins to deposit om 
the exposed part, at which instant the 
degree of cold is read off, on the scale 
attached to the stem of the instrument. 
The Galvanizing of Fermentable Mixtures 
has been found by M. Colin to promote 
the evolution of alcohol. Of a great variety 
of substances which this gentleman tried as 
ferments, he found none at all comparable 
with common yeast, except glairy albumen. 
Ann. de Chim. 
A Burying-place in Calcareous Tufa, at 
Ahmedmygur, in Hindostan, was, in 1821, 
opened, in digging to repair the subterra- 
neous part of an aqueduct, when several 
human skeletons were found, under cir- 
cumstances less ambiguous, as to whether 
or not they were fossil or ante- Adamite ske- 
letons, than the carib skeleton from the 
tufaceous burying-ground on the west coast 
of Guadaloupe, on which a keeper of the 
British Museum strove to raise so much 
of ignorant wonder, a few years ago.—See 
our 37th volume, page 23. 
The extinct large Elk of Ireland, whose. 
horns and bones are so commonly found. 
under the peat in the bogs of that country, 
and mostly upon a shelly marl, haye lately. 
been shewn, by Mr. T. Weaver and the 
Rev. Mr. Maunsell, to have lived there in 
comparatively modern times; the latter 
gentleman, in examining the skeleton of an 
elk, before it was removed from its resting 
place under the bog of Rathcannon, in 
Limerick county, discovered that one of 
its ribs had, whilst yet the animal. was 
living, been perforated. by some sharp- 
pointed instrument; this, and other cir- 
cumstances, observed by Mr. Weaver in 
Kilmegan Bog, near Dundrum village, in 
Down county, seem to shew, that the early 
inhabitants of Ireland contributed towards, 
if they did not occasion, the extinction of 
this race of gigantic elks, by driving them 
into lakes, where they were drowned ; such 
lakes having since been filled entirely up 
by the growth of peat, and become bogs. 
The term fossil should, therefore, no longer 
be applied to the animal’s remains, or to 
those of any other animals which can be 
proved ‘to have lived contemporaneously 
with man, or existing animals. The last 
of the tidal floods, whose enormous violence 
moved in or before them enormous masses 
of gravel and large blocks of stone, and left 
the same lodged on the sides and tops of 
hills, in every part of the world (see vol. 
lvi. pp. 440, 441), completed the extinction,, 
and occasioned the burial of the. last of 
those animals to which the term fossil 
should now be applied: otherwise, we 
might admit fossil human bones to haye 
been dug out of a carib’s burial-place, 9 
barrow, or even a church. yard. ® ‘ 
A Vetegable 
