1825.] [ 
SPIRIT OF PHILOSOPHICAL DISCOVERY, AND OF THE 
VARIOUS SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS. oe 
143 ] 
& ID} 
—za— fi “aN 
HE Variolaria Communis Faginea, or 
lichen, which commonly infests the bark 
of diseased and old beach trees, has been 
found, by M. H. Braconnot, capable of 
yielding 233 per cent. of chrystallized oxalate 
of lime: various other lichens, on which 
he experimented, afforded almost as large 
proportions of this salt: on which he re- 
marks, in the Ann. de Chim., “ The oxalate 
of lime, is to these and analagous crypto- 
gamous plants, what carbonate of lime is 
to coralines, and phosphate of lime to the 
bony structure of more perfect animals.” 
Bi-carburet of Hydrogen, a new sub- 
stance, has been discovered and separated 
by Mr. Faraday, from a colourless fluid, 
lighter than water, which, in considerable 
quantities, forms in the bottoms of the 
vessels. in which the Portable Oil-Gas 
Company compress the gas for filling their 
lamps... The new substance, in its liquid 
form, between 42° and 86° Fahr., is com- 
posed of two atoms of carbon and one of 
hydrogen. When in the state of vapour, 
six atoms of carbon and three of hydrogen. 
are present to form one volume, of thirty-~ 
nine times the specific gravity of hydrogen. 
Below 42° of temperature, it is a solid 
body, forming dendritical transparent crys- 
tals: at 0°, it has the whiteness and hard- 
ness, nearly, of loaf-sugar. 
Emetic Tartar, as usually sold by the 
druggists, in powder, is found to be adul- 
terated to the extent of ten per cent. at the 
least, with tartrate of lime, and super-tartrate 
of potash: and medical practitioners are 
earnestly recommended to use only the 
erystals of emetic tartar, in preparing anti- 
monial wine, or other medicines. 
The Breeding and Fattening of Sea-Fish 
in Fresh-Waters,-alluded to in’ our 58th 
vol. p. 239, and which we shall further 
notice, continues to be pursued with ardour 
and perfect success by Mr. Arnold, in the 
island of Guernsey; who, in a pond of 
about. four acres, on the coast, has no Jess 
than thirty-seven species of sea-fish, which 
Dr. M‘Culloch enumerates ; including tur- 
bot, cod, mackarel, plaice, flounder, sole, 
herring, sprat, prawn, shrimp, oyster, mus- 
cle, &e. No kind of sea-fish which has 
been introduced into this pond, appears to 
have died, or suffered deterioration, in con- 
sequence of its change of element. (As 
to the salmon, see p. 440 of our last 
yol.) This pond, having been embanked 
from the sea, is, during all the winter 
months, so copiously supplied by a brook, 
as to be perfectly fresh. During some pe- 
riods in the spring and autumn, owing to 
the “decrease of the’ brook, and to leaks 
through’ the embatikment, at high water; 
the pond becomes brackish; and, during 
a part of most summers,) it ‘is, almost: salt! 
and yet, none of the great quantity and 
variety of fish therein seem, Dr. M‘C. says; 
to suffer inconvenience from these changes! 
These and numerous other facts,| recently 
established, ought, at_once, to put an end 
to the idle and mischievous speculations 
carrying on by the anti-Smithian geologists, 
concerning temporary fresh-water lakes, in 
which they pretend that several of the strata 
of England were formed—merely because 
these strata entomb some fish, of the same 
genera (an artificial and conventional clas- 
sification) with fish of other species, which 
are usually found in the sea! but which, as 
we see here, may not always have occu- 
pied salt-water. ; 
The EnckE PLANET, improperly as we _ 
conceive, denominated a comet by many 
astronomers, as observed in our 56th vol. 
p- 343, had often, previous to the verifying 
of its return in an orbit, in May 1822,: ac- 
cording to M. Encke’s prediction, been 
observed by astronomers, and its place set 
down in their catalogues, as a fixed star ; 
the collating of these early observations 
with later and present ones, in order to 
perfect the theory of the movements of this 
small planet, has appeared to M. C. Rum- 
ker of sufficient importance, to induce 
him to séarch for and collect twenty- 
three of these observations of the Encke, 
whilst mistakenly considered as a’ star ; re- 
ducing the right ascension and declination 
in each of these observations, to the begin- 
ning of January 1823, as a common epoch, 
—Brande’s Journal No. 37. 
Light and Heat, according to the obser- 
vations of Mr. Baden Powel, in Brande’s 
Journal, No. 37, (see also our last vol. 
p- 439; and present vol. p. 47), exhibit, in 
their. relations to each other, the closest 
conformity with the phenomena presented 
by the changes of the ordinary. forms of mat- 
ter: when light is absorbed, and enters 
into combination with other matter, heat 
is given out: on the other hand, light is 
not generated or evolved, without the appli- 
cation of a certain degree of heat: all 
bodies, at some temperature, become Ju- 
minous, and when they arrive at that point, 
a portion of the heat is employed in giving 
the form of light to some matter belonging 
to, or in combination with, the body, by 
becoming latent in it. i 
The Velocity of Sound has anew been 
determined, by experiments made in the 
Netherlands, on a base of 57,990'5 English 
feet in length, by Doctors G. Moll and A, 
Van Beck, whose mean result ‘is 1,089°7 
feet per second, as the velocity of sonorous 
pulses, in dry air, at the freezing tempera- 
ture, 32° Fahr. — i icbibaguil> avi 
; The 
